Greek Actress Papas: I Was Brando's Secret Lover

Greek actress Irene Papas has revealed she had a long, secret love affair with late screen legend Marlon Brando.

The ON THE WATERFRONT actor passed away on Thursday (01JUL04) after suffering lung failure at the age of 80.

CAPTAIN CORELLI'S MANDOLIN star Papas, 77, told Italian newspaper CORRIERE DELLA SERA she and Brando kept their relationship out of the public eye because "we didn't want to share with anyone this love that wasn't a true secret but a private one".

Papas says, "I loved Marlon Brando. I really cared about him. We had a love story. Let's call it a long relationship.

"Perhaps I'm doing wrong to speak about it, now that he's not around to contradict me, but I'm confessing it precisely because, as of today, he's in the absolute, far from everybody, belonging to everyone."

Papas met Brando 50 years ago (54) in Rome, where he was 30 and she was 24.

Papas laments, "I have never since loved a man as I loved Marlon. He was the great passion of my life, absolutely the man I cared about the most and also the one I esteemed most, two things that generally are difficult to reconcile."

The ZORBA THE GREEK actress last saw the OSCAR-winning actor in 1999, while he was visiting Greece. Papas says of the meeting: "Despite everything he was still magnificent for how he used his head."