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Illona Staller aka Cicciolina (Little Chubby) was elected to the Italian parliament on a platform of "make love, not war."

Born in Hungary, Illona Staller entered medicine with plans to become a gynecologist before an interest in archaelogy sidetracked her. She then joined M.T.I. Modeling Agency which handled 50 of Hungary's most beautiful models. Staller moved to Italy in 1976 where she hosted a radio show on Radio Luna, and for the first time used the name Cicciolina. In 1979 she helped start Italy's first Green Party while making pornography on the side. She joined the Italian Parliament in 1987 to fight nuclear energy, experimentation on animals, drug prohibition, capital punishment, cars, capitalism and censorship.

LA Times 8/24/90: Offbeat Offer: Ilona Staller, the former porn queen who is now a member of the Italian Parliament, wants to help solve the Mideast crisis. "I am available to make love with (Saddam) Hussein," Staller said in Buenos Aires. "I am willing to let him have his way with me if in exchange he frees the hostages." An Argentine Christian group complained about Staller's "exhibitionist attitudes."

An Italian judge acquitted Cicciolina's ex-husband, American artist Jeff Koons, of charges he threatened her with physical violence. Cicciolina sought custody of their child. Jeff says he found the child in New York in 1992 "confused and disoriented, with his mother away in Ecuador performing in erotic shows."

After a bitter battle with Koons, Ciccolina gained custody of her four year-old son Ludwig. They live in Rome. The ex-porn performer is working on her autobiography.

In March of 1998, she lost custody of her son.

Reuters: Hungarian-born porn star Ilona Staller, better known as "Cicciolina" (Cuddles), lost custody of her five-year- old son to ex-husband U.S. sculptor Jeff Koons after an Italian court ruled she was an unfit mother. The ruling followed a bitter four-year battle between the couple for custody of Ludwig.

The court said Staller, who had a thriving career as a porn star in the 1980s, shot to fame with a five-year stint as a member of parliament and liked to pose in a dress that bared one breast, was incapable of fulfilling the educational role of a parent.

"She is excessively liberal, allowing her son to do anything he wants," said child psychiatrist Marisa Malagoli Togliatti, whose observations contributed to the ruling.

9/26/99

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) - A former Hungarian pornography star who is currently a member of Italy's parliament had been a communist spy in her youth, she said in a television interview Sunday. Ilona Staller, better known as Cicciolina, the star of countless pornographic movies, said she was 19 and working as a waitress at a major international hotel in Budapest when she was recruited.