Edwige Fenech: The Maltese-Italian Movie Star Turned Sex Symbol Who Inspired A Quentin Tarantino Character
Have you ever wondered where Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds character Ed Fenech got his curiously Maltese surname from?
Well, Tarantino was mesmerised by the actress, film producer and sex symbol that is Edwige Fenech; a French born Italian movie star with a father who hails from the Maltese islands, and he named the character in her honour.
Tarantino also invited her to the Oscar winning film premier in Italy.
Edwige Fenech and Quentin Tarantino at the Italian premier of Inglourious Basterds
The actress was born in French Algeria to a Maltese father and Sicilian mother. She moved from Nice to Rome in 1967 for her first Italian film Samoa, Queen of the Jungle by Guido Malatesta.
With her long black hair, lovely and sensuous face, full shapely figure and smouldering screen presence, Fenech soon became a very popular and much sought-after actress in a diverse array of European productions made in Italy, France, Spain and West Germany.
Fenech is mostly known as the star of the subgenre commedia sexy all’italiana and giallo films released in the 1970’s which bolstered her into the sex symbol limelight.
The acclaimed talent quickly rose through the ranks and after many years of working in movie production, scored herself the co-producing role in The Merchant of Venice (2004) with Al Pacino.
More recently, the film star even nabbed a role in body horror sensation Hostel Part II, directed by Tarantino-acolyte Eli Roth.
Edwige Fenech
Fenech starred in a countless amount of productions, including those of Austrian filmmaker Franz Antel who, during the sexual revolution, switched his interest to soft porn and ribaldry.
Fenech acted in his internationally recognised Frau Wirtin series in the film Sexy Susan Sins Again (1968).
In the mid-1990s, Fenech was engaged to the well-known Italian industrialist Luca di Montezemolo and her son, Edwin, was the former CEO of the Ferrari Asia-Pacific, Ferrari Greater China and Ferrari North America.
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