Lilli Carati

Lilli Carati, nome d'arte di Ileana Caravati (nata a Varese il 23 settembre 1956), è un'attrice italiana cinematografica nota soprattutto per aver interpretato negli anni '70 e anni '80 numerosi film appartenenti al genere della commedia erotica all'italiana.Iniziò la sua carriera nel mondo della moda, frequentando una scuola di indossatrici: la sua bellezza la fece arrivare seconda al concorso di Miss Italia del 1975. Scritturata da Franco Cristaldi per la Vides Cinematografica, partecipò a varie pellicole noir e comico-erotiche di un certo successo, tra le quali si ricorda in particolare Avere Vent'Anni (insieme a Gloria Guida, proiettato alla Mostra internazionale d'arte cinematografica di Venezia del 2004 nella retrospettiva Storia Segreta del Cinema Italiano - Italian Kings of the B's), film culto e autentico manifesto del "vivere pericolosamente" proprio della generazione di allora. La sua migliore interpretazione è probabilmente in Il corpo della ragassa di Pasquale Festa Campanile al fianco di Enrico Maria Salerno. Verso la metà degli anni '80, tentato un ultimo rilancio con i film di Joe D'Amato e soprattutto con Voglia di Guardare (a fianco dell'amica Jenny Tamburi), oltrepassò il confine del genere sexy passando al porno, anche se i film hard che girò furono in tutto quattro: tutti gli altri vennero prodotti riutilizzando sequenze tagliate dai primi film o addirittura rimontandone vari spezzoni. Malgrado le sue scelte l'avessero emarginata dal mondo patinato della televisione, i tanti servizi fotografici su testate come Playmen e Blitz ne mantennero alta la popolarità. Purtroppo la droga le provocò un precoce declino artistico e fisico (si dice che era entrata nel mondo del cinema hard principalmente per pagarsi l'eroina), al punto di finire anche in carcere. Oggi è disintossicata, ma non se ne hanno più notizie: si dice che lavori attivamente in una comunità o nell'attività commerciale della famiglia. Numerosi siti continuano a ricordarla sul Web, quale interprete e testimone dell'intenso periodo degli anni settanta. La regista televisiva Rony Daopoulos ha realizzato per la RAI "Lilli, una vita da eroina" un film-verità interpretato dalla stessa Carati per la serie "Storie vere" e andato in onda su RaiTre il 25 febbraio del 1994.******************************************************* ***** Lilli Carati, also known as Lilly Carati (born Ileana Caravati on 23 September 1956) is a former Italian actress and porn star.Lilli Carati was born in Varese (Lombardy). In 1974, she won the title "Miss Elegance" at a beauty contest in Calabria and began to work as a fashion model in Milan. She became the first runner-up at Miss Italia contest of 1975 and moved on to cinema.Most of her box office hits were in the genre of "sex comedy". However, she also played in films of different genres such as Squadra antifurto (1977, a crime story with Tomas Milian), Le evase - Storie di sesso e di violenze (1978, a prototypical exploitation film), and La fine del mondo nel nostro solito letto in una notte piena di pioggia (1987) (a film by Lina Wertmüller). In several of her films she displayed a considerable talent in acting.She also appeared in nude photos on the pages of famous Italian men's magazines like Playmen and Albo Blitz. About 1990, she retired from public life.The first film she played the lead role was 1976 La professoressa di scienze naturali ("School Days") by Michele Massimo Tarantini. This film plays to clichés of two sex comedy sub-genres; insegnante ("lady teacher") and liceale ("schoolgirl") films. In this film, Carati plays a substitute teacher of natural science named Stefania Marini who soon gets one of her students, Andrea (Marco Gelardini), as her lover and a physician Baron Cacciapuopolo (Michele Gammino) as an admirer. In the end, she marries the Baron but keeps Andrea as a lover. Her next "school film" was La compagna di banco by Mariano Laurenti in 1977. In this film, Carati is a rich schoolgirl and a basketball player (which serves as a tongue-in-cheek excuse for nude scenes in the shower and locker room) named Simona Girardi with a lover named Mario (Antonio Melidoni). Alvaro Vitali, a regular of school films, is present in both films as the main comic character.The film where she first displayed notable performance came in 1977. In Candido erotico (Copenhagen Nights) by Claudio de Molinis, she plays Charlotte, a young student who is drawn into confusion when she falls in love with her step-mother's lover, Carlo (Mircha Carven) who works as an actor in sex shows. Eventually, she discovers the ménage à trois involving her father, step-mother, and Carlo and decides to carry on with her relationship. Her greatest success came with Avere vent'anni ("To Be Twenty") by Fernando di Leo in 1978. The film, about the story of two girls who leave home and move into a hippie commune in pursuit of freedom but end up in the hands of thugs to be violently murdered, later attained a cult status as expressed by its screening at Venice Film Festival in 2004. Although the film tends to blame the intolerance of the society for the awful fate of the girls, its sociopolitical message remains highly debatable. In this film, the side-kick to Carati (Tina) was Gloria Guida (Lia), a popular star of 1970s. The film also contains a brief lesbian sex scene with the two actresses.In Il corpo della ragassa (1979) by Pasquale Festa Campanile, Carati drew a convincing portrait of Teresa Aguzzi, a naïve-looking but cunning country girl involved in a Pygmalion story set in 1950s Italy. The same year she appeared in Senza buccia (Skin Deep) by Marcello Aliprandi, a light but dramatically well-mastered story of love relationships at a holiday hideout. Another point of this film is the presence of the then starlet Ilona Staller. In Hay un fantasma nel mi cama or C'è un fantasma nel mio letto 1980, an Italo-Spanish production by Claudio de Molinis, she played newlywed Adelaide Fumagalli who arrives at the "Black Castle" in England with her husband on honeymoon. The castle is home to the ghost of 17th century nobleman Sir Archibald, played by veteran actor Renzo Montagnani who played Teresa's father in Il corpo della ragassa. Sir Archibald plays his games to seduce Adelaide which will eventually end badly for himself. Il marito in vacanza (1981) by Alessandro Lucidi and Mario Lucidi would again bring Carati and Montagnani together. This time Montagnani is a professor who tries to seduce Lucia Coradini (Carati), a beautiful colleague. The particular importance of this film is that it was among the last successful examples of the "sex comedy" genre in Italy.In 1984, Carati met director Joe d'Amato through her actress friend Jenny Tamburi and played in four D'Amato films, among which are L'alcova (The Alcove, 1984) and Il piacere (The Pleasure, 1985), both set in 1930s Italy and with Laura Gemser, considered the most stylish among the films of the director who is usually identified with his trash films. In 1987 and 1988, she appeared in a number of adult films by Giorgio Grand, along with a team of performers including Rocco Siffredi. Although these films were of low quality, the sight of a movie star, often depicted as the attractive but "unreachable" woman, having explicit sex provided enough titilation for most viewers. In 1989, she was in The Whore by Alex de Renzy and Henri Pachard. This film had the most elaborate plot among her porn films but she didn't play the lead role; Debi Diamond is "the whore". MyGen Profile Generator.. width="425" height="350" ..