Actors - Ilona Staller

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	Actors - Ilona Staller

Honourable Ilona Staller (born Anna Elena Staller on 26 November 1951), also known by her stage name Cicciolina, is an Italian-Hungarian porn star turned politician.

Biography

She was born in Budapest. Her stepfather was an official in the Ministry of the Interior, her mother a midwife. In 1964, she began working for the Hungarian modelling agency, M.T.I. According to her memoirs, she lost her virginity at sixteen with an African student. In her memoirs and in a 1999 TV interview, she claimed that she had provided Hungarian authorities with information on American diplomats staying at a Budapest luxury hotel where she worked as a maid in the late 1960s.

Naturalized by marriage and settled in Italy, she met pornographer Riccardo Schicchi in early 1970s, beginning in 1973, achieved fame with a radio show called "Voulez vous coucher avec moi?" on Radio Luna . For that program she adopted the name "La Cicciolina", meaning "cuddles" in Italian (then moved to other variants: calling the fans "Cicciolini", her teddybear "Cicciolino"). Although she appeared in several films since 1970, she made her filming debut with her own name in 1975 with La liceale (U.S. title: The Teasers) playing Monica, a lesbian classmate of Gloria Guida. In 1978, on the RAI show "C'era due Volte" her breasts were the first to be seen bared on Italian TV.

Her first film of exclusive hardcore pornography was Il telefono rosso in 1983. In her films, she often appeared in group sex scenes with multiple male and female partners, often engaging in sexual activities such as anal sex, double penetration, and watersports. In her 1986 film Cicciolina Number One - Horsepower, her counterpart Denise Dior is seen performing fellatio on a horse, sometimes leading to the misconception that it was Staller who performed this sexual act. She starred in her last porn film in 1989.

Staller married American sculptor Jeff Koons in 1991. Koons produced sculptures and paintings of Staller and him having sex which were exhibited as "Made in Heaven". Their marriage broke up in 1992, and their son Ludwig was born shortly afterwards. Staller left the US with the child, and a lengthy custody battle ensued. Koons won custody in 1998 but the son remains with Staller in Italy.

Political career

In 1979 she was elected the leading candidate of the "Lista del Sole", Italy's first Green Party. In 1985 she switched to the Partito Radicale, campaigning against nuclear energy and NATO membership, for human rights, and against starvation anywhere in the world. She was elected to the Italian parliament in 1987, with 20.000 preferences, representing the Lazio district of Rome. In that election, she was actually the second most voted person in the Radical Party, after the leader Marco Pannella, but she was not re-elected at the end of her term.

She announced in September 1990, when it was becoming clear that the Gulf war was inevitable, "I am available to make love with [Iraqi dictator] Saddam Hussein to achieve peace in the Middle East". She renewed the offer in October 2002, when Iraq was resisting international pressure to allow inspections for weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

She continues to be active in politics, advocating a safe future without nuclear energy and with absolute sexual freedom including the right to sex in prisons. She is against all forms of violence including the death penalty and the use of animals for fur or scientific experimentation. She is for the decriminalisation of drugs, against censorship of any kind, in favour of sex education in schools, and for objective information about AIDS. She has proposed a tax on automobiles to reduce the damages of smog and fund the defence of nature.

In January 2002, she began exploring the possibility of campaigning in Hungary, where she was born, to represent Budapest's industrial Kőbánya district in the Hungarian parliament but failed to collect enough signatures for a non-partisan candidacy. In the same year she ran in local elections in Monza, Italy, promising to convert a prominent building into a gambling casino, but attracted few votes. In 2004 she announced that she would run for mayor of Milan in 2006 with a similar promise.

Whatever the reasons for her political activity, the publicity cannot fail to help her commercial interests whether she wins or loses elections.

Musical career

During her career she has also recorded several songs, mostly from her live performances. The songs almost always deal with sex, because her aim was mostly to bring pornography into music as well. But the result is generally more comical than erotic, with explicit lyrics being sung over a childish melody. Her most famous song is Muscolo Rosso, a song entirely dedicated to il cazzo (the prick in Italian). Because of its extensive use of swearwords she could never release it in Italy, but it became a hit in other countries, especially in France, where people could not imagine the real sense of the lyrics. This song gained considerable popularity in the Internet era when a lot of Italian speakers were able to hear it for the first time. She has released recordings in many countries, reflecting her world-wide popularity, and her records are top collectors' items. Quotation of her vinyls are usually high, thanks to nude covers and also due to the fact that she is actually a gay icon.

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