Silvana Perriello

This is a Gylian name. The surname is Perriello. This person is customarily referred to by the given name Silvana.

Silvana Perriello
Born	25 September 1925 Mosa, Megelan
Died	5 January 2016(2016-01-05) (aged 90) Valona, Alţira, Gylias
Occupation	Actress director producer musician

Silvana Perriello (25 September 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a Megelanese–Gylian actress, director, producer, and musician. She became a well-known character actress and had a reputation for dependability and professionalism, which allowed her to maintain a consistent pace of work until her death.

Early life

Silvana was born on 25 September 1925 in the commune of Mosa, Megelan. Little is known of her early years, in part because she enjoyed the image of someone who had been plucked from complete obscurity and thrust into stardom. One of her biographers successfully established that her family occasionally crossed the border and lived in Norvia for safety during the Warlord Era. She was otherwise educated in Megelan.

She entered a national beauty pageant in 1946, among the first held in the country after the Warlord Era. She won the contest, and thus launched her film career.

Career

Megelan

Silvana's breakthrough role was in the 1951 comedy Bellezze in biciclette ("Beauties on Bicycles"), in which she starred alongside Edy Campagnoli and Milva as a brunette–blonde–redhead trio of friends. It was one of the year's most popular Megelanese films, enough to gain a sequel, Bellezze in motorette ("Beauties on Motor Scooters").

She quickly became a popular pin-up model and sex symbol, a quality that her choice of roles pandered to. She was also musically trained and could sing and play piano, leading her to record several songs, released as singles between 1947 and 1957.

Gylias

Silvana moved to the Free Territories in 1955, and remained there after the Liberation War, while returning to Megelan regularly for film work. She forged an eclectic career in Gylias: apart from acting, she also worked as a session musician, and became a producer and director.

Silvana, photographed by Viviane Mayer

Building on her sex symbol reputation, Silvana carved out a niche for herself as a character actress. She built her persona on comically playing with Italian stereotypes. Her signature role was that of a loud-mouthed, hot-tempered bombshell, whose arrogance is counterbalanced by her wit.

Although her characters were rarely explicitly characterised as "wicked", the concept was a clear influence on her work, of which she commented: "To have a career like this, I had to learn the art of insulting someone with no disrespect." One running gag of her films was to have her characters use simple vulgarity when relaxed, but combine her swears with unexpected politeness when agitated — resulting in memorable lines like Vaffanculo per favore ("Please go fuck yourself").

Orgone film and georgette comedies provided another touchstone for her films. In particular, she borrowed the contradictory comedy techniques of Sandra, portraying her characters as overestimating their talents, luck, or even sex appeal, but too bullheaded to yield to challenges, and ultimately managing to squeeze out at least a moral victory. One of her best-known scenes showed her arguing with a Gylian Police employee:

Silvana: "Se non e' un problema, agente testa di cazzo, potrebbe gentilmente andare affanculo?" ("If it's not too much trouble, Constable Dickhead, could you please go eat shit?")

(pause)

Constable: (calmly) "Oui, madame, bien sur." ("Yes, madame, certainly.")

(Silvana is somewhat surprised, and takes a moment to compose herself.)

Silvana: "Grazie mille, sei molto gentile." ("Thank you very much, you're very kind.")

(She walks away with a proud yet hurried gait.)

Director

Fascinated by the process of filmmaking, Silvana discovered an aptitude for production and directing. She ended up usually directing her own films, joking that "it saves me the trouble of arguing with directors who don't understand my character". She also directed others' projects, becoming a regular collaborator for Imperial Films.

By her own admission, her directing style was economical and utilitarian, but flexible: she could easily adapt to the needs of a project, regardless of style or genre. Sári Gábor praised Silvana for her consistency: "She knew exactly what her strengths and weaknesses were, never went out of her comfort zone, and could be counted on to deliver a nice little film with a bit of flair."

Although she never reached the same level of stardom as contemporaries like Brigitte Nyman and Alike Demetriou, Silvana was never out of work, and sustained a long career of consistent, if modest, success. Even within the banda italiana, she jokingly accepted the image of being Carla Miló's short-tempered right-hand woman. Her dependability allowed her to become a reassuringly familiar presence to filmgoers, with her character type being easily recognised and some of her quotes making their way into Gylian pop culture.

