Portrait of a Fairy

12 November 1982. On the cover of issue 1675 of Epoca, a well-known weekly magazine on current affairs and lifestyle published by Mondadori, there is a small close-up photo of Edwige Fenech, a famous actor known for her roles in sexy comedies. The image is accompanied by a short text — the so-called cover blurb — which is atypical in the context of the celebrity discourse surrounding the diva at that time. It reads: ‘Edwige Fenech. How a sex symbol ages’.1 Leafing through the weekly magazine, there is an interview with her entitled: ‘I will no longer be the Duse of sex’,2 part of a series of articles brought together under the label ‘Sex Symbols’.3 In these pages, Fenech speaks of ‘the difficulties she faced in transitioning from the role of bombshell diva to that of actor’,4 also emphasizing how this choice was necessary given her advancing age.5 All accompanied by a photo shoot, apparently created on purpose, in which the diva ‘reveals [...] her new, more mature, and refined charm’.6