Cheri Caffaro is an American

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a Character (arts), character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek ...

who appeared mainly in low-budget

exploitation film An exploitation film is a film that tries to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content. Exploitation films are generally low-quality "B movies", though some set trends, attract critical attention, become hi ...

s in the 1970s. A fifteen-year-old Pasadena resident, she won a ''Life''-magazine-reported

Brigitte Bardot Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( ; ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a former French actress, singer and model. Famous for portraying sexually emancipated characters with hedonistic lifestyles, she was one of the ...

look-alike contest, beating a twelve-year-old

Portland Mason Portland Mason (; 26 November 1948 – 10 May 2004) was an American child actress and writer. Early life Mason was born on 26 November 1948 and was the elder child of English actors James Mason and Pamela Mason. She was named after Portl ...

Career

In the early 1970s, she was directed by then-husband and Manhattan theatre owner

Don Schain Donald Rodney Schain (February 26, 1941 – December 26, 2015) was an American director, writer, and producer of many films and TV movies, most notably for the Disney Channel. Schain joined the movie industry in the early 1970s, directing hi ...

in a series of softcore

sexploitation A sexploitation film (or sex-exploitation film) is a class of independently produced, low-budget feature film that is generally associated with the 1960s and early 1970s, and that serves largely as a vehicle for the exhibition of non-explicit s ...

action films, most notably the "Ginger" trilogy, consisting of ''Ginger'', ''The Abductors'' and ''Girls Are For Loving''. Caffaro played Ginger McAllister, a tough and resourceful bed-hopping private-eye and spy. Her missions involved busting up seedy wrongdoers involved in drugs, prostitution and

white slavery White slavery (also white slave trade or white slave trafficking) refers to the slavery of Europeans, whether by non-Europeans (such as West Asians and North Africa, North Africans), or by other Europeans (for example naval galley slaves or th ...

. Her character also spends an inordinate amount of time bound and gagged and/or raped. She also appeared in '' A Place Called Today'' and '' Too Hot To Handle'' (both also directed by Schain). She was quickly stereotyped, became disenchanted with the direction her film career had taken and, like

Bettie Page Bettie Mae Page (April 22, 1923 – December 11, 2008) was an American model who gained notoriety in the 1950s for her pin-up photos.

before her, disappeared from the public eye. She has also been credited with an appearance on the TV show ''

Baretta ''Baretta'' is an American detective television series which ran on ABC from 1975 to 1978. The show was a revised and milder version of a 1973–1974 ABC series, '' Toma'', starring Tony Musante as chameleon-like, real-life New Jersey police ...

'', and as a writer and producer of the 1979

sex comedy Sex comedy, erotic comedy or more broadly sexual comedy is a genre in which comedy is motivated by sexual situations and love affairs. Although "sex comedy" is primarily a description of dramatic forms such as theatre and film, literary works such ...

'' H.O.T.S.'' Her last screen credit is noted as a character voice in an episode of the 1997 animated TV series ''

Extreme Ghostbusters ''Extreme Ghostbusters'' is an American animated television series based on the ''Ghostbusters'' franchise. It is a spin-off to the animated series ''The Real Ghostbusters''. The series originally aired on the syndicated Bohbot Kids Network's "E ...

''.

Filmography

* ''

Ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, or other plant substance primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices ...

'' (1971) * ''Up Your Alley'' (1971) * ''

The Abductors ''The Abductors'' is a 1957 American film noir crime film directed by Andrew McLaglen and starring Victor McLaglen, George Macready and Gavin Muir. It was produced by Regal Films. Maury Dexter described the film as "not too hot" but liked McLag ...

'' (1972) * '' A Place Called Today'' (1972) * ''Girls Are for Loving'' (1973) * '' Savage Sisters'' (1974) * '' Too Hot to Handle'' (1977)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Caffaro, Cheri American film actresses Living people 21st-century American women