characters' bios

read at your own risk, since it contains minor spoilers

click HERE for the first episode or select the Index page above

page under construction and constant modification, as new characters will be added

Laurent D'Allegro, born prematurely in 1975 in Punaouilo, Indian Ocean, is half French and half Italian. Interrupting his idyllic, if humble, childhood in the tropics, he has to emigrate in 1983 with his father, to join his mother in rural France. A rather traumatic adolescence only ends when in 1994 he emigrates again, this time to the U.S. with his first boyfriend, Angelo Vivace. Disillusioned, heartbroken, he becomes what he despises most -- a cynical serial seducer like his mother and grandmother at best, or plainly promiscuous like his ex-boyfriend. Oscillating between seeking revenge and atonement, or aiming for enlightenment and true love, Laurent struggles to find his origins in a maze of intertwined lies. When anyone and everyone seems to be a deceiver, his restless search will take us generations back in his extraordinary family, where noblemen and peasants mingle but not quite coexist, and across the five continents. Visual artist on the rise, made more notorious than famous through the scandals used to promote his career, Laurent is currently living in his dream house, perched on a high cliff  facing the ocean and defying all storms, in Samsara Heights, U.S.

Catherine Mortinné, Laurent's mother, born in 1950 in Paris. In 1974, she took her first vacations in years from the Université Paris-Sorbonne and traveled to the Indian Ocean. Instead of a suntan, she got pregnant -- and would only return to France in 1981, her beloved country that she later left to teach Literature in Russia, in 2008. A maneater like her mother, Catherine has had only two steady partners, Carlo D'Allegro and Edoardo Vivace, but innumerable lovers -- she is now fond of calling them protégé, since they are usually a few decades younger than her. A reluctant feminist, she is an international best-selling author, waiting for an indication to the Nobel Prize. A profitable career and the fortune she inherited from her mother gives her independence and the ability to be a fierce negotiator for the rights of her books to be turned into movies. Upon her return to France in 2013, she will refurbish a historical winery in Normandie to be her last and permanent address, where she will finally face Laurent's torments as the transmission of her own.

Carlo D'Allegro, Laurent's father, born in 1950 in the Apennines, Italy. Orphaned, he was stoically raised by his widower grandfather in their ancestral farm, from where he escaped in 1969, with the aid of an scholarship to study Painting at the École-des-Beaux-Arts, in Paris. Facing frustration in his ideal of becoming a painter, he left for the Indian Ocean in 1974 to join his ex-roommate, Armand de Montbelle. He only returned to France in 1983, with his eight years old son and brighter perspectives for his career. Only five years later, he abandons home, leaving Laurent without any news for twenty years -- until their reunion at the Nirvana Lounge, that opens Book One with startling revelations. Currently living on his ancestral lands, despite a rough and rather destitute start that has remained hidden from Laurent, Carlo is now a much acclaimed and respected painter, called 'The Hermit of the Brushes' by art critics.

Angelo Vivace,  born in Rome in 1974. After his mother's death, Angelo moves to rural France in 1990 with his father, where he meets Laurent D'Allegro, to become his first and only boyfriend. As a young couple, they venture to the U.S. in 1994, where their eight years relationship, continually challenged by Angelo's sexual ambiguity and promiscuity, comes to a sudden end, after Angelo's father death in 1998. Ambitious, that same year he strikes a grand marriage with prominent heiress Laura von Tschimmel, his first and only girlfriend, with whom he has two sons.  Formerly a model and DJ (possibly rent boy too), Angelo is a famous/infamous journalist and 'heartthrob' cover, voted twice The Sexiest Man in the U.S., and often running for Best Communicator. Currently in a credibility crisis in his career for having starred a scorching underwear campaign, causing great controversy and withdrawal of some of his TV program's main sponsors, he is facing failure in his personal, professional and family lives.

Armand de Montbelle (et Purlux Drurien), born in 1947 in France. Son to the banker Gaston de Montbelle, Lord of the Château de Montbelle, and Marie Heléne Purlux Drurien, daughter of Baron Purlux Drurien de SanSerenite. After graduating from the École-des-Beaux-Arts, he traveled the world and became a Buddhist monk in Thailand in 1974. Architect, winner of the Pritzker Prize and honorary ambassador of UNICEF, he currently lives in an isolated island off the Swedish coast.

