Ilona Staller

Ilona was born in Budapest, Hungary. Her father, László Staller,[2] 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, at age 12, 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.[3] By the age of 25, and during her hotel work, she met an older Italian national named Salvatore Martini whom she later married in 1968.[4]

Naturalized through marriage and settled in Italy, Staller met pornographer Riccardo Schicchi in the early 1970s. Starting in 1973, she gained fame with her radio show called Voulez-vous coucher avec moi? on Radio Luna. For that program, she adopted the name Cicciolina,[3] and she referred to her male fanbase, and later the male members of the Italian parliament, as cicciolini ("little tubby boys").[5] While she appeared in several films from 1970, she made her debut under her own name in 1975 with La liceale (also known as The Teasers), where she played alongside Gloria Guida as her lesbian classmate.

Staller in the 1975 film L'ingenua

In 1978, during the RAI show C'era due Volte, Staller's breasts were the first to be bared live on Italian TV.[3] In 1983, she appeared in her first hardcore pornographic film, Telefono rosso ("Red Telephone"). Staller 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, titled The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empress in the United States, co-starring John Holmes. The film caused controversy when it was later revealed that Holmes had tested positive for HIV prior to appearing in it.[6] Staller has appeared nude in Playboy editions in several countries. Her first Playboy appearance was in Argentina in March 1988. She also appeared in the U.S. edition in September 1990, and in Hungary (June 2005), Serbia (July 2005), and Mexico (September 2005).

In 1987, invited by a local magazine, Staller visited the Portuguese Parliament and posed topless, leading to the suspension of the session and official complaints from members of CDS. Natália Correia was the only member seen talking to the Italian member of parliament.[7][8][9]

Staller appeared in the film Replikator (1996) and had a role in the Brazilian soap opera Xica da Silva as Princess Ludovica di Castelgandolfo di Genova, also in 1996.[10]

In 2008, Staller participated as a contestant on the Argentine version of Strictly Come Dancing called Bailando por un Sueño.

In 1979, Staller was presented as a female candidate to the Italian parliament by the Lista del Sole, Italy's first Green party. In 1985, she switched to the Partito Radicale, campaigning on a libertarian platform against nuclear energy and NATO membership, as well as for human rights. She was elected to the Italian parliament in 1987, with approximately 20,000 votes. While in office, and before the outset of the Gulf War, she offered to have sex with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in return for peace in the region.[11] She was not re-elected at the end of her term in 1991.[12]

Staller at a protest in Rome, 1989

In 1991, Staller was among the founders of another Italian political movement, called Partito dell'Amore ("Party of Love"), which was spearheaded by friend and fellow porn star Moana Pozzi. In January 2002, she began exploring the possibility of campaigning in Hungary, her country of birth, to represent Budapest's industrial Kőbánya district in the Hungarian parliament. However, she failed to collect enough petition 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 she attracted few votes. In 2004, she announced plans to run for mayor of Milan with a similar promise. She renewed her offer to have sex with Saddam Hussein in October 2002, when Iraq was resisting international pressure to allow inspections for weapons of mass destruction,[5] and in April 2006, she made the same offer to Osama bin Laden.[13]

In September 2011, it was revealed that Staller was eligible for and would be receiving a yearly pension of 39,000 euros from the Italian state as a result of her five years in the country's parliament.[14] Reacting to the controversy raised by the news, the former porn star, who started receiving the pension in November 2011, when she turned 60, stated: "I earned it and I'm proud of it."[15]

In 2012, Staller founded the Democracy, Nature and Love Party (DNA). Its objectives included the legalization of same-sex marriage, the reopening of former brothels ("closed houses"), a guaranteed minimum wage for young people, improvements to the judiciary, and the elimination of the privileges of the rich political "caste".

Staller was also a candidate, on a proposal by blogger Luca Bagatin, in administrative elections in Rome on 26 and 27 May 2013, on the list 'Republicans and Liberals'.

