Barbara Bouchet

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Barbara Bouchet

Barbara Bouchet at the Sonopromotion film fair, November 5th 2006, Kerkrade, The Netherlands
Born Barbara Gutscher
(1943-08-15) 15 August 1943
Reichenberg, Sudetenland, Germany (present day Liberec, Czech Republic)
Years active 1959–present
Spouse(s) Luigi Borghese (m. 1974–2006)(separated; 2 sons)

Barbara Bouchet (born Barbara Gutscher on 15 August 1943) is a German-American actress and entrepreneur.

She has acted in more than 80 films and television episodes and founded a production company that has produced fitness videos and books. She also owns and operates a fitness studio. Some of her roles include Miss Moneypenny in Casino Royale, Kelinda in the episode "By Any Other Name" of the original Star Trek, as Patrizia in Non si sevizia un paperino and as Mrs. Schermerhorn in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York.

Biography

Barbara Gutscher was born the oldest of 4 siblings, two boys and two girls in Reichenberg, in the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia under German occupation, that is now part of the Czech Republic.[1]

After World War II, the Gutscher family was placed, along with many others, in a resettlement camp in the American occupation zone in Germany, from where they were, in time, able to apply for, and be granted, permission to emigrate to the United States, under the humanitarian provisions of the Displaced Persons Act that had been legislated by Congress in 1948.[2]

Youth

After arriving in America, the Gutschers eventually settled in San Francisco, California, where young Barbara was raised. She attended Galileo High School, at the corner between Russian Hill and the Marina District in San Francisco. [citation needed]

Her father, Fritz Gutscher, worked as a convention photographer with Cal Visual, and later with Bauer Audio Visual, the in-house audio-visual company for the San Francisco Hilton Hotel until 1980 when Bauer lost their contract. Fritz had a darkroom in what is today Union Square room 24, and he covered the walls with photos of his daughter Barbara. Notably, his assistant, Brian Goodspeed, had a connection to the James Bond film franchise: his residence was used for scenes with Diana Rigg and George Lazenby in On Her Majesty's Secret Service filmed in Lisbon.

In 1959, spurred by the popularity of the film Gidget,[citation needed] KPIX-TV, the local television station covering the San Francisco Bay area, decided to hold a "Miss Gidget" beauty and talent contest on the Dick Stewart Television Show. The contest was open to all teenage girls in the local area, and Barbara entered and won, resulting in her first experience of fame.[citation needed]

As a prize, the station offered young Barbara the chance to become one of the "regulars" in the dance group of the show, who were called The KPIX Dance Party.[3] These were teenage dancers who danced live to the hit songs of the day and became locally famous in their own right by being on television six days per week. Barbara was on the show from 1959 until 1962, when she moved to Hollywood to get into the film industry, changing her Germanic sounding surname to the French sounding Barbara Bouchet.[citation needed]

Career

Bouchet began her career modeling for magazine covers and appearing in television commercials, before eventually becoming an actress. Her first acting role was a minor part in What a Way to Go! (1964), which led to a series of other roles in the 1960s. She appeared in the films John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1964), In Harm's Way (1964), and Agent for H.A.R.M. (1966).

She appeared in semi-clad pictorials in two editions of Playboy magazine: May 1965 (stills from In Harm's Way) and February 1967 ("The Girls of Casino Royale").[4]

In Casino Royale (1967), she played the role of Miss Moneypenny. Her early films gave her the grounding in character development that she needed in order to tackle more substantial roles later in her career.[citation needed] In 1968, she guest-starred in the Star Trek episode "By Any Other Name".

After growing tired of being typecast and being unable to get starring roles in Hollywood, she moved to Italy in 1970 and began acting in Italian films.[citation needed] In Italy, she mostly appeared in giallo mystery films, poliziottesco crime dramas, and commedia erotica all'italiana sex comedies.[citation needed]

Her more noteworthy films of this period include:

In the 1980s, she became a television personality on Italian television.[citation needed] She starred with Gregory Peck in The Scarlet and The Black in 1983, a successful World War II rescue movie made for TV. In 1985, she established a production company and started to produce a successful series of fitness books and videos. In addition, she opened a fitness studio in Rome.[citation needed]

In 2002, she returned to American cinema, appearing in Gangs of New York, playing "Mrs. Schermerhorn".

Personal life

In 1974, Barbara Bouchet married Luigi Borghese, a producer, with whom she has two sons - Alessandro (b. 1976), a TV chef and Massimiliano (b. 1989), a bartender. Her husband subsequently produced some of her later films. She separated from her husband in 2006, citing different aspirations.[5]

Filmography
  • Don't Torture a Duckling (Non si sevizia un paperino, 1972)
  • Conoscenza matrimoniale (1973)
  • Ancora una volta prima di lasciarci (1973)
  • My Pleasure is Your Pleasure (Il tuo piacere è il mio, 1973)
  • Ricco (1973)
  • La badessa di Castro (1974)
  • La svergognata (1974)
  • Cry of a Prostitute (Quelli che contano, 1974)
  • Duck in Orange Sauce (L'anatra all'arancia, 1975)
  • My Mother's Friend (L'amica di mia madre, 1975)
  • Amore vuol dir gelosia (1975)
  • Sex with a Smile (40 gradi all'ombra del lenzuolo, 1975, segment "I soldi in banca")
  • Down the Ancient Staircase (Per le antiche scale, 1975)
  • The Hook (To Agistri, 1976)
  • Sex with a Smile II (Spogliamoci così senza pudor, 1976)
  • Death Rage (Con la rabbia agli occhi, 1976)
  • Diary of a Passion (Brogliaccio d'amore, 1976)
  • Tutti possono arricchire tranne i poveri (1976) – Contessa Federici Fontana
  • Blood and Diamonds (Diamanti sporchi di sangue, 1977)
  • L'appuntamento (1977)
  • Come perdere una moglie e trovare un'amante (1978)
  • Travolto dagli affetti familiari (1978)
  • Liquirizia (1979)
  • Sabato, domenica e venerdì (1979, segment "Domenica")
  • I'm Photogenic (Sono fotogenico, 1980)
  • La moglie in vacanza... l'amante in città (1980)
  • Spaghetti a mezzanotte (1981)
  • Crema cioccolato e pa...prika (1981)
  • Per favore, occupati di Amelia (1982)
  • Diamond Connection (1982)
  • Perché non facciamo l'amore? (1982)
  • Our Tropical Island (Mari del Sud, 1982)
  • Gangs of New York (2002)
  • Bastardi (2007)

Television

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Barbara Bouchet, Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen website
  2. ↑ A Terrible Revenge, DeZayas, Alfred Maurice, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 1-4039-7308-3, 2nd edition, 2006
  3. ↑ Interiano, Manny. "KPIX Dance Party". Archived from the original on 5 June 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-16. 
  4. ↑ http://www.vintageplayboymags.co.uk/60s/Feb/07.htm
  5. ↑ Boccalini, Siria. "Intervista a Barbara Bouchet" (in Italian). Archived from the original on 17 August 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-01. 

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