by Hal Erickson
biography
A practioner of the "enigmatic femme fatale" school of screen performing, Italian actress Gianna Maria Canale was signed for a film contract immediately after competing in the 1946 Miss Italy contest. Most of Canale's film appearances were exotic to the point of self-mockery, as witness Theodora Slave Empress (1954) and Queen of the Pirates (1960). She has also appeared in the American-produced war picture Go For Broke (1951), and in the British/American murder mystery The Whole Truth, archly cast as a temperamental Italian film star who is bumped off in reel two. Many of Gianna Maria Canale's earlier films were produced by Riccardo Freda, who later became her husband.
