Sometimes it's difficult to live down your failures (or successes). Bela Lugosi could not escape the cape and fangs.

It's an interesting point John, because despite the obvious differences (and the fact that Lugosi was a very flamboyant character while Corti was absolutely the opposite) what they really had in common is the fact that both lives where somehow ruined by a "public image" that - literally - haunted them until the very end.

It's also interesting to see that as Lugosi was haunted by something he really wasn't - Dracula -, and he ended up identifying completely with it (" the only way to escape horror is to bury yourself in it" as Jean Genet once wrote). On the other hand Corti so was haunted by a " failure" which was not his own, but to whom he - at some point - was forced to identify completely.

In the end Corti he survived because he decided, at some point, that the only way out of that vicious circle was complete, unilateral forgiveness - but not forgefulness. I believe most of his friends never approved completely his decision not to pursuit some kind of "payback" against his tormentors, and I understand they tried to pressure him into doing "something" particularly when some of the most blatant evidence of deliberate wrongdoing emerged. But he never stepped back from his decision.

He still remained a haunted man, as his expression in this - the last interview he ever did, and one of the very few, will be evident to anyone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7zM40G3PTM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFheqzc1-ck

Luca Signorelli has written a great piece on the Italian climber, Claudio Corti, over at UKClimbing:

http://www.ukclimbing.com/...les/page.php?id=2483

Highly recommended.