| Lolo Ferrari | |
|---|---|
Lolo Ferrari in front of the poster of Mother Courage and Her Children in the summer of 1995 during the making of the movie Camping Cosmos. |
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| Born | February 9, 1963 Clermont-Ferrand, Puy-de-Dôme, France |
| Died | March 5, 2000 (aged 37) |
| Other names | Eve Valois (birth name) |
| Ethnicity | Caucasian |
| Spouse | Eric Vigne (1988-death) |
| No. of adult films | Camping Cosmos |
Lolo Ferrari, born Eve Valois[1] (February 9, 1963[2] – March 5, 2000), was a French dancer, sex star, pornographic actress, actress and singer billed as "the woman with the largest breasts in the world"[3][4] though their size was artificially achieved.
She entered the international limelight in 1995 and appeared in the French Guinness Book of World Records in 1996 and again in the Guinness Book of World Records in 1999. Her death in 2000 was initially ruled a suicide, but suspicions remained that her husband may have been involved.[5] He was cleared in 2007.[6]
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Born in Clermont-Ferrand, Puy-de-Dôme, France, Eve Valois was raised in the resort town of La Baule. She often talked about an unhappy childhood, with her father absent and her mother disliking her.[7] As a teenager, she obtained a few modelling jobs.
In 1988, she married Eric Vigne, a former drug dealer 15 years her senior who had just been released from prison. She then started to work as a model with her husband as manager. She also worked as a prostitute and her husband was arrested for being her pimp.[5]
Encouraged by her husband, beginning in 1990 Eve underwent numerous plastic surgery operations to create a 180 centimetres (71 in) silicone-enhanced bust (she was originally a 37 inch bust) (22 enlargements, a Guinness world record).[8] The Guinness Book of Records says each of her breasts weighed 2.8 kilograms (6.2 lb) and contained three litres of saline. She had to wear a specially engineered brassiere, and as a result of her many surgeries she suffered from a number of medical afflictions and lived with a heavy regimen of drugs.[9] Her brassiere measurements have been given by various sources as 58F,[10] 54G,[11] and 54J,[9] although these measurements appear false, breasts of similar size have a bra size of around 36T or 36MMM. The breast implants themselves were reputed to be designed by an engineer who was involved with the design of the Boeing 747.[5]
In interviews, she said about her surgeries "All this stuff has been because I can't stand life. But it hasn't changed anything" and "I was frightened and I was ashamed; I wanted to change my face, my body, to transform myself. I wanted to die, really." Some psychologists have conjectured that she might have suffered from dysmorphophobia.[7]
After the breast enlargements, she adopted the stage name "Lolo", from a French slang word for breasts, along with "Ferrari" as a last name, and made a few pornographic films. Use of the Ferrari name (which she justified since it was her maternal grandfather's name) led to lengthy trademark infringement court battles with the Italian Ferrari automobile company when she tried to market a line of underwear called Ferrari Underwear and a Lolo Ferrari doll.
In an effort to promote herself, she went with her husband to the Cannes Film Festival in the summer of 1995. She won the "European large breasts championship" there, became a favorite of photographers, and entered the international limelight.
She acted in the Belgian movie Camping Cosmos by Jan Bucquoy and producer Francis De Smet. She caused a sensation at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival with the presentation of the movie during a remake of the boxing match in Camping Cosmos between the European champion and the former opponent of Cassius Clay (Jean-Pierre Coopman).[12]
She used her newly won publicity to obtain a regular role on the British Channel 4 television show Eurotrash. The media hype led to appearances on other European shows and work in cabaret shows doing a song and striptease act. Hoping to launch a pop music career, she recorded two singles, titled "Airbag Generation" and "Set Me Free", as well as two more singles, a Euro disco cabaret song called "Dance Dance Dance", and a cover of Thelma Houston's Euro disco hit, "Don't Leave Me This Way". Neither of the latter two songs was given a commercial release. However, Ferrari retained a cult-like following.
On the morning of March 5, 2000, at the age of 37, Ferrari was found dead by her husband at her home in Grasse in the Alpes-Maritimes département on the French Riviera of undetermined causes.[1] The original autopsy determined that she had died of an overdose of antidepressants and tranquilizers. She had been depressed and her death was ruled a suicide. Her parents suspected that her husband was involved and achieved a second autopsy two years later. This second autopsy found that mechanically induced suffocation could not be ruled out. Her widower was suspected of causing her death, was arrested, and spent 13 months in prison.[5] After a second medical analysis, he was finally cleared of the charges in 2007.[6]
When Channel 4 broadcast Ferrari's obituary on Eurotrash, it was transmitted with straight dubbing as a mark of respect (Eurotrash's dubbing is normally campy, often playing it for laughs to get around the censorship regulations). In 2005 the station broadcast a documentary about her life, with interviews of her, her husband, her mother and her plastic surgeon.[5]