Dan Charmand, born in 1934 in Tipaza, Algeria, he later emigrated to Italy and France, until finally settling in the U.S., to be the almighty director of internationally prestigious Vice's Contemporary Art Museum. Feared rather than respected in the Art world, since 1998 he became the sometimes condescending and often tyrannic artistic mentor for Laurent -- who gladly accepted Charmand as the most present masculine figure in his life, displacing and replacing his father Carlo, who vanished for twenty years. Gossip goes that Dan and Laurent have been lovers in secret for ten years, but their relationship calls for a much subtler game of dominance and dependency.

Celeste Mortinné, Parisian, birth date not revealed (early 1920s, estimated), ex-diva of the Comédie-Française with a short-lived but remarkable career, she is Catherine's dominant mother. Entertaining in her salons only the elite among politicians and artists, French and international, she has amassed both a respectable fortune and a precious art collection --  yet, being designer's unique clothes and jewelry pieces her best loved and most envied collections. Her detractors insist she was a first class hooker, but her personal legend distills a love tale where she abandoned her artistic career for the one (filthy rich) man who remained her only love until his death. Demented and confined to her spectacular Parisian apartment, she died in 2005 leaving behind a crowd of public admirers, if some haters in private -- and a humongous amount of money for both Catherine and Laurent.

Fabrizio Caprice, Italian, born in 1985. Awarded Young Entrepreneur of Excellency in 2007, he is determined to have financial success and top a long list of  mighty men in his traditionally wealthy family. Reluctantly bisexual, he will have to go through Hell and Purgatory to become Laurent's adored boyfriend. When the happy couple thinks love is established and that they have found Heaven, the road leads Laurent and Fabrizio straight back to Hell.

Edoardo Vivace, Italian, born in 1947 in Algeria from a famed couple of archaeologists, he is Angelo's father and Catherine's second partner. Having lived his youth unable to settle between Italy and Algeria, he had a short yet tragic passage through Vice City, where his wife sought treatment but found death. Broke, he returns to Rome to sell the rest of his deceased parents possessions, and then goes to France with his son Angelo, intending to open an Italian restaurant. Catholic though not a practitioner, he fights with all the might of his conviction against his son's sinful relationship with Laurent, turning their household into a continuous verbal battle. After Angelo emigrates together with Laurent to the US, Edoardo slowly succumbs to remorse and a degenerative disease, to finally die at Catherine's rural home in 1998, in France.

Tarso D'Allegro, Italian, born in the ancestral D'Allegro lands in the Apennines. Already a widower when Carlo, his only grandchild, became an orphan, he raised the boy like he had brought up his own son -- to run the farm with him. Enraged and frustrated when Carlo left to study Painting in Paris, he only forgave his grandson  upon learning about his great-grandson -- Laurent, who he regarded as a defective D'Allegro for having been born in the tropics. Tarso tries hard to instill the love for the mountains and their ancestral lands in Laurent, only to be met by more frustration. He died healthy -- of disgust, when part of his properties were taken away in the process of constituting a National Park, and believing neither Carlo nor Laurent were capable of continuing the family's agricultural tradition.

Laura von Tschimmel, North-american, born in 1972. Heiress and socialite supreme, she is Angelo Vivace's ex-wife, with whom she has two sons, Edward and  Damian.

Darren Cox, born in 1972, half Tibetan and half Swiss, a master chef, Laurent's former lover and best friend in Samsara Heights, to later become a great disaffection.

Gabriel Labon, born in 1980, he is an aspiring actor and Laurent's reluctant boyfriend during Book One.

Davez Drew, international rock-star, a.k.a. 'The Cosmic Scorcher'. His visit to Punaouilo in 1981 is remarkably a turning point in his decadent career, and with his renewed success and stardom, he catapults Carlo's career as a painter, too. They remained friends and supporting each other, until the musician's death.

Danny Douxis, marchand and owner of the only art gallery in Punaouilo, the celebrated resort island in the Pacific Ocean. In eight years, he sold only three of Carlo's paintings -- canvases that have never appeared in any private or public collection. Further investigation led to believe that Danny destroyed the paintings, and was being paid to boycott and destroy Carlo's works -- but by who?

Barbara, Davez Drew's girlfriend as they were in Punaouilo, and the one woman, other than Catherine, to cause a strong impression on Carlo.





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