Marie José of Belgium Claretta Petacci, claimed in her diary that in 1937 the then princess and wife of the heir to the throne tried and failed to seduce the dictator at a beach resort near Rome. However, Mussolini's son, Romano, claims that the princess and dictator entered into a sexual relationship. In 1943, the Crown Princess involved herself in vain attempts to arrange a separate peace treaty between Italy and the United States; her interlocutor from the Vatican was Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, a senior diplomat who later became Pope Paul VI. Her attempts were not sponsored by the king and Umberto was
The Dictator (1915 film) The Dictator (1915 film) The Dictator is a 1915 American silent comedy film directed by Oscar Eagle and reputedly Edwin S. Porter. It was based on a play "The Dictator" by Richard Harding Davis and produced by Adolph Zukor (Famous Players Film Company) and the Charles Frohman Company. John Barrymore stars in a role played on the stage by William Collier, Sr. whose company Barrymore had performed in this play. The film was rereleased on April 13, 1919 as part of the Paramount "Success Series" of their early screen successes. The story was refilmed in 1922 as "The Dictator" starring