How "Marisa Mell" became "Edwige Fenech"!

Back in the days before the Internet, fans of Euro Cult movies like Giallo, Eurospy and Spaghetti Westerns... often had a hard time to find more info about their beloved movies, directors and stars. They were often viewed as trash, B-Z movies or whatever kind of name they came up with to put on them! Thankfully some hard core fans in Europe found it their duty to write and publish about them by publishing fan magazines like the still excellent "Cine Zine Zone" (1978-2003) in France by the sadly missed Pierre Charles, who published 136 issues of his magazine (with one special issue entirely dedicated to Marisa Mell in his series "Les Déesses du Cinema du Quartier")
or the British publication "Giallo Pages" by John Martin, known as one of the überfans of the Italian movies and his love for everthing giallo.The first issue of Giallo Pages was published in 1993 with cover date March/April/May. It had among other items an interview with Dario Argento, Michele Soavi, David Warbeck... and because Marisa Mell had died a year before an obituary called "Goodbye Marisa Mell". The cover of this issue was quite shocking composing two movie stills "Antropophagus" with George Eastman and "L'orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock" with Barbara Steele. In the lower right hand corner you got a little daring photo of a semi nude Marisa Mell from her best movie for many fans "Una Sull'Altra" by Lucio Fulci.

Publishing a magazine of any kind is a hard business because it asks a lot of time, money, creativity and endurance from the publisher or editor to keep on publishing. Not many people were able to copy the gigantic work of Pierre Charles with his magazine Cine Zine Zone. So John Martin ceased to publish his magazine after a 6 issue run in May of 1999 (Cover: a white dressed Diabolik). Giallo Pages had not a big print run but had excellent articles so many fans, especially in the USA, who had missed the first issues were looking for these hard to find issues to complete their collection in a pre-Ebay time when instant gratification did not exist like it does today. American publisher "Draculina Publishing" took the opportunity in 1996 and published an American version of the first issue of Giallo Pages. The publisher did not copy the original British issue to an American version but took some liberties for the American market!

They dropped the editoral page together with the Giallo Pages logo. Three illustrations from the content page were deleted. Pages 9, 11 and 15 have differences in illustrations than the original. Page 43 with the Marisa Mell obituary is missing completely. The "Trauma" back cover is replaced by a "Danger Diabolik" photo. On the cover Marisa Mell with her breasts in full is replaced by Edwige Fenech covering her breasts. The publisher forgot on the American version to remove the reference to the Marisa Mell orbituary called "Marisa Mell Remembered". Why did the publisher change Marisa Mell to Edwige Fenech? Probably because the photo of Marisa Mell is quite daring with her arms in the air and her breast in full view for an American market at that time. Or maybe he tought that Edwige Fenech was more known to the American Euro Cult fans than Marisa Mell who had not made many films since the 80's and had almost slipt into obscurity. Who knows! Fact is that only issue # 1 got reprinted.

Orbituary - Der Spiegel - Germany (22/1992)

"MARISA MELL, 53. Her real name was Marlies Moitzi and she lived like any other women: she cooked, knitted, played piano and painted pictures. Before this beauty with cat’s eyes became part of the international jet set as a “Femme Fatale”, she went to school in a nunnery, a school of commerce in Graz and the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna. With English, Italian and French movies, she started a rocket career in the sixties: “What’s New, Pussycat!” with Peter O’Toole and Woody Allen on her side or “Casanova ‘70” with Marcello Mastroianni. Her wages were during a while higher than these of Claudia Cardinale. On Broadway meanwhile, she failed with the musical “Mata Hari”. With her love affaires and memories from the good life she kept up the appearence of being wanted by the rich and powerful. Her serious attemps to work again in theatre (1990 in Franz Innerhofers “Orvieto” and in Oktober 1991 in the play “Love Letters”) had to be aborted due to her illness. Marisa Mell died saterday before last in Vienna due to thyroids cancer." (Free translation)

NOTE: Yeah, Marisa Mell was a real housewife in the '60's? Forget it! Marisa Mell never played in the movie "What's New, Pussycat" nor did she acted with Peter O'Toole or Woody Allen. It is not clear where the journalist got his information from but obviously he is mixing up some facts and has some other actress in mind while writing this orbituary which is kind of strange because "Der Spiegel" is always known as a very trustworthy magazine!