Actress reveals private love for Brando

After Marlon Brando's death, actress Irene Papas has decided to reveal that he was the great passion of her life, a love that the couple kept private, Italian daily Corriere della Sera said yesterday.

The Greek tragic actress poured her heart out to a journalist who approached her at a theatre in Greece in hopes of getting a comment about Brando.

"A comment? What can I say? That I esteemed him, but I want to add something," Corriere quoted Papas as saying.

Invited to continue, Papas replied: "I loved Marlon Brando, I really cared about him, we had a [love] story, let's call it a long relationship."

Papas said she and Brando met 50 years ago in Rome, when he was 30 and she was 24. "I have never since loved a man as I loved Marlon. He was the great passion of my life."