On Yvette Mimieux’s Passing, Reconsidering ‘Light In The Piazza’

With the passing the week of Yvette Mimieux, a complex and often misunderstood actress of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, it's worth taking another look at one of her earliest notable performances, the role of Clara Johnson, an intellectually disabled daughter of a wealthy American couple who finds passion and love amidst the splendor of Italy in 1962’s film Light in the Piazza, based on the Elizabeth Spencer 1960 novella The Light in the Piazza.

Light in the Piazza is one of those movies you’re pretty sure you’ve seen before. The sixties, Italy, a young blonde girl, George Hamilton. Gidget goes to Rome. It seems like a quaint old movie that might be fun to turn on if it comes on Turner Classic Movies on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Something to have in the background while whipping up a carbonara.

Critics dismissed it along with ingenue Mimieux. But the film is much more complex than a modern viewer might expect. It’s a story of a young girl with limited mental capacity escorted by a doting but overprotective mother who wants her daughter to get the most out of life and is willing to be a realist to help her get it.

The fact that the film came out in 1962, just as the Italian economic miracle, the postwar American growth boom, and the birth control pill were in full force adds to the poignancy of the story. Parents were aware that times were changing, but they were barely equipped to be able to help their progeny navigate the new ways. A story of the infatuation between a young Italian boy and American girl provides a setting to explore deep issues. What is love? What is commitment? What is a safe home? A fulfilling life? What does it mean to be rich? What price comfort?

The issue underlying the facade of the story—is there a culture where a mentally disabled person can have a fulfilling life—is pretty sophisticated even for today. For the early sixties, it must have been revolutionary.

Olivia de Havilland gives a nuanced performance as Margaret Johnson, the wife of a tobacco company marketing executive in a loveless marriage with a beautiful but simple daughter incapable of living on her own. Margaret has sublimated her own ambitions to a life of caring for a girl who, after an accident, will always have the mind of a ten-year-old. In some ways, the responsibility of being her daughter’s keeper gives her life meaning. Without it, she would endure an empty existence as the affluent arm candy of a dark, bitter man.

A few days in Florence, Italy, among the rich beauty of the art and the comforting cadence of a way of life that has endured for centuries, a way that emphasizes family and tradition above money and achievement, make de Havilland’s character realize that a different future might be possible for her daughter—a future beyond mental institutions and quiet furtive glances of neighbors when Clara’s name is raised at the country club function. 

George Hamilton plays Fabrizio Naccarelli, an unctuous and solicitous suitor, as simple in his way as Clara is in hers. On screen the two have great chemistry—they seem to fit together. Their simple and passionless love story solves a problem for them both. Hamilton’s father, Signor Naccarelli (played by Italian actor Rossano Brazzi) bemoans his son’s lack of intelligence and ambition, realizing that he will never be more than an adjunct to the family business. But Margaret sees that there is a family business, that, unlike her life in America, there will be security, family, stability, and rootedness. De Havilland intuits that being a kept woman in Italy is a very different proposition than America. The lack of freedom that would cause a young girl in America to chafe, especially as the sixties open up possibilities, could provide peace of mind for her daughter who is prone to manic episodes that an American corporate executive would find embarrassing, if not disqualifying. In Italy, Clara can have the freedom of her chains.

It is not easy for a film to depict a rapturous devotion to a location and a delicate depiction of a changing era, but Light in the Piazza manages to bring it off. After a painful scene with her headstrong and unfeeling husband in Rome, de Havilland realizes that she has no alternative but to navigate a marriage for her daughter if she wants Clara to have a fulfilling life. Margaret must leave her husband, and suspend judgment about the multi-layered morals of the Italians.

In a scene that seems impossibly sophisticated for 1962, Signor Naccarelli tells Margaret that his son is likely not a virgin, but Clara must be for him to approve the marriage. De Havilland assures him that Clara is. Naccarelli seems reassured, only to call off the marriage later when he discovers, while scanning documents as the betrothed start to sign the bans with a priest at Santo Spirito church, that Clara is 26, fully six years older than his son. An older woman is simply not acceptable in Italy, but de Havilland has by now become fully aware of the flexible morals of such an ancient society, and she plies him with a promise of a $15,000 dowery and even a hint of a willingness to give in to his extramarital sexual advances, though she demurs when he kisses her passionately as they walk the streets of Florence, discussing the fates of their children.

Light in the Piazza is much more than a trifle. What seemed a scoop of gelato on a hot summer day is actually a multi-course meal, filled with meats, vegetables, and wine—very complex, very old wine.

Light in the Piazza is available for rental on most popular internet streaming services.