Anita Strindberg
Nude

If ever there was a two-legged, spry-breasted argument for a Europe without borders, that argument was Anita Strindberg. Sometimes blonde, sometimes brunette, always with tapered legs and an uplifted chest, Anita was a Swede born and bred, but traveled freely across the continent to Italy. The Italian skinema scene embraced her with open arms, and quickly roped the mellow traveler into a string of films in the “giallo” genre. Translated as “yellow” and named for the color of the crime novels of the ‘20s and ‘30s, giallo films included everything from horror to drama, mystery to thriller, generally all contained gore, and most contained dashes of dazzling flesh. Anita did make her film debut in Sweden, but only made it through two movies, Blonde in Bondage (1957) and Sköna Susanna och gubbarna (1959), before heading to Italy and a role as Julie Durer in A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin. She bared her surgically enhanced breasts in the flick—and did it again, and again, and again in no less than 10 films. She was naked with men, sometimes other women; occasionally she added her bare butt to the bare-boob moment, and once even covered her nipples with coins and her triangle with dollars. In La segretaria private di mio padre (1976), or My father’s private secretary, her character Ingrid showers and gives slippery, silky full-frontal nudity, including a wet bush. Her last film role was as Princess Faubiana in The Salamander (1981), an English-language film shot in Rome, a UK and Italy collab starring Anthony Quinn. Rumor has it she eventually married an American millionaire and relocated to Los Angeles.