Ilona Staller | |
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Ilona Staller at Eros Galicia at A Coruña in 2009
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Born |
Budapest, Hungary |
26 November 1951
Other names | Cicciolina |
Height | 168 cm (5 ft 6 in) |
Spouse(s) | Jeff Koons (1991–1998) |
Website | Official website (Italian) |
No. of adult films | 15 (per IAFD) |
The Honourable Ilona Staller |
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Rome Protest 1989
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Member of the Chamber of Deputies | |
In office 14 June 1987 – 5 April 1992 |
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Constituency | Lazio |
Personal details | |
Political party |
Partito Radicale (1987–1989) Partito dell'Amore (1991–1992) |
Profession | Actress Porn star Showgirl |
Ilona Staller (born 26 November 1951), widely known by her stage name, Cicciolina, is a Hungarian-Italian porn star, politician, and singer.
Ilona was born in Budapest, Hungary. Her father, László Staller, left the family when she was young. She was raised by her mother, who was a midwife, and her stepfather, who was an official in the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior.
In 1964, she began working as a model for the Hungarian news agency, M.T.I. In her memoirs and in a 1999 TV interview, she claimed that she had provided the Hungarian authorities with information on American diplomats staying at a Budapest luxury hotel where she worked as a maid in the 1960s. By the age of 25, and during her hotel work, she met an older Italian national named Salvatore Martini whom she later married.
Naturalized by marriage and settled in Italy, Staller met pornographer Riccardo Schicchi in the early 1970s, and, 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 Cicciolina. She referred to her male fanbase, and later the male members of the Italian parliament, as "cicciolini", translating loosely as "little tubby boys". Although she appeared in several films from 1970, she made her debut under her own name in 1975 with La liceale (aka The Teasers) by playing with Gloria Guida as her lesbian classmate.
In 1978, on the RAI show C'era due Volte, her breasts were the first to be bared live on Italian TV. Staller appeared in her first hardcore pornographic film, Telefono rosso (Red telephone) in 1983. She produced the film together with Schicchi's company Diva Futura. Her memoirs were published as Confessioni erotiche di Cicciolina (Erotic confessions of Cicciolina) by Olympia Press of Milan in 1987. That same year she appeared in Carne bollente , called The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empress in the United States, co-starring John Holmes. The film would later create a furor when it was revealed that Holmes had tested positive for HIV prior to appearing in it. Staller has appeared nude in Playboy's editions in several countries. Her first Playboy appearance was in Argentina in March 1988. Other appearances for the magazine were in the U.S. (September 1990), Hungary (June 2005), Serbia (July 2005) and Mexico (September 2005).