Maria Grazia Buccella

Curvaceous, green-eyed Italian leading lady, singer and dancer of 1960s Italian comedies. Maria Grazia Buccella was a Miss Italia beauty pageant winner in 1959 and third-ranked as Miss Europe that same year. In films from 1951, she appeared in many a lightweight comedic offering, often as sensuous, alluringly coiffed and costumed soubrettes. She had notable leads in Menage all'italiana (1965), Le piacevoli notti (1966) (as Lucretia Borgia), Ti ho sposato per allegria (1967), It's Your Move (1968) (a caper comedy with Edward G. Robinson as an amateurish bank robber), Sissignore (1968) and Nerone (1977) (as Nero's wife Poppea). In addition to a small role in Vittorio De Sica's farce After the Fox (1966) she also played Robert Mitchum's love interest in Villa Rides (1968). Her other western lead was in The Wind's Fierce (1970), as the Spanish peon freedom fighter who gunslinger Terence Hill falls for. Buccella was briefly considered for the role of Dominetta Petacchi in the James Bond action film Thunderball (1965), but it went to French actress Claudine Auger instead. In 1977, Buccella appeared on the cover of the Italian edition of Playboy. However, just two years later, her screen career had all but run its course.