Although Benedetta was clearly headed for the top rank of New York models, she decided to return to Italy to act. She met director Roberto Faenza, and they married in 1969. On the night she gave birth to twins Nini and Giacomo, now 6, Faenza walked out. "I guess being a father was too much of a shock for him," she sighs. "I knew I was headed for a hard life." Barzini now lives communally with the twins, two female students and a male professor in a middle-class neighborhood of Milan. She works teaching University courses on feminism. "There is no way I could afford to pay all the rent on the 300,000 lire [$350] allowance my mother gives me every month," she explains. She admits that Faenza's abandonment left her in deep shock. "Only after six years," she says, "am I beginning to get some of my confidence back and feel capable of being involved with someone." She will say little about the new man in her life except that "he's a separated parent in the same situation as mine." Her approach to romance is pragmatic. "At midnight you want to sleep after a hard day," she shrugs. "It's hard to find time for a man."