Cheesecake!

Marisa Mell was a child of the "Flower Power" era of the 60's and early 70's when being totally nude as an established actress was still very revolutionary and mainly not done! Together with other famous actresses of that moment like Ursula Andress, Silva Koscina, Elke Sommer, Virna Lisi,... and many others she had no problem in being photographed in the nude by famous art photographers like Angelo Frontoni for magazines like Playboy, Hustler, Mayfair.... So when the promotion of her latest movie "Historia de una Traicion" from 1971 was discussed by the producers, they asked her, in the vain of the steamy love scenes in the movie, to do a nude photo shoot to draw the attention to their latest product! This was not a problem as you can see by the enclosed pictures in this entry. These pictures have not been seen in 40 years and have surfaced only recently. They show a very relaxed and playfull Marisa Mell completely at ease with her own nudity in front of the camera.

The Man Who Loved Sirens!

During the course of the past two years this blog has highlighted several times the career of one of Italy's and probably the world's best movie star and fashion photographer: Angelo Frontoni. During almost 50 years, from the 1950's untill his untimely death in 2002, Angelo Frontoni was "the glamour photographer" for magazine's like Vogue, Harper's Bazar, Photo, Paris Match, Stern, Playboy... and many, many more. Angelo Frontoni with Sophia Loren

This amazing photographer with an unsurpassed eye for the use of light, color and composition entered the professional field around 1957 when one of his best friends starlet Gina Lollobrigida asked him to photograph her on and off set during the filming of her latest movie "La donna più bella del mondo". That was all the start of his career needed. He never looked back. In the course of several years his stardom rose never to be faded. After his death in 2002 Angelo Frontoni left an archive of more than 500.000 photo's being one of the most important historic archives in the world of movie and fashion history. Because of the importance of this archive, it's curatorship was devided between two important Italian movie organisations: "Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia" and "Museo Nationale del Cinema". This guaranteed that his legacy would never get lost, was archived in the most professional way and would become object of study for many future generations of movie students, photographers, fashion addicts...

To honor this great photographer, both organisations created in 2007 a traveling exhibition called "Angelo Frontoni: Mediterraneo - Bellezze Al Bagno" under the curatorship of Sergio Toffetti. During this exhibition, 30 photo's were shown taken by Frontoni between 1960-1970 of the then most famous female stars and starlets in Italian cinema while they were relaxing during the hot summer months on one of Italy's many beaches like Fregene, Ostia, Fiumicino, Sabaudia or Sperlonga. They show the actresses in completely different settings than the classic movie sets or photo studios, not staged or arranged by public relation agencies during a time when beauty was still natural without plastic surgery or any other gimmick. (Virna Lisi, co-star with Marisa Mell in two movies: "Casanova '70" in 1965 and "Le Dolci Signore" in 1968) (Elsa Martinelli, co-star with Marisa Mell in "Una Sull'Altra" in 1969.)
(Edwige Fenech, giallo and Italian sexy comedy still reigning Eurocult-queen. Strangely Marisa Mell never made a movie with her!)
(Anna Maria Ferrero, forgotten Italian cult actress with more than 50 movies to her credit from 1950 untill 1964. She left the movie business after marrying another Eurocult star Jean Sorel, co-star with Marisa Mell in "Una Sull'Altra" in 1969. They are still married!)(German star Elke Sommer, during the filming of one of her most sexy movies "Deadlier Than Male" in 1968. She will turn 70 this year on November 5th.)(Annette Froyberg, later Annette Vadim, after marrying French director Roger Vadim. Annette Vadim was Ken Russell's first choice for the role of Françoise Fayol in his 1964 movie "French Dressing". She fell ill during pre-production and was replaced by Marisa Mell.)(Anna Maria Pierangeli, better known as "Pier Angeli", was one of the 50's and 60's cult actresses in Europa and America. She was once engaged to James Dean, Kirk Douglas but ultimately married superstar singer Vic Damone. Unfortenately, their married life ended in a War of the Roses-type of divorce leaving her devastated. Once in Europe, she tried to revive her career but it was not to be so she killed herself at the age of 37 in her home in Beverly Hills, Hollywood on September 10th 1971.) (Alessandra Panaro played during the 50's and 60's mostly in peplum and western movies. She left the business around 1965, although appeared again last year to do an episode on a long running Brazilian sitcom at the age of 70.)

The Case of the Missing Actress!

Marisa Mell was active in the movie industry from the end of the 50's untill the beginning of the 90's. When you look at her filmography, you see that she played at the end of her career in 1984 in a German movie called "Niemand weint für immer" with former 60's star Elke Sommer and singer Howard Carpendale. The film is also known as "No One Cries For Ever", "Cathy" or "Death Threat". This film is nothing more than a publicity stunt for the German romantic singer Howard Carpendale, who's origins are in South Africa and since more than 40 years a big star in Germany. So the central plot of the movie plays in South Africa and Howard Carpendale is a veterinary and game warden in one of the many animal parks. He falls in love with a mysterious young women played by Zoli Marki. Later in the movie it comes clear that she is a prostitute and Elke Sommer is her "Madame". Hero Howard Carpendale wants to rescue her from the hands of the prostitute ring but in the end she pays a high price for her freedom. Then the movie becomes a revenge movie. So far so good, standard fare, nothing special. When you look at the credits of the movie in the various indexes like Wikipedia, IMDB, Google... the name of Marisa Mell is everytime mentioned as one of the actresses in the movie. And now the "Case of the Missing Actress" kicks in. After seeing the movie, Marisa Mell is nowhere to be found in this film nor in the end credits. At first I thought, due to the boring story of the movie, that I had slept through her part in the movie but after a second viewing the mystery stayed the same. No Marisa Mell to be found in South Africa! This sparkled my curiosity. I started a search on the internet and in other reference material to find more info about her role in this movie. The mystery did not get resolved, just the opposite happened as the mystery got deeper and became a complete question mark. The strange thing is that in each filmography of Marisa Mell on several movie pages, not one page can give you the name of the character she played or what influence her part had in the whole plot. It is very clear that some source started this mystery by mentioning her as an actress in this movie and every other movie reference page and index copied that information without checking if this really was the case. Maybe I could find in some photo references some pictures of the movie with Marisa Mell and some characters but helas those references were also not much of a help. No picture can be found that links Marisa Mell to this movie. So my conclusion is that the movie "Niemand weint für immer" never had Marisa Mell in it's cast. Maybe she was in option to play the part of Elke Sommer but lost it for some, as yet unknown, reason it to her. Who knows??? But I could be wrong!

Can you solve the "Case of the Missing Actress???"