Who Are Those Gals? ~ Emma Cohen

Emma Cohen was born Emmanuela Beltrán Rahola on November 21, 1946 in Barcelona, Spain. She was a popular Euro-starlet in the 1970s, working with such notable directors as Eloy de la Iglesia, León Klimovsky and Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent. Flitting between comedy, drama and thriller, but her appearances in a handful of cult horror pictures however is what she would be mostly remembered for. Emma made her debut in Jorge Grau’s 1968 musical ‘Tuset Street’, before playing a vampire in Jess Franco’s strangely popular ‘Count Dracula’ in 1970. After a small role as a farmer’s daughter in the popular mystery ‘The Glass Ceiling’ (’70) Cohen played the daughter of Curd Jürgens’ betrayed husband, in the excellent giallo ‘Two Males for Alexa’ (’71), which had the beautiful Rosalba Neri as the cheating wife. A change of pace that year saw Emma alongside Brigitte Bardot and Claudia Cardinale in the entertaining slapstick-filled western ‘The Legend of Frenchie King’ (’71). She was fun to watch, playing Bardot’s crazy and very short-sighted half-sister and fellow outlaw. The following year saw Cohen in two of her most memorable pictures. First there was Joaquin Romero Marchent’s superb but gory western ‘Cutthroats 9’ (’72), a downbeat tale of a chain-gang of killers discovering that their chains are in fact made of gold. Emma played the daughter of the sergeant escorting the gang, who falls for one of the chained killers. Then there was Eloy de la Iglesia’s cult horror flick ‘The Cannibal Man’ (’72), where she played the fiance and later, victim, of a man who finds he must kill in order to cover up an earlier accidental killing. Atmospheric and sometimes grisly, the movie was once banned in the UK, and was the first film to be shown in theatres with free vomit-bags!

With her best movie work behind her, Cohen ventured into television, though she did find time to appear in the excellent comedy-drama ‘Voyage to Nowhere’ (’86), about a traveling family of theatre performers in 1950’s Spain. A multi-award winner, it was a standout in Spanish cinema, and has remained a favorite with Spanish viewers. Mainly retired, Emma would only appear in about half a dozen productions in the intervening years, with a small role in 2005’s ‘The Hidden’ the most notable.

Married to acclaimed actor/director Fernando Fernán Gómez [1921-2007] whom she married in 2000, Cohen succumbed to cancer, on July 11, 2016 in Ciudad Santo Domingo, Madrid, Madrid, Spain. She was 69 years old.

COHEN, Emma (Emmanuela Beltrán Rahola) [11/21/1946, Barcelona, Barcelona, Cataluna, Spain - 7/11/2016, Ciudad Santo Domingo, Madrid, Madrid, Spain (cancer)] – producer, director, writer, film actress, married to actor Fernando Fernán Gómez (Fernando Fernández Gómez) [1921-2007] (2000–2007)

Cut-Throats Nine – 1970 (Katy/Cathy/Sarah Brown)

The Legend of Frenchie King – 1971 (Virginie)

Spaghetti Western 1974 (Mary Ann Pulitzer)