What is true and what is not in "House of Gucci"

Reading time: 11 min

After exploring the history of Getty, a family as fabulously rich as dysfunctional in all the money in the world, Ridley Scott is now interested in another family that is equally fabulously rich and dysfunctional: the Gucci.At the heart of the intrigue is Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga), a kind of Italian Becky Sharp well determined to let anything put in his social ascent.Her dream seems to be realized when she marries Maurizio (Adam Driver), a shy heir to the Fortune of the Gucci, which she encourages to oust her loved ones to take control of the family business.Maurizio becomes the merciless leader she had dreamed of.While the story turns to "Macbeth, but the classroom" is soon to be on the side of the victims of the brand new handle of her husband whose assassination she commands the assassination.

This is what everything went?Although just as strange, the real story is more retorted than that.We have consulted many contemporary articles, the documentary series Lady Gucci and the book of Sara Gay Forden, The House of Gucci, to disentangle the true from the artistic license in this criminal saga inspired by real facts.

The origins of Patrizia

When Patrizia, a sexy young woman and a tape-à-l'oeil, meeting Maurizio, she works as secretary in the road transport company of her father.Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons), an elegant father of Maurizio, is horrified that this relationship can be serious and despises the family business of Patrizia which he considers too small and probably linked to the mafia.

In reality, Patrizia's young girl's name was not Reggiani but Martinelli.She lived her first twelve years in a poor suburb of Milan, raised by a single mother who dive to earn a living until her marriage to a rich entrepreneur, Ferdinando Reggiani (who adopted Patrizia later and gave her his name).

Reggiani was probably not as rich as the Gucci, but it was more comfortable than the film suggests.He had a road transport company but nothing suggests that he had links with the mafia (in addition to those that any company of this type had to maintain in Italy in the 1960s).Micaela Goren Monti, a childhood friend, suggests in the documentary Lady Gucci that the experience of poverty in her childhood had determined Patrizia to never go back."Her difficult childhood left her the lasting impression that she could become poor again.His life was different from mine and that of our classmates.We belong to Milanese high society.We were young and we thought we could live with love and fresh water.We were the generation of the 1960s.For Patrizia, it was important to find the right person.And the right person had to be a known name and have a very well stocked wallet.»»»»»»»»

As for the fact that Patrizia worked in her father's office at the time of her meeting with Maurizio, it is not quite true, in any case not according to the main interested party.After her conviction in 1997 for having commanded the murder of her ex-husband, Patrizia Reggiani was offered an early release in 2011, which she refused because to believe the Italian press, one of the conditions of her releasewas that she found a job."I have never worked in my life," she said to her lawyer.And I don't intend to start.»»»»»»»»

Interestingly, we can read in the Italian press that Ferdinando's son Vincenzo Reggiani, had told the police to be convinced that Patrizia and her mother had loud the murder of his father when the latter had been seriously ill in 1973, because'They believed that Patrizia was about to be underprivileged. «Je crois que ce n'est pas le premier meurtre que Patrizia a commis»»»»»»»», a-t-il déclaré à l'époque.An investigation into Ferdinando's death was opened but it did not lead to any charges.

Has the marriage of Maurizio been boycotted by the family?

In the film, the marriage of Patrizia and Maurizio, which took place in 1972, shows one side of the church filled with guests and the other occupied by only two people.

There could be more than two guests on the side of Maurizio, but no one in his family came to marriage.Rodolfo even tried to involve the Archbishop of Milan to prevent him.He ended up reconciling with his son after the birth of his granddaughter Alessandra in 1976, and even offered the couple an elegant apartment in Olympic Tower when Maurizio came to New York to join Aldo in the family business.

The Gucci that the film passes through the hatch

The film suggests that Guccio Gucci, the founder of the family's fortune, had two sons: Aldo (Al Pacino) and Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons);that Aldo had a son called Paolo (Jared Leto);that Rodolfo also had only one son, Maurizio (Adam Driver) and that the two brothers had each inherited half of the Gucci shares.

