In fine arts, when you make a painting, it's just a painting. But if you make a painting in the entertainment industry, it can be an album cover or a t-shirt or a logo.
When I was young, we had nothing. The carpets and upholstery in the palace were full of holes. The floors creaked. Everything was so old. Yes, we had a piano, an upright given to us by the Fine Arts Department. But it was out of tune.
We believed that there's no such thing as good art or bad art. Art is art. If it's bad, it's something else. It was a much, much harder line in the '50s and '60s than it is now, because the idea of art education didn't exist - they didn't have a fine arts program when I was a kid.
I was in the National Academy of Fine Arts and Design, on a scholarship. I was - still am - an artist. They were looking for an actor for 'Take a Giant Step,' and a producer liked my look and asked if I could act. I said, 'Yep!' Then I got into acting more or less just to make money for paints and canvases.
I would have liked maybe to be in architecture or painting, something connected to the fine arts.
The world of fashion and fine arts in New York really took me by surprise, and photography has helped me through a period of personal turmoil. I am glad when people like my portfolio, but its aim is - or was - to keep me at peace.
Coming out of college with a degree in fine arts and painting isn't worth much any more.
I studied fine arts and architecture, but I decided to move into movie design because I grew up in a small town in the Marche region and spent a lot of time after school in the movie theater.
I studied fine arts, and color and composition was always my thing, but I've never been too wild with my fashion.
When I first became interested in photography, I thought it was the whole cheese. My idea was to have it recognized as one of the fine arts. Today I don't give a hoot in hell about that. The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each man to himself.
