Marcella Di Folco, who died on the 7th September, was born Marcello Di Folco (Rome 7 March 1943) and was an activist, actress and Italian politician. She was president of MIT and vice president of ONIG. She was repeatedly nominated for parliamentary elections and was a city counciler between 1995 and 1999 in Bologna. In cinema, she worked for directors such as Federico Fellini and Roberto Rossellini.
After graduating from high school in 1961, she started working at the Hotel Rivoli in Rome as a porter. Between 1965 and 1978 she worked at the Piper Club in Rome, during which time her revolutionary and unconventional ideas developed. She started working as an actor after being sent do deliver a letter to Federico Fellini, who became her mentor and cast her most notably as the Prince in Amarcord. Several film roles followed, including Di Leo’s Il poliziotto è marcio, Elio Petri’s Todo modo (76), Bruno Corbucci’s Squadra antigangsters (79). He also appeared in a number of decameroticons (Decameron No. 2 – Le altre novelle del Boccaccio (71), I racconti di Canterbury N. 2 (72) & Quant’è bella la Bernarda, tutta nera, tutta calda (75)) and a number of other roles for Fellini (Satyricon (69), La città delle donne (79)
In August 1980, after a long period of self conflict with her gender identity, she had a sex change operation in Casablanca. She was an active participant in the Movimento Italiano Transessuali, and was influential in having sex changes made legal in Italy (in 1982)