I know it has been over two months since I last took a look into my own private collection of movie promotional images. Today I have yet once again selected an image that was created for theater owners via trade publications. The image itself is a full page advert for the 1954 epic Theodora, Slave Empress.
Well good old Theodora despite being a "Fiery, Barbaric Mistress of the World's Most Sinful Empire" failed to really bring them in during the early 1950s and the film itself is relatively forgotten. In fact, just try and find out any info on this one online.
IMDB at least has a plot:
Teodora, a Roman courtesan and former slave girl, marries the Roman emperor Justinian and assumes the throne as Empress of Rome. But the divide between nobility and slave is too great. Teodora seeks justice for her people, and revolution and armed conflict erupt in both Byzantium and Rome. - Jim Beaver
Here is what you really want to know:
Gianna Maria Canale (12 September 1927 – 13 February 2009
Canale was born in Reggio Calabria. In 1947, at the Miss Italia beauty contest, won by Lucia Bosè, she placed second. Canale received publicity in many Italian magazines after this. Her looks were compared to those of Ava Gardner. Riccardo Freda offered her a role in a movie, and, after they fell in love, they got married in Brazil, where they shot two films. Canale however was not used to living in South America and they came back to Italy, where, always directed by her husband, she starred in many sword and sandal films, as well as Italian horror and adventure films. I vampiri was her last film with Freda. She retired from the movie industry in 1964 and died in Florence in February 2009.
And about the real Theodora:
Theodora I (Greek: Θεοδώρα) (c. 500 – June 28, 548), was empress of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire and the wife of Emperor Justinian I. Like her husband, she is a saint in the Orthodox Church, commemorated on November 14. Theodora is perhaps the most influential and powerful woman in the Roman Empire's history.
I know that I will loose you if I go too far into the life of Theodora I but the rest of her bio can be found HERE.
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