| Ilona Staller | |
|---|---|
Ilona Staller at Eros Galicia at A Coruña 2009 |
|
| Born | Anna Ilona Staller November 26, 1951 Budapest, Hungary |
| Other names | Cicciolina |
| Height | 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m) |
| Spouse | Jeff Koons (1991-1998) [1] |
| No. of adult films | 38 |
| Website | |
| official website (in Italian) | |
Anna Ilona Staller (born 26 November 1951), widely known by her stage name, La Cicciolina, is a Hungarian-born Italian porn star, politician, and singer. Staller continued to make hardcore pornographic films while a member of parliament.[2] She is famous for delivering political speeches with one breast exposed.[2][3]
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Ilona was born in Budapest, Hungary. Her father, László Staller[4], left the family when she was just a very young girl so she was raised by her mother, who was a midwife, and her stepfather who was an official in the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior.
In 1964, she began working for the Hungarian modeling agency, M.T.I.
In her memoirs and in a 1999 TV interview, she claimed that she had provided the Hungarian authorities with information on American diplomats staying at a Budapest luxury hotel where she worked as a maid in the late 1960s.[4]
Naturalized by marriage and settled in Italy, Staller met pornographer Riccardo Schicchi in the early 1970s, and, beginning in 1973, achieved fame with a radio show called "Do you want to sleep with me?" (French: Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?) on Radio Luna. For that program she adopted the name La Cicciolina, which loosely translates as "Cuddles".[4] She referred to her male fanbase, and later the male members of the Italian parliament, as "cicciolini", translating loosely as "little tubby boys".[2] Although she appeared in several films from 1970, she made her debut under her own name in 1975 with La Liceale, whose U.S. title was "The Teasers," playing a lesbian classmate of Gloria Guida.
In 1978, on the RAI show C'era due Volte, her breasts were the first to be bared live on Italian TV.[4]
Cicciolina appeared in her first hardcore pornographic film, Il telefono rosso ("The Red Telephone") in 1983. She produced the film together with Schicchi's company Diva Futura.
Her memoirs were published as Confessioni erotiche di Cicciolina ("Erotic Confessions of Cicciolina") by the Olympia Press of Milan in 1987. That same year she appeared in Carne bollente (called "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empress" in the US), co-starring John Holmes. The film would later create a furor when it was revealed that Holmes had tested positive for HIV prior to appearing in it.[5]
Staller has appeared nude in the Playboy Magazine's editions in several countries. Her first Playboy appearance was in Argentina in March 1988. Other appearances for the magazine were in the U.S. (September 1990), Hungary (June 2005), Serbia (July 2005) and Mexico (September, 2005).
In 1994, she appeared in the film Replikator and, in 1996, she had a role in the Brazilian soap opera Xica da Silva[6] as Princess Ludovica di Castelgandolfo di Genova.
In 2008, she was a contestant on the Argentine version of "Strictly Come Dancing," named Bailando por un Sueño.
In 1979, Staller was presented as a candidate to the Italian Parliament by the Lista del Sole, Italy's first Green party. In 1985, she switched to the Partito Radicale, campaigning on a libertarian platform against nuclear energy and NATO membership, and for human rights.
She was elected to the Italian parliament in 1987, with approx. 20,000 votes. While in office, and before the outset of the Gulf War she offered to have sex with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in return for peace in the region.[7] She was not re-elected at the end of her term in 1991.
In 1991, Staller was among the founders of another Italian political movement, called Partito dell'Amore ("Party of Love") and spearheaded by friend and fellow porn star Moana Pozzi.
In January 2002, she began exploring the possibility of campaigning in Hungary, her country of birth, to represent Budapest's industrial Kőbánya district in the Hungarian parliament. However, she failed to collect enough petition signatures for a non-partisan candidacy. In the same year, she ran in local elections in Monza, Italy, promising to convert a prominent building into a gambling casino, but she attracted few votes. In 2004, she announced plans to run for mayor of Milan with a similar promise.
She renewed her offer to have sex with Saddam Hussein in October 2002, when Iraq was resisting international pressure to allow inspections for weapons of mass destruction, and in April 2006 made the same offer to Osama bin Laden.[2]
In September 2011, it was revealed that Staller was eligible for and would be receiving a yearly pension of 39,000 Euros from the Italian state as a result of her five years in the country's parliament.[8] Reacting to the controversy raised by the news, the former porn star, who started receiving the pension in November 2011, when she turned 60, stated: "I earned it and I'm proud of it." [9]
Staller has recorded several songs, mostly from live performances, with explicit lyrics being sung to a children's melody. Her most famous song is "Muscolo Rosso," a song entirely dedicated to il cazzo, which means "the dick" in Italian. Because of its extensive use of swear words, the song could not be released in Italy, but became a hit in other countries, especially in France, where the listeners did not grasp the meaning of the lyrics. The song gained considerable popularity in the internet era, when many Italian speakers were able to hear it for the first time.
Several unreleased songs were recorded during her RCA period and the Diva Futura agency period. some of these unreleased songs were subsequently used during her TV shows, live performances or as soundtracks in her porn movies.
Staller married American sculptor Jeff Koons in 1991. Koons produced a series of sculptures and photographs of them having sex in many positions, settings and costumes, which were exhibited under the title "Made In Heaven."[10]
The marriage broke up in 1992, and their son Ludwig Maximillian was born shortly afterwards. Staller left the US with the child, and a lengthy custody battle ensued. Koons won custody in 1998 but Ludwig remains with Staller in Italy.
In 2008, Staller filed suit against Koons for failing to pay child support.[4][11]