Fact-checking ‘Maria’: How did Maria Callas die? Was she friends with JFK?

Spoiler alert! We're disclosing major plot details about the movie “Maria” (streaming now on Netflix).

How do you capture someone as mythic as Maria Callas in a two-hour movie?

That was the challenge facing screenwriter Steven Knight (“Spencer”), who reteams with director Pablo Larraín for the new drama “Maria,” featuring Angelina Jolie as the ill-fated opera star as she struggles to sing again.

“I wanted to compress the whole thing into a very significant period of days,” Knight says. “In fact, her last days were very reflective: She was very concerned about her voice coming back and the loves of her life. And in those days, she was very badly bruised by a critic.”

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As portrayed in the film, Callas really was accosted by a journalist, who secretly recorded a rough vocal rehearsal and threatened to leak it to the media. Knight also based much of his script on firsthand accounts from Callas’ butler, Ferruccio (Pierfranceso Favino), and housekeeper, Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher), who were her dearest companions at the end of her life.

Here’s what else is fact and fiction:

Was the real Maria Callas addicted to drugs?

“Maria” follows the singer as she wanders the halls of her sumptuous Paris apartment, popping pills and hallucinating a journalist named Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee), a personified version of the sedative drug. Callas abused prescription pills throughout her life, Knight says.

“Remember, this is the ‘50s and ‘60s when there was less known about the consequences of that,” Knight says. “She always had an issue with her weight, so she was prepared to take chemicals to deal with that.” Later on, as her star waned, “she started to use drugs like Mandrax in order to control the pain. Imagine being at the pinnacle (of your career) and suddenly no one’s listening?"

How did Maria Callas die?

Callas died at home in her Paris apartment on Sept. 16, 1977, at age 53. Her official cause of death was a heart attack, although there has been widespread speculation in decades since that she either committed suicide or died as the result of a degenerative disease such as dermatomyostitis.

“A degenerative disease is quite a strong thing that people believe and would have been diagnosed now,” Knight says. “I’m absolutely convinced it wasn’t a suicide. Female icons like Maria Callas or Princess Diana or Marilyn Monroe are pursued by prey. (The public) wants to grab a bit and death is not enough to stop them. The conspiracy theories will always happen.”

Did Maria Callas have a relationship with Aristotle Onassis?

Onassis, a Greek shipping tycoon, met Callas at a party in 1957. Both were married at the time, but they carried on a decade-long affair before he abandoned her for Jackie Kennedy in 1968. Many historians have called Onassis “the great love” of Callas’ life, although the movie paints him as a controlling and dismissive man who made disparaging comments about her body.

In real life, “it was a despicable, flawed, broken relationship,” Knight says. “And it all took place on the world stage, because he suddenly announced he was marrying Jackie.” Despite their tempestuous courtship, “I do believe she loved him, and when he was dying, he declared that Maria was the one he loved.”

Did Maria Callas really have an abortion or miscarriages?

Historians widely agree that Callas wanted to have children but was unable to. The movie alludes to Callas suffering two miscarriages, and she tells Mandrax, “My body declined the invitation to make another self.” Additionally, author Arianna Huffington claimed in her 1981 book, “Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend,” that Onassis forced her to abort a third baby in 1966.

“I didn’t want to go there too deeply,” Knight says. “It’s so painful and personal, but the rumor is that he forced her to have an abortion. There’s no confirmation or proof, although I always thought she was stronger than to be told what to do.”

Was Maria Callas friends with John F. Kennedy?

The movie depicts Callas sitting in the audience at John F. Kennedy’s birthday party in 1962, when in fact, she performed two arias at the event. The film also imagines Callas and Kennedy sitting down at a restaurant together, where she rebuffs his flirtations and hints that Jackie and Aristotle are sleeping together. “You and I belong to a very small group of lucky angels who can go anywhere we want in this world,” Callas tells Kennedy. “But we can never, ever get away.”

“There is no evidence that Maria and Kennedy ever sat down to breakfast,” Knight says. “But I thought it was interesting to see these two people together. I wanted them to look a bit like prisoners, because they both were in the world they had created for themselves.”

Where was Maria Callas' last performance?

In real life, Callas’ final public performance was in Sapporo, Japan, in November 1974, roughly three years before her death. The movie concludes with her tearfully looking out her apartment window and singing “Vissi d'arte,” from the Giacomo Puccini opera “Tosca.” The impassioned moment might seem like a manipulative Hollywood ending, but it’s actually based in some truth.

“There is anecdotal evidence that in her final days, Callas was playing her own music and singing along in her apartment,” Knight says. “It was a breakthrough for her, because she never listened to her own music. So I’d like to think there were people standing outside, listening to her last performance.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Maria' fact check: What's true in Angelina Jolie's Netflix film?