Lady L

Lady L is a 1965 comedy film based on the novel by Romain Gary and directed by Peter Ustinov. Starring Sophia Loren, Paul Newman, David Niven and Cecil Parker, the film focuses on an elderly English Duchess as she recalls the loves of her life, including an anarchist and an English aristocrat. The ending of the film is very different from the ending of the novel. Not long after she celebrates her 80th birthday, the sophisticated and still attractive Lady Lendale (widely known as "Lady L") sojourns to her summerhouse with her biographer, Sir Percy, to recount the story of her life. Fleeing her humble origins in Corsica, Louise travels to Paris, where she finds works in a brothel—as a laundress. There she falls in love with Armand, a thief and somewhat inept anarchist, and she eventually becomes pregnant by him. But before Armand can use a bomb to assassinate a Bavarian prince, she meets the wealthy Lord Lendale, who is so enchanted by the young woman that he offers to help her and Armand escape if she will agree to join with him and present Armand's child to the world as his. Dickie, as she calls him, explains that several of his aristocratic relatives are mad, and he wants new blood in his family. Lady L becomes a woman of great wealth, moving in high society, and together she and Lord Lendale raise a large family. Many of Lady L's children and grandchildren achieve elite positions in society, in government, in the military and in the Church of England, although she points to a large cohort of "black sheep" at her birthday party.