Nino’s secret

After Nino Rota’s funeral in the little church of Sant’Agostino in the centre of Rome, Suso Cecchi d’Amico asks Federico to come home with her “as a witness.”

She has to reveal a family secret to Nino’s relatives who’d come down from Milan. Nino has a daughter, conceived during a short relationship with an Italian music student during the period he spent in London right after the war.

The girl was abandoned by her mother and then adopted by an English family, who paid for her and took her with them to America. Unable to handle the situation himself, Rota had always involved Suso as mediator.

She kept in touch with the girl, sent her money, and arranged visits. Nina lives in Los Angeles and works in documentary film, Suso tells Fellini. She had sometimes visited her father in Italy, always very discreetly, and no one even noticed her presence in Spoleto for the premiere of “Napoli Milionaria”, the opera Rota has written with Eduardo De Filippo.

Federico is baffled and genuinely surprised to hear abut his friend’s emotional backstage life. Rota had never confided in him. he’s impressed at how sensitively Suso has handled the situation and the same day sends her flowers with the message, “I heard you say that you don’t like sending people flowers and maybe you don’t want to receive them either. I send them anyway. Do what you want with them. I really like you after hear this amazing story, and now I know there’s someone I can count on if I ever have to confess that . . . well, I’ll tell you later.”

Perhaps Fellini is seriously contemplating sharing his complicated affairs with Suso, and it may be a real shame that he never did.

What was Fellini’s secret? Drunken father? One too many mistresses? Alcoholic mother? Morphine addiction?