{"id":379,"date":"2008-09-04T11:14:52","date_gmt":"2008-09-04T11:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/europeanfilmreview.co.uk\/blog\/?p=379"},"modified":"2008-09-04T11:14:52","modified_gmt":"2008-09-04T11:14:52","slug":"beryl-cunningham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/performers-directors\/black-actors-in-italy\/beryl-cunningham\/","title":{"rendered":"Beryl Cunningham"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Beryl<\/a><\/p>\n

Beryl Cunningham is another of the black actresses who came to brief fame as ‘exotic totty’ in Italian films of the late sixties and early seventies. Biographical information about her is scanty, although I think she was born in Jamaica. She obviously ended up in Rome in the early sixties, where she worked as a model and occassional actress. For several years – in the likes of Piero Regnoli’s peplum I re manfredi <\/strong>and Lenzi’s giallo So Sweet So Perverse<\/strong> – she was basically restricted to roles as either servants or strippers, and her real breakthrough came in Alberto Cavallone’s cult erotic favourite Le salamandre <\/strong>(where she and Erna Schurer were practically the only performers). More interesting roles followed: as Christopher Chittel’s ‘surprise’ wife in Michele Lupo’s Concerto per pistola solista<\/strong>, in the strange ‘African’ decameron Black Decameron<\/strong> and so on. In the seventies, her roles decreased, although she did have brief roles in Sergio Martino’s L’isola degli uomini pesce<\/strong> and Giuliano Carnimeo’s Gli sterminatori dell’anno 3000.<\/strong><\/p>\n