In reality, in order to streamline history (or perhaps because it was not possible to obtain the agreement to describe certain members), several people in the family were omitted from the film.Guccio had a third son, Vasco, therefore, initially, the company had been divided into three.When Vasco died without children in 1974, Aldo and Rodolfo bought his shares with his widow, shared them and became the two co -owners.Aldo greeted the case after Guccio's death, while Rodolfo and Vasco took care of design and production for him.Paolo, far from being the sole son of Aldo, had two brothers who do not appear: Roberto and Giorgio.

The film shows Aldo being outed from his position as Gucci leader in 1989 by Paolo and Maurizio, which had actually happened once before.In 1983, when Rodolfo died and his 50% of Gucci shares passed to his son, Aldo controlled 40% of the shares, and his three wires each each.

In 1984, Maurizio and Paolo concluded an agreement: Paolo would sell its 3.3% in Maurizio for $ 22 million to finance its own fashion line.Maurizio therefore obtained the majority of control and in 1985, the company continued Aldo, accusing him of having siphoned millions of dollars (irony, Maurizio will eventually be ejecting the president's chair for the same reason.) Finally, Maurizio and Patrizia have not only had the daughter we see in the film, Alessandra.They had another, allegra, who does not appear there.

Is the signature on the certificate of action is a false?

In the film, the lawyer for Rodolfo, Domenico de Sole (Jack Huston), told Maurizio that there is a problem with his father's will - Rodolfo forgot to sign the certificate of action that gives his son50% of the company.De Sole claims that this will give rise to absolutely exorbitant inheritance tax.When the Italian taxman makes a descent into the house to investigate the suspicions of counterfeiting, Maurizio escapes through the back door and leaves on a motorcycle for his chalet of St-Moritz, in Switzerland.Forced to answer police questions, Patrizia first accuses Paolo then sole of having counterfeit the signatures.

In reality, when Aldo was ejected from the presidency in 1985, he, Roberto and Giorgio accused Maurizio - who, at this stage, had succeeded Rodolfo - to have imitated his father's signature on the certificate of action.(Maurizio ended up being bleached in 1989.) According to the Los Angeles Times, an assistant from Rodolfo who had worked with him for a long time testified that it was Patrizia who had committed the false, which the film only implies implies.

Was Paolo so bad?

In the film, Paolo is a ridiculous rustaud dressed in garish clothes who desperately wants to prove that he can be a designer despite his patent absence of talent.(Jared Leto wears a magnifying combination.) He tries to convince Rodolfo to hire him to create a younger line for Gucci, but Rodolfo makes fun of his sketches.It is Patrizia who pushes Paolo to launch her own line, regardless of the family business, in order to take control of her shares.Paolo agrees to sell your shares in Maurizio provided that Gucci distributes his clothing line. En guise de pot-de-vin, Paolo donne à Maurizio un dossier qui contient «une galaxie de revenus non-déclarés»»»»»»»» qui va mouiller son père, Aldo, et conduire ce dernier en prison pendant un an aux États-Unis pour évasion fiscale.But the fashion show of the new paolo line is disturbed by a police descent, following the complaint filed by Maurizio for counterfeiting.

Paolo was a much less caricatured character than the film suggests.To start, several photos show that it was slender and had class, and that it wore the same elegant costumes as his father and his uncle.In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was creative director at Gucci and played a big role in the development of the brand's logo, the two G intertwined.

Paolo actually wanted to create a younger line for Gucci, which Aldo and Rodolfo both refused.He launched his own collection for the first time in 1980, which, far from being a fiasco, was very well received.But he did it without saying it to his father or uncle, who sent him back and pursued him to prevent him from working by using the name of Gucci.

