Moira Orfei (; born Miranda Orfei; 21 December 1931 – 15 November 2015) was an Italian

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclis ...

performer, actress and television personality of remote Romani origins. Moira was also considered the queen of the Italian circus, one stage name being "Moira of the Elephants". Cult movie fans know her for the many sword-and-sandal (peplum) films she starred in. Gli Italiani si voltano Moira Orfei 1954

Gli Italiani si voltano Moira Orfei 1954

Biography

Raised in a family who owned the circus company ''Circus Orfei'', Moira became the symbol of circus in Italy and attained international fame. The ''Circus Moira Orfei'' itself was founded in 1960. She was photographed in various scenes as a rider, trapeze artist, acrobat, dominatrice of elephants and trainer of doves. Her excessively garish image mirrors her eccentric and exuberant personality. It was

Dino De Laurentiis Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis (; 8 August 1919 – 10 November 2010) was an Italian-American film producer. Along with Carlo Ponti, he was one of the producers who brought Italian cinema to the international scene at the end of World War II. He ...

who suggested that she change her name from Miranda to Moira. From then on, her face became an effigy of unchanging characteristics: heavy make-up with eyes coated with eyeliner, bright lipstick, an accentuated mole above the lip, hair tied in a turban. Promotional billboards were carpeted with this picture in every city that the circus stopped. She also became a film actress, acting in over forty films, from comedies to

sword and sandal Sword-and-sandal, also known as peplum (pepla plural), is a subgenre of largely Italian-made historical, mythological, or Biblical epics mostly set in the Greco-Roman antiquity or the Middle Ages. These films attempted to emulate the big-budge ...

films (among which were many Italian crime films).

Personal life

Her parents were Riccardo Orfei, who was the clown Bigolon, and Violetta Arata. She married Walter Nones in 1961, and they had two children Stefano Orfei and Lara Orfei.

Death

On 4 August 2006, Moira Orfei suffered an

ischemic stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop funct ...

during a show in Gioiosa Ionica. The artist was still under medical care when she died nine years later from natural causes on 15 November 2015 in Brescia, Italy.Moira Orfei, circus owner - obituary
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Filmography

References

External links