Barbara Bouchet

Posted October 24, 201014 yr

Barbara Bouchet, (born 15 August 1943) is a German-American actress and entrepreneur, currently resident in Rome, Italy.

She has acted in more than 80 films and television episodes and founded a production company that has produced fitness videos and books as well as owning a fitness studio. Some of her roles include playing Miss Moneypenny in Casino Royale, Kelinda in Star Trek: "By Any Other Name", as Patrizia in Non si sevizia un paperino and Mrs. Schermerhorn in Gangs of New York.

Biography

Barbara Goutscher was born in Reichenberg, in the Sudetenland, in what was then Germany. After World War II her family was placed, along with many others, in a resettlement camp in the American occupation zone in Germany, from where they were, in time, able to apply for, and be granted, permission to emigrate

The family learned that they were eligible to migrate to the United States, as a result of the humanitarian provisions of the Displaced Persons Act which had been legislated by Congress in 1948.

Youth

After arriving in America her family was eventually able to settle in San Francisco, California. The young Barbara Goutscher was raised there and later attended the Galileo High School, which is situated at the crossroads between the Russian Hill and Marina District areas of the city, drawing students mainly from those two neighborhoods.

In 1959, spurred by the popularity of the film Gidget, KPIX-TV, the local television station covering the San Francisco Bay area, decided to hold a "Miss Gidget" beauty and talent contest on the Dick Stewart Television Show. The contest was open to all teenage girls in the local area, and she entered and won, resulting in her first experience of fame.

The station offered her, as a prize, the chance to become one of the "Regulars" in a dance group on the show, called The KPIX Dance Party. They were teenage dancers who danced live to the top pop and rock and roll hits of the day and were TV stars by virtue of the attention they received by being on television six days per week. She was on the show from 1959 through 1962, after which she moved to the Hollywood area and made it into the film industry, changing her Germanic sounding surname to the French sounding Bouchet.

Career

Barbara Bouchet began her career modeling for magazine covers and appearing in television commercials, before eventually becoming an actress. Her first acting role was a minor part in What a Way to Go! (1964), which led to a series of other roles in the 1960s. She appeared in the films John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1964), In Harm's Way (1964), and Agent for H.A.R.M. (1966). She appeared in a pictorial for the February 1967 edition of Playboy

In Casino Royale (1967), she played the role of Miss Moneypenny. Her early films gave her the grounding in character development that she needed in order to tackle more substantial roles later on in her career. In 1968, she guest-starred in the Star Trek episode "By Any Other Name".

In 1970, she moved to Italy where she began acting in Italian films after growing tired of being typecast and unable to get starring roles in Hollywood. In Italy she mostly appeared in giallo, poliziottesco and commedia erotica all'italiana (sex comedy) films.

Bouchet also appeared in La Tarantola dal ventre nero (Black Belly of the Tarantula, 1971), a giallo mystery film. Other films in this era in which she appeared included:

Alla ricerca del piacere (Amuck, 1971)

Casa d'Appuntamento (French sex murders, 1972)

Milano calibro 9 (1972), with Gastone Moschin, a "poliziottesco" (gangster film)

Non si sevizia un paperino (1972)

L'Anatra all'arancia (Duck in Orange Sauce, 1975)

Con la rabbia agli occhi (Death Rage (1976), a giallo mafia film

40 gradi all'ombra del lenzuolo (Sex with a Smile), a commedia erotica.

In the 1980s she became a television personality on Italian television, She starred with Gregory Peck in The Scarlet and The Black in 1983, a successful World War II war rescue TV movie. In 1985, she established a production company and started to produce a successful series of keep fit books and videos. In addition, she opened a fitness studio in Rome.

In 2002, she returned to American cinema, appearing in Gangs of New York, playing "Mrs. Schermerhorn".

Personal life

In 1974, Barbara Bouchet married Luigi Borghese, a producer, and has two sons, Alessandro (b. 1976), a TV chef and Massimiliano (b. 1989), a bartender, by him. He subsequently produced some of her later films. She separated from her husband in 2006, citing different aspirations