One of her best-known films was 1962's La Camerlenga (The Chamberlain), which presented a fanciful biography of Valentina Potenza, based on her memoirs. As a director, Silvana used ironic humour and fourth-wall breaking to make the audience sympathise and identify with Valentina even as the film portrayed her elitism and manipulation. She also played Valentina, drawing on her existing character type to portray Valentina as "an irresistibly charming rascal" and "a seductive representative of power in itself". The film was a critical and commercial success, with her portrayal of Valentina garnering particular acclaim; L'Petit Écho's review stated that she "played Valentina to swaggering perfection".

Reputation

Silvana on set, 1970s

It was a cherished irony of the Gylian film industry that despite her mercurial presence on screen, Silvana was highly regarded by her fellow actors.

In private, she was known as gregarious, good-humoured, and generous. She was part of the banda italiana, a group of fellow Italians that included Carla Miló, Les Myas, Elsa Martinelli, Anna Maria Guerra, Edwige Ferré, Vittorio Marchi and Paolo Giussani. The group was known for its tight-knit camaraderie, regular ensemble work, collaborations, and social outings, and humorous boosterism of Italian culture and playing with Italian stereotypes.

Many crew members would humorously recall having known her only from her screen work, only to discover that she was actually considerate and even pious; after each take she had a habit of quietly apologising to the Lady of the East for her swearing.

Assessments

Silvana's technique was praised by Brynhild Svendsen in one of her later interviews, who elaborated:

"To do what she does—construct a tough-as-nails surface but wink at others to reassure them it's all in good fun—and to do it consistently, without fail, it takes a spark of genius. To have that courage to run right up to the edge of irritation and the discipline to pull back at the right moment…she knows exactly what she's doing. If not for film, she would've been a great tightrope walker."

Gylias Review wrote in a retrospective that "Silvana treated her characters with empathy and amusement, playing their outbursts for burlesque, and thus achieved a compelling mix of stubbornness and vulnerability. If Esua Nadel praised the importance of good arguments, Silvana raised them to an art form."

Silvana loved to joke that her filmography doubled as an unconventional couples therapy, since it presented models of romantic relationships in which affectionate teasing and taking pleasure in the art of vulgarity and witty insults take a central role. She recalled receiving much fan mail from female viewers, who appreciated the way she avoided turning her characters into simple shrews, and infused what seemed like "nagging wives and girlfriends" with playful humour and sexuality, turning them into plausible and attractive romantic partners.

Later work

She was interviewed for the 1999 documentary Nation Building. One of the few times she dropped character on screen, her appearance was an unexpected highlight, as she reflected on her unconventional yet satisfying career path, and emotionally expressed gratitude for Gylias as "the only country that's understood my bizarre drive to take unpleasant characters and try to make them charming and attractive. Anywhere else, I'd be locked away in a loony bin."

A teetotaler and a "fitness fanatic", Silvana was in robust health into her final years, and managed to sustain an active schedule of releasing one film per year. She maintained her characters' sexually-charged personalities, but paired them off with age-appropriate partners.

Death

Silvana was hospitalised shortly after her 90th birthday and underwent abdominal surgery, but never recovered. She died in a Valona hospital on 5 January 2016.

In accordance with her wishes, her body was cremated, and a humanist memorial service was organised, in which former colleagues recounted their most outrageous anecdotes and delivered vulgar insult comedy-laced tributes in imitation of her style.

Downtown wrote in its obituary: "No one has managed to spew obscenities or stomp their foot at life's inconveniences as lovingly as Silvana Perriello. One of the undisputed queens of the tough broad with a heart of gold, the secret to her longevity was a lack of malice. She loved arguing for the sake of it, and made audiences love the sound of arguing."

Private life

Silvana had a string of relationships throughout her life, without marrying or having children.

She was a practitioner of Megelanese traditional witchcraft. She quipped, "You can't do what I did successfully without secretly being an upstanding do-gooder softie."