Nicoletta Mantovani

Italian newsfigure with her romance with tenor Luciano Pavarotti. After 35 years marriage, he went public in 1996 about his love affair with his secretary, 26-year-old Nicoletta Mantovani, when he separated from Adua. He and Mantovani had met in 1993 when she joined his staff of eight as a temp secretary to help organize his international tours. Her fluency in four languages aided her usefulness in that post. Neither Mantovani or Pavarotti will say when their relationship turned amorous, but paparazzi photographed them nuzzling in Italy in 1995 and on Barbados in 1996. They married in December 2003, after the birth of their daughter Alice in January 2003. Alice's twin, a boy, was dead in utero. With Pavarotti's weight gain to the degree of becoming a health hazard, Mantovani makes sure he sticks to the daily regimen of swimming, weight training and walking prescribed by therapists. She has also kept him on a low-fat diet that has helped him shed nearly 50 of his 300 plus pounds. If he attempts to overindulge, she takes his plate away, and he lets her. He died of pancreatic cancer on September 6, 2007.