Staller has recorded several songs, mostly from live performances, with explicit lyrics being sung to a children's melody. Her most famous song is "Muscolo rosso", a song entirely dedicated to il cazzo, which means "the dick" in Italian. Because of its extensive use of profanity, the song could not be released in Italy, but became a hit in other countries, especially in France. The song gained considerable popularity in the internet era, when many Italian speakers were able to hear it for the first time.

Several unreleased songs were recorded during her RCA period and the Diva Futura agency period. Some of these unreleased songs were subsequently used during her TV shows and live performances or as soundtracks in her porn movies.

She was the muse of American artist Jeff Koons, who persuaded her to collaborate on a series of sculptures and photographs of them having sex in many positions, settings and costumes, which were exhibited under the title Made in Heaven and made waves at the 1990 Venice Biennale. Staller married Koons in 1991.[16] In 1992 they had a son, but separated the following year, partly because Staller refused to stop making porn. Their marriage ended in 1994. In violation of a U.S. court order, (Koons had custody of their son) Staller left the US for Italy, taking their then-two-year-old son.[17][18][19] In 2008, Staller filed suit against Koons for failing to pay child support.[3][20]

Staller is an accomplished chess player, having learned from her father while growing up in Hungary. In July 2021 it was announced she would demonstrate her ability in an exhibition match, taking on four top players simultaneously.[21]

In 1980, an erotic comics series, La Cicciolina, was made by Giovanni Romanini and Lucio Filippucci, based on the actress.[22][23]

Italian metal band Bulldozer released the tracks "Ilona the Very Best" on their 1987 album IX and "Ilona Had Been Elected" on their 1988 album Neurodeliri in dedication to her.[24][25] Later in 2005, Japanese metal band Abigail released the compilation "Abigail Loves Ilona, as She Is the Very Best" featuring a photograph of Ilona as the album art, and includes several Bulldozer covers.[26]

British band Pop Will Eat Itself released a song called "Touched by the Hand of Cicciolina" as an unofficial World Cup single in July 1990. The song reached number 28 on the UK Singles Chart.[27]

American industrial 1990s band, Machines of Loving Grace, paid tribute to Cicciolina on their first, self-titled album and named a song after her.[28][29]

Brazilian musician Fausto Fawcett also wrote a song in tribute to Cicciolina, titled "Cicciolina (O Cio Eterno)", featured on his 1989 album Império dos Sentidos.

Chilean punk band Los Peores de Chile released a song titled "Chicholina" in 1994, which had heavy TV and radio airplay, receiving critical acclaim by the national music press at the time.[30]

Finnish singer Erika Vikman released a song titled "Cicciolina" on 26 January 2020. It was selected as one of six entries that competed to represent Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020.[31] The song finished in second place in the national selection.

In the 2020 Spanish television series Veneno, Cicciolina, played by Miriam Giovanelli, was portrayed attending to a party in Gran Canaria in 1996, where she met Spanish personality La Veneno.

In 2020 electronic music duo Brutalismus 3000 released a song titled Cicciolina, the first track of their album named Amore Hardcore. In the song they refer to Ilona Staller and her life.

In 2023 Oska Wald from the band Chuckamuck released a song entitled "Pizza Amore", in which he refers to a fictional pizza called "Pizza Cicciolina".[32]

• Filippucci, Lucio; Giovanni Romanini; Ubaldi (1989). Les aventures de Cicciolina. France: Média 1000. Graphic novel about her life (in French)
• Staller, Ilona; Riccardo Schicchi (1992). Cicciolina. Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-9761-2. Large-format Italian, German, English and French language album
• Barbano, Nicolas (1999). Verdens 25 hotteste pornostjerner. Denmark: Rosinante. ISBN 87-7357-961-0. Features a chapter on Cicciolina (in Danish)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ilona Staller.

• Official website (in Italian)
• Ilona Staller at IMDb 
• Cicciolina at the Internet Adult Film Database