The year was 1949.
Swedish film star Ingrid Bergman was in Italy filming the movie Stromboli with director Roberto Rossellini. Rossellini was known as something of an eccentric playboy, despite the fact that he was a married man. Bergman was also married and the mother of a young daughter.
Bergman and Rossellini shared a villa on the island of Stromboli, where Bergman consented to an interview. Journalist Robert Conway spent four hours probing the nature of Bergman's relationship with her director. Conway pressed the actress to reveal her affair with Rossellini. It was a major newspaper scoop at the time.
The revelation caused much scandal back in the United States, in Italian newspapers and with the Catholic Church.
Bergman ultimately divorced her husband and married Rossellini.
Learn more about the Ingrid Bergman affair in the Robert Conway papers at UW's American Heritage Center.