Happy 70th Birthday Marcella Michelangeli

Marcella Gheardi was born on January 28, 1943 in Uscio, Genoa, Liguria, Italy. In the early 1960s she won many beauty contests including Miss Liguria 1962. She was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts and began acting at the Piccolo Teatro Duse in Genoa, where she had the opportunity to work with Dario Fo. After her studies, she moved to Rome, where she became a pop singer, recording some 45 LPs for the Society of General Disk using the pseudonym Marcella Perani.

In the late sixties she started her film career as a character actress as Marcella Michelangeli. On May 30, 1971, she made headlines in the newspapers with her arrest along with producer and director Farouk Agrama (her partner at the time) for possession of about 6 grams of drugs, the actress, however, was released after three days. She was married to actor Lou Castel in the 1970s. On television, she played the role of the writer Oriana Fallaci in the television drama ‘Panagulis Lives’ (1982), directed by Giuseppe Ferrara.

Her most significant film role was that of a lesbian in “Immacolata e Concetta, l'altra gelosia”, directed by Salvatore Piscicelli, that aroused quite a scandal in 1979 for the numerous and realistic sex scenes. She appeared in several crime films. Among her 20+ film roles were two Euro-westerns: “And God Said to Cain” (1969) as Maria Acomber and “Arizona Returns” (1970) with Anthony Steffen.

In the eighties she suffered a personal crisis and abandoned the film industry. Today she lives in Rome where she is celebrating her 70^th birthday.