Edwige Fenech was born Edwige Sfenek on December 24, 1948, in Bone, Constantine, France, to a Maltese father and an Italian mother. She embarked on her show-business career by participating in beauty contests, winning the title of "Miss Mannequin de la Cote d'Azur" at the age of 16 and later claiming the Miss France beauty contest title.
Prior to making her film debut in the comedy Toutes folles de lui (1967),Edwige worked as a photo model. She appeared in several saucy West German sex farces, including Alle Kätzchen naschen gern (1969) and Sexy Susan Sins Again (1968).
With her lustrous and long black hair, lovely and sensuous face, full shapely figure, and smoldering screen presence, Edwige soon became a very popular and much sought-after actress in a diverse array of European productions made in Italy, France, Spain, and West Germany.
She achieved her greatest enduring cult cinema popularity by starring in several superior Italian giallos for director Sergio Martino, including The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971),They're Coming to Get You! (1972),and Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972). Edwige was also the onetime girlfriend of Martino's producer brother, Luciano Martino.
In addition to her work with Martino, Edwige acted in a handful of racy Italian sex comedies and the Italian mini-series Delitti privati (1993). She has worked with other notable Italian film directors, including Mario Bava, Giuliano Carnimeo, Andrea Bianchi, Umberto Lenzi, Steno, Dino Risi, and Ruggero Deodato.
Edwige demonstrated her exceptional range and skill as an actress with enjoyably uninhibited performances in such amusingly bawdy Italian comedic romps as Quel gran pezzo della Ubalda tutta nuda e tutta calda (1972) and The School Teacher (1975).
She became a television personality in the 1980s and made frequent appearances on an Italian chat show along with fellow giallo goddess Barbara Bouchet. Moreover, Fenech launched her own fashion line and founded her own film production company, Immagine e Cinema S.r.l., with her son Edwin Fenech.
In the mid-1990s, Edwige was engaged to famous Italian industrialist Luca Cordero di Montezemolo. She made a welcome return to acting with a small but funny part as an alluring art class professor in Eli Roth's Hostel: Part II (2007).
