Luisa Mattioli and Roger Moore outside Caxton Hall, London, after their wedding ceremony, 11th April 1969. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Roger Moore, like his silver screen counterpart James Bond, was a ladies’ man. This resulted in four marriages and three children during his lifetime, which sadly came to an end in on May 23rd at the age of 89 years old. In a statement released on his Twitter account, it is said that Moore died after a “brief battle with cancer.”
Moore’s most recent marriage was to Kristina “Kiki” Tholstrup, whom he married in 2002. Prior to this, however, the actor was married to Luisa Mattioli for nearly three decades. Learn more about Mattioli, her marriage to Moore with these five fast facts.
1. She Had An Affair With Moore While He Was Married
Via Sistina (1961) Roger Moore e la sua terza moglie Luisa Mattioli. :)
Moore’s second marriage to singer Dorothy Squires was marred by tragedy, as she suffered a series of miscarriages and gradually grew apart as the result of their thirteen year age difference. Towards the end of their marriage, Moore began seeing Italian actress Luisa Mattioli in secret, and Squires, upon discovering this, reportedly flew into a violent rage.
“She threw a brick through my window,” Moore revealed, “She reached through the glass and grabbed my shirt and she cut her arm doing it… The police came and they said, ‘Madam. you’re bleeding,’ and she said ‘It’s my heart that’s bleeding.’ Squires and Moore were divorced in 1969, though the actor did pay her hospital bills after she was diagnosed with cancer in 1996. She died two years later.
2. They Got Married In 1969
Roger Moore, después de casarse con su tercera esposa Luisa Mattioli en 1969.
Moore first met Mattioli during production of the 1961 film Romulus and the Sablines in Italy. Immediately smitten with her, the two kept up their romance, even in the face of Squire’s lawsuit against Moore for loss of conjugal rights and her subsequent destruction of the house where Moore and Mattioli were living at the time. They lived together a total of seven years while Moore was separated from Squire, and married with months of his separation, in April 1969.
Their marriage was held at the Caxton Hall in Westminster, London, and had a reported crowd of 600 people outside, including various women who were screaming Moore’s name. He had yet to take on the iconic role of James Bond, but he had achieved fame as the titular criminal in the television series The Saint, which ended its six season run that same year.
3. They Had Three Children Together
Moore and Mattioli had three children during their marriage: Christian, Deborah, Geoffrey. The latter two would follow in their parent’s footsteps and become actors. Deborah appeared most notably in a 1989 Oldsmobile commercial, where she poked fun at her famous lineage with the line “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile, this is a new generation of Olds.” Watch the full commercial above.
Geoffrey acted in several films through the 1970s and 80s, including the 1976 mystery Sherlock Holmes In New York, where he would appear opposite his father Roger (it can be watched in its entirety on YouTube). Geoffrey has two daughters with his wife Loulou: Ambra and Mia. As for Christian, he would buck the family trend by taking up behind the camera and becoming a producer. Among his most notable screen credits are the TV specials The Secret KGB Paranormal Files and The 1999 World Magic Awards. Check out his full filmography here.
4. She Was Friends With Moore’s Fourth Wife
Roger Moore and his wife Kristina Tholstrup arrive for the official projection of the Cohen brothers’ film “Ladykillers”, 18 May 2004, at the 57th Cannes Film Festival in the French Riviera Town. (Getty)
Moore encountered a series of events in his life that ultimately led to the dissolution of his marriage in the early 1990s. First, there his diagnosis of prostate cancer, which the actor described as “life-changing” and let to him reassessing his life and marriage up to that point. The second event was Moore’s burgeoning love for Swedish socialite Kristina “Kiki” Tholstrup, who just so happened to be close friends with Mattioli.
Not surprisingly, Mattioli’s friendship with Tholstrup went south when she learn of her husband’s feelings. In her autobiography Nothing Lasts Forever, she described how she felt betrayed by Tholstrup and discarded by Moore. She added that she believed Tholstrup “wanted to become me” and described her as “a hanger-on who has had two husbands and three facelifts.”
5. She Was Reluctant To Give Him A Divorce
Roger Moore and Luisa Mattioli relaxing on rocks, circa mid 1970s.
In a case of history repeating itself, Mattioli was reluctant to grant Moore a divorce, despite the fact that they had unofficially separated in 1993 and the actor was living with Tholstrup. She eventually did so in 2000, with the added enticer of a $10 million settlement. Moore and Tholstrup were married not long after in 2002. The events that led up to his divorce from Mattioli did lead to some friction between Moore and his three children, however, who felt that he had been unfair to their mother. Mattioli, born 1936, is currently 81 years old.
Despite the actor’s vow to stay silent about the divorce, saying that he did not wish to hurt the kids by “engaging in a war of words,” Geoffrey, Deborah, and Christian refused to speak to him for a period after the divorce. They later reconciled, and Moore was on good terms with his children prior to his death.
