MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine soft-porn film star named as official ambassador of pop culture

Isabelita Sarli was the first to perform nude and appeared in more than 30 sex-exploiting films such as “Flesh” and “Tropical Ecstasy”

In one of her latest surprise moves to prop gender and culture, President Cristina Fernandez has named soft-core porn film star Isabel Sarli, as the country’s official ambassador of pop culture.

The 77-year-old Undersecretary was appointed this week as a true representative of national culture and as such will work with the Ministry of Culture.

As the first Argentine performer to appear fully nude in a film, the 1955 Miss Argentina was known for her hourglass figure and appearing in more than 30 titillating sexploitation films including “Fire,” “Flesh”, “Love and Sex,” “The Virgin Goddess,” “Naked Temptation,” and “Tropical Ecstasy” that were labelled at the time “dirty” by censors.

“It is as much for her acting skills in films as for being considered a popular icon of her day and an emblematic figure of Argentine cinema,” Cristina Fernandez said on making the announcement.

Sarli was nicknamed “La Coca,” either because of her Coca-Cola bottle shaped figure or her fondness for the soft drink.

Filmmaker Armando Bo whom she later married and appeared as her lover in a number of her films, discovered the former adult star and cast her in the 1956 film “Thunder in the Leaves.”

Tame by today’s standards Sarli’s complete nudity and performances shocked moviegoers in the pre-porn days.

In an interview with The Film Society Of Lincoln Center in 2010 she recounted a rape scene in the movie “Flesh,” that turned her off to meat.

”The rape scene at the meat packing plant was horrible. In the famous scene when I'm thrown down on the carcass of meat, a piece of fat fell off the hook on to my face, right near my lips.

”It was disgusting, but I had to stay still. It affected me a lot — to this day, I eat very little meat”.