Actress, born March 6, 1917 in Barcelona.
Her’s was a life in film characterised by a great love story with a husband as difficult as Vittorio De Sica. The sister of Ramon Mercader, who killed Trotsky, Maria Mercader began her career in 1939 with director Rosario Pi in the film Molinos de viento, which was followed by, amongst others, Il re si diverte (41), directed by Mario Bonnard from Victor Hugo’s play, and Rigoletto, opposite Michel Simon and Rossano Brazzi. 1942 was an imprtant year for her: she arrived in Italy and met Vittorio De Sica on the set of the film Un garibaldino al convento, where he played a romantic collegial. It was love at first sight, but it took 17 years until De Sica was legally able to obtain a divorce from his current wife, Judith Rissone, and marry her. They were married in Mexico in 1959, but it wasn’t recognised by Italian law. It didn’t end there. Despite the dolce vita lifestyle of the director and his compulsive passion for gambling, they obtained French citizenship in 1968 and were married again in Paris.
Returning to her career, in 1942 she was the protagonist of Se io fossi onesto by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, again starring De Sica, and in the same year Buongiorno, Madrid! by Max Neufeld and Gian Maria Cominetti. Numerous films followed: Musica Proibita (1942) and Il treno crociato (1943), accredited to Carlo Campogalliani. Then there was Nessuno torna indietro (1943) by Alessandro Blasetti, in which the actress became a brunette to play an exhuberent Spaniard, and Cuore (1948) by Duilio Coletti, based on the popular novel by Edmondo De Amicis, in which she played the schoolteacher. More recently, she had small parts in Claretta (84) by PAsquale Squitieri, La casa del sorriso (91) by Marco Ferreri, Il conte Max by Christian De Sica and Al lupo, Al lupo by Carlo Verdone.
Her love affair with De Sica was more than troubled by his marriage to actress Judith Rissone, who was the mother of his daughter Emi. It was widely known that, for the sake of both families and children, Victor led a double life, which proved difficult to live with, full of double celebrations and problematical situations. She was the mother of Christian and Manuel De Sica, the mother in law of Mario Verdone, Carlo Verdone’s father, and wrote a biography called Christian’s mother and Manuel De Sica, Brando’s grandmother and consuocera Mario Verdone, Carlo Verdone’s father, also a biography entitled “La mia vita con Vittorio De Sica” (Mondadori, 1968).