Biography: Rocco Siffredi, byname of Rocco Tano (born May 4, 1964) is an Italian pornographic actor, