1965 CANADIAN SILVER DOLLAR

German postcard by Kruger, nr. 902/255.

Glamorous Elsa Martinelli (1932) is an Italian actress and former fashion model. She showed her beautiful curves in many European and Hollywood productions of the 1950’s and 1960’s, but somehow never became the star she was destined to become in the mid-1950’s.

Elsa Martinelli was born Elsa Tia , in Grosseto, Tuscany, in 1932, according to All Movie Guide, or 1935, according to IMDb. With her family she moved to Rome. In 1953 , while working as a barmaid, she was discovered by designer Roberto Capucci who introduced her to the world of fashion. She became a model and began playing small roles in films. She appeared in Le Rouge et le noir/Scarlet and Black (1954, Claude Autant-Lara), but her first important film role came the following year with the American western The Indian Fighter (1955, Andre De Toth), in which she played the Native American heroine opposite Kirk Douglas. Douglas claims to have spotted her on a magazine cover and hired her for his production company, Bryna Productions. In 1956 she won the Silver Berlin Bear Award for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival for playing the title role in the comedy Donatella (1956, Mario Monicelli). Since then, she divided her time between Europe and the USA and has appeared in such films as Four Girls in Town (1956, Jack Sher) with George Nader, Manuela/The Stowaway Girl (1957, Guy Hamilton) with Trevor Howard, the historical drama I Battellieri del Volga/Prisoner of the Volga (1959, Victor Tourjansky) with John Derek, the excellent drama La notte brava/The Big Night (1959, Mauro Bolognini) scripted by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the romance Un amore a Roma/Love in Rome (1960, Dino Risi) and the haunting and surreal horrorfilm Et mourir de plaisir/Blood and Roses (1960, Roger Vadim), an attempt to retell the classic Sheridan Le Fanu vampire tale Carmilla, starring Annette Vadim (or Annette Stroyberg).

One of Elsa Martinelli’s most interesting films is Orson Welles’ adaptation of Kafka's The Trial, Le Proces (1962, Orson Welles). Anthony Perkins played Joseph K, a man condemned for an unnamed crime in an unnamed country. Seeking justice, he is sucked into a labyrinth of bureaucracy. Along the way, he becomes involved with three women -- Jeanne Moreau, Romy Schneider and Martinelli - who in their own individual ways are functions of the System that persecutes him. In the action and adventure comedy Hatari! (1962, Howard Hawks) Martinelli was the eye candy in a cast with John Wayne, Gerard Blain, Red Buttons and Hardy Kruger. Wayne's men-only contingent is reduced to jello when Elsa enters the scene, but in tried and true Howard Hawks fashion, she quickly becomes ‘one of the guys’. In the comedy The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962, Melville Shavelson) she starred opposite Charlton Heston, and in The V.I.P.’s (1963, Anthony Asquith) she was the protegee of Orson Welles; in the South Seas adventure Rampage (1963, Phil Karlson) she co-starred with Robert Mitchum, in the stylish science fiction film La Decima Vittima/The 10th Victim (1965, Elio Petri) with Ursula Andress and Marcello Mastroianni, and in the episodic sex comedy Sette Volte Donna/Woman Times Seven (1967, Vittorio De Sica) with Lex Barker. In the big-budget adaptation of Terry Southern's satiric sex farce Candy (1968, Christian Marquand), she played Candy’s mother in a cast with Charles Aznavour, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, James Coburn, Walter Matthau and Ringo Starr. In Italy she made the near-surrealistic western Il mio corpo per un poker/Belle Starr (1968, Piero Cristofani, Lina Wertmuller), and a stylish erotic thriller, Una sull'altra/ One on Top of the Other (1969, Lucio Fulci), with Marisa Mell and Jean Sorel.

In the 1970’s the film career of Elsa Martinelli halted. She only appeared incidentally in European films. She starred opposite Charles Aznavour in the French caper film, La Part des Lions/ The Lions' Share (1971, Jean Larriaga) and played a supporting part in the political drama Garofano Rosso/The Red Carnation (1976, Luigi Faccini). On tv she appeared as a guest star in The Return of the Saint (1979) with Ian Ogilvy as Simon Templar. After Sono Un Fenomeno Paranormale/I'm a Paranormal Phenomenon (1985, Sergio Corbucci) with Alberto Sordi she made an unheralded international return appearances in Arrivederci Roma (1990, Clive Donner) and the inconsequential all-star comedy Once Upon a Crime (1992, Eugene Levy). Meanwhile she had started a new, successful career as an interior designer. Most recently she was seen in the short film Cabiria, Priscilla e le altre/Cabiria, Priscilla and the Others (1999, Fabrizio Celestini) and the tv-series Orgoglio (2005). Elsa Martinelli was married from 1957 till 1964 to Count Franco Mancinelli Scotti di San Vito, by whom she has a daughter, actress Cristiana Mancinelli (1958). In 1968 she married Paris Match photographer and 1970’s furniture designer Willy Rizzo, with whom she has

Model/Photographer: Lily Grantham
Hair: Truth (Stacie - Snow)
Skin: Lara Skins (Adina - Smokey 2 Pink Lips Pale)
Jacket: Coco (Denim jacket - Midnight)
Shirt: Su! (Long Sweater - Black)
Jeans: Emjay (Capri's Ripped Dark)
Boots: Adam and Eve (Tia Boots - Black)
Belt: Coco (Wrap Skinny Belt Studs - Silver)
Rings: Naith Smit (Blood Diamond and LeRock Diamond Ring)
Diamond Room Prop: Glitterati