Uschi Digard

Uschi Digard (born Ursula Bernell) is a former softcore porn star and model mostly known for her roles in Russ Meyer films. She was born in Sweden of Swiss-French heritage.

Early years

When asked of her childhood, she has said,

I was born in Saltsjö-Duvnäs, a little town outside Stockholm, Sweden, and am of Swedish/Swiss heritage. I was sent to a boarding school with nuns at an early age because those were the best schools in the country and I was pretty promiscuous as a little one -- not with men, but with books. I loved reading and at age 6 I decided I wanted to learn languages because I couldn't stand reading books that had been translated -- they lost the essence. By age 7 I had read every book in the little village library.^[1]

She had a convent education and learned various languages. She learned to ski and loved the outdoors life. At school her left hand was tied behind her back and she was made to write with her right hand though she was naturally a lefthander.

Digard's breasts started developing at a young age, about which she commented,

When I started to develop at 11 I had to strap myself in, because it wasn't seemly to have breasts, and we all wore uniforms. By age 15 I was a 40DD."^[2]

After leaving school she travelled to Italy and then France to improve her Italian and French. She then travelled to the Channel Islands and to London where she worked for a large hotel. Following this she travelled via Marrakesh to the Canary Islands where she worked during the winters for a jewellery firm on percentage payment. During summers she would travel around. She also worked in jewellery stores in Sweden and Switzerland. She met her husband in the Canary Islands.

She speaks eight languages (German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, French and English). Now married, she lives in Palm Springs, California, for two weeks out of every month; the rest of the time she spends in her home in North Hollywood.

Career

Digard burst into cinema in Sweden where she starred in several softcore erotic films. In 1967, she went to the U.S. where she soon began appearing in numerous sexploitation movies such as Uschi's Hollywood Adventure (aka Raquel's Motel, 1970), a film so low-budget it was shot without sound and then dubbed with a narrative voiceover.

She also appeared in pornographic magazines. She was among the best known big bust models in the late-1960s and early-1970s. Magazines in which she appeared frequently include Knight, Cinema X, Latent Image, and Gent.

Digard was cast in Russ Meyer's Cherry, Harry & Raquel! (1970) to provide the dénouement in a final interpretive dance scene symbolizing the death of the antagonist. Digard went on to appear in more of Meyer's films in the 1970s: Supervixens (1975) and Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens (1979). She was also a co-producer on Up! and Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens.

She appeared as Mayday in the cult action comedy Superchick (1973) starring Joyce Jillson, and starred with John Holmes in I Want You (1974).

She had a minor role as a prisoner in the cult classic Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975), appeared as 'Super Girl' in Fantasm (1976) directed by Richard Franklin, and had a small role in Chesty Anderson, USN (1976). She also had a role as a character called 'Pussy' in Female Chauvinists (1976).

In 1977 Digard had a cameo appearance (naked in a shower) in the segment "Catholic High School Girls in Trouble" in John Landis's The Kentucky Fried Movie.

In 1979, she performed with John Holmes, Johnny Keyes, Serena, Candy Samples, Kitten Natividad, and Kelly Stewart in the pornographic film John Holmes and the All-Star Sex Queens from Zane Entertainment Group. In those years, she also starred in some "sexy wrestling" short-footage films, mainly for Triumph Studios and Ron Dvorkin's Bellstone.

Notes

References

External links

• Uschi Digard at the Internet Movie Database