Edwige Ferré
Edwige Ferré | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 25 December 1948 Eátha, Free Territories |
| Nationality | Gylian |
| Occupation |
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| Known for | La Poliziotta |
| Net worth |  Ŧ8 million (2020) |
| Children | 1 |
Edwige Ferré (Gylic transcription: Edvige Feré, born 25 December 1948) is a Gylian actress and film producer. Her acting career spanned both mainstream films and pornography, and she is mostly known as the star of the La Poliziotta pornographic series (1976–1984).
Early life
Edwige Ferré was born on 25 December 1948 in Eátha, in the Free Territories. Her father was a Megelanese volunteer in the People's Army, and her mother was Gylian, of partial German and French descent.
Her father left the Free Territories before the Liberation War ended due to hostility against his cathar anarchist beliefs, and she was raised mainly by her mother.
She was educated in Free Territories volunteer classes, and began attending primary school in 1958. During secondary school, she was a frequently distracted and inattentive student, and would skip classes to go into town and watch films. She completed her secondary education in 1963.
Career
Edwige began acting after leaving school. One of her first notable roles was in A Hard Day's Night, as one of the frenzied fans filmed in close-up during The Beaties' climactic concert.
She acted mainly in comedy films, took her first adult film role in 1968, and worked as a photographic model.
Around this time, she grew close to the banda italiana, a group of fellow Italians that included Carla Miló, Silvana Perriello, Les Myas, Elsa Martinelli, Anna Maria Guerra, 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. They served as mentors for Edwige in the early stage of her career.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, she continued to work in mainstream comedies and pornography. She increasingly combined the two strands and focused on sex comedy roles. She became interested in producing, and while on set would often ask crew members about their role in filmmaking.
La Poliziotta
In 1976, Edwige produced and starred in La poliziotta fa carriera, a "technically pornographic" comedy. The film gained positive reviews and became her most commercially successful release. She would produce a series of sequels, collectively known as the La Poliziotta ("The Policewoman") series, which became her greatest success.
Throughout the series, Edwige played Constable Gianna Amicucci, a ditzy and good-natured Gylian Police employee who gets into comedic, and often sex-related, misadventures. The appeal of the character was based on the contrast between her competence — proven by her successful qualification as a police employee — and her innocent quirks.
She described Gianna as "someone who hasn't been around any block any couple of times", but whose apparent naïvety made her down-to-earth and insightful. This quality expressed through unintentional, witty malapropisms, reminiscent of Jane Ace.
Edwige kept tight artistic control of the Poliziotta films. She used Italian as her character's primary language, out of a belief that it was well-suited for comedy. One review in The Etra Echo argued that "her delight in the sonorities of Italian and ability to tease out its faintly ridiculous aspects" was essential to her success. She kept the films low-budgeted and formulaic, with dry comedic sensibilities, and produced them in an "assembly line" fashion, releasing one per year.
The films used many aspects of Gylian pornography, ranging from sex scenes and nudity to eroticising Gianna's police uniform. Edwige sought to appeal to a wide audience, and used different films to appeal to different fetishes. During sexual scenes, she played Gianna as impish, innocent, and insatiable. She drew humour from Gylian sexual norms, including scenes where erotic situations pass comically unnoticed, and portrayed sexuality in a benign manner.
Edwige became quite wealthy from the Poliziotta films, and used her money to produce other films. She established a record label to release the films' acclaimed funk rock soundtracks, which would later be mined extensively for samples.
She ended the series with 1984's La poliziotta va in vacanza. "I sat down to think about a new film and discovered I was out of ideas," she said later, "so I simply didn't make any more."
Later career
Edwige largely retired from films in the 1980s, concentrating on her work as a film producer. She found regular work as a television presenter and personality, appearing often on 5 and ATV.
She was interviewed for Rasa Ḑeşéy's 2013 documentary Happy Orgasms.
Private life
Edwige is divorced and has a son, Edwin (born 1971), who works at her production company.