The couple have a son Carlo Gabriel (52 years old) but he also raises his wife’s two daughters from a previous relationship and whom he feels like his own daughters. Today he is the grandfather of five grandchildren. In 1971 Franco Nero and Vanessa lose their second child and it is a great pain. The actor talked about it last June 2 on Rai1 ad Today is another dayconducted by Serena Bortone:
(…) it was not easy, my brother calls me I was shooting a film in Palermo (…) then there were no mobile phones so he called the hotel. I go to the hall and stay in the cabin for a long time and everyone was waiting for me because I had to go to work. (…) It was hard, very hard.
A few months ago his autobiography written together with Lorenzo De Luca has been published: Django and the others. Many stories, one life (Rai Libri).
Faith in God
Franco Nero was interviewed on Maria with you by Corrado Occhipinti Confalonieri to whom the 80-year-old actor, usually reserved and shy to talk about himself, told about his relationship with God and the Virgin Mary.
Faith is important: it makes us move forward, it allows us to overcome the many obstacles of our earthly existence, we need to have faith.
(Maria with you)
Visits to Padre Pio
A gift of faith inherited from his parents, the actor in fact remembers when his mother took him to San Giovanni Rotondo from Padre Pio of which he keeps memories full of warmth and gratitude:
(…) Once he took us two little brothers on his knees, to me he said: “Tu statte good” while he placed a hand on the throat of my brother who always had fever and tonsillitis and healed him.
(Ibidem)
Franco Nero: Our Lady listened to me and saved my son
But this is not the only miracle the actor recounts. Franco Nero received a much greater grace from the Virgin Mary who listened to him in a moment of great suffering and uncertainty.
When his son Carlo Gabriel was 18 he was the victim of a terrible accident and remained between life and death for a long time. Papa Franco then begged the Heavenly Mother:
(…) I prayed to Our Lady to listen to me, I said to her: “Most Holy Virgin, please, I have already lost my little brother Walter and another son, leave me at least him”. She listened to me and Carlo Gabriel recovered perfectly.
(Maria with you)
The conversion of his son Carlo Gabriel
The boy “miraculously” recovered, but his conversion took place much later:
He was baptized when he was born, but his mother is an atheist and did not make him take the sacraments. At the age of thirty-five Carlo Gabriel received the call and converted, received Communion and Confirmation with the Salesians of Don Bosco in Tivoli, since then he has served Mass and reads the readings in the Church.
(Ibidem)
The link with the Don Bosco Village
The Don Bosco Village in Tivoli is the place of Franco Nero’s heart, a place to which he is intimately linked and whose work he has supported for more than fifty years.
After the Second World War, the Don Bosco Village was created by Don Nello Del Raso, an army chaplain: he welcomed orphaned children in this structure, which was old and without heating at the time. (…) In 1964 I was lucky enough to meet him, I became fond of the work (…) I consider it my life mission. (…) I always say that I have two houses: one is the one where I live, the other the Village; when I arrive in that place I feel that the Holy Virgin welcomes me.
(Maria with you)
Love for Mary
Maria is for the actor …
A central figure in my life: the Mother of Christ, a superior being I hold onto when I pray (…) she is such a powerful character (…) Mary had the courage to accept her destiny and cried so much for the death of his son.
(Ibidem)