Gabriella Giorgelli

Gabriella Giorgelli — Biography

Gabriella Giorgelli was born on 29 July 1941 in Fossola, a district of Carrara, to a father who worked in the marble business and a homemaker mother. After her parents separated she moved with her mother to Castelpoggio, and financial hardship led to her being placed, at age ten, in a convent school in Carrara; from fifteen she worked jobs including pizza-making and bartending.

She made her film debut in 1960 in a minor role in Luigi Comencini's Everybody Go Home, and reaching the finals of Miss Italia in 1961 brought her the media attention that opened the door to more substantial parts. After 1964's The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers, she appeared in Brutti di notte and I 2 deputati in 1968 and Il clan dei due Borsalini in 1971; 1972 brought both the giallo Seven Blood-Stained Orchids and the Decameron-spoofing comedy Decameroticus, followed by San Pasquale Baylonne protettore delle donne in 1976.

By the late 1960s she was landing lead roles in spaghetti Westerns and Italian comedies riffing on The Decameron, balanced with supporting parts in more prestigious productions, and went on to appear in The Wild Team (1985) and The Wax Mask (1997). Remembered for playing Adele in I compagni, Giorgelli also appeared in photo comics including Sadistik, was interviewed in the documentary The Diabolikal Super-Kriminal, worked as an erotic photography model, and took part in more than seventy films through 1998.