Paolo reacts by continuing Gucci for breach of contract, emotional shock and assault and injuries (according to the book whose film is inspired, certain boards of directors were particularly animated - damage that they were omitted from the film - and degenerate in blowsfist and gucci handbags throws), and to have the right to use your own name and set up a rival company of leather products.After spending about $ 5 million in legal costs, Paolo gained the right to use his name but his brand never was born.It is also within the framework of this legal action that the documents encouraging the taxman to put the nose in the Aldo tax stories emerged (he turned out to have not paid $ 7.4 milliontaxes), and not because Paolo would have transmitted compromising documents in Maurizio.

En 1986, Paolo lança bien une nouvelle ligne de sacs à main et d'autres articles sous la marque «PG»»»»»»»», et la police judiciaire fit effectivement irruption pendant le lancement à cause du procès de Maurizio pour contrefaçon.Perhaps a process of Maurizio to take revenge on Paolo who would have denounced it to the Italian authorities, after the rupture of their agreement in September 1984, for having cheated on inheritance tax by imitating the signing of Rodolfo on the certificate ofaction, inciting him to flee to St-Moritz.The following year, Paolo ended the PG line against a participation of $ 45 million in Gucci.

Pina Auriemma, the television clairvoyant

Patrizia, more and more worried about finding that Maurizio moves away from her, sees television an advertisement for clairvoyance by phone.The clairvoyant who appears on the screen (Salma Hayek) calls herself Pina and assures Patrizia that she will get everything she wants.Pina becomes the spiritual advisor of Patrizia and her personal astrologer, and when Maurizio divorces and is about to marry another, it is towards her that Patrizia turns to help her command the murder of her ex-husband.The two women meet the killers to give them suitcases full of tickets and weapons.

According to Forden, Patrizia met Giuseppina (Pina) Auriemma in a spa on the Italian island of Ischia in 1976.The two women immediately got along very well.When they were brought to justice for their role in the murder of Maurizio, their friendship fell and Pina affirmed that Patrizia had been the brain of the case and it a simple intermediary, while Patrizia supported that if she had indeed been able to expressThe wish to kill her husband only to relieve herself, she had only read a plot of Pina's mouth after the death of Maurizio.She also claimed to have given Pina money only because the astrologer had blackmailed her and threatened to pass her for a murderer.

Although it is not seen in the film, Pina is not the only person with whom Patrizia had discussed the possibility of eliminating his ex.She admitted in court and in several interviews having asked her housekeeper twice if she knew a person likely to execute someone, and had consulted a lawyer to find out the possible consequences of the crime."I must admit that for a while, I really wanted to get rid of him.I wanted it, so I asked people around me to do it, she said during an interview in the Italian television show "Storie Maledette"»»»»»». «Mais mon intention s'arrêtait là»»»»»»»», précisa-t-elle, qualifiant ses paroles de «simple obsession»»»»»»»».

Pina had indeed acted as the initial intermediary, it was she who had found the henchman and the driver for the leak and who had promised them 700.000 dollars to execute Maurizio.But, believing that things did not go fast enough and, according to driver Orazio Cicala, Patrizia treated directly with him and met him in a car then later, in a bar, to ask him to hurry.During the trial, we learned that Patrizia wanted the execution to take place before Maurizio marrys her new partner, Paola crossed, because she was worried that the couple had children and that her daughters were disinherited.

After the murder of Maurizio, Patrizia and Pina spoke on the phone almost every day, then they went on a cruise and went together to Marrakech.

Did Maurizio help launch Tom Ford?

In the film, Maurizio follows De Sole's suggestion to request the Texan designer Tom Ford, a relative unknown, in order to restore the Gucci coat.

We see Maurizio in the front row in the process of applauding, while the first collection of Ford receives a most enthusiastic welcome.According to Ford, that's not frankly that. «Maurizio s'était déjà fait racheter ses parts de l'entreprise à l'époque où je suis devenu directeur des créations chez Gucci et que j'ai fait ma première collection à grand succès, a écrit le célèbre designer dans Air Mail à la mi-novembre 2021.He certainly did not wear a toast after this parade as he does in the film.»»»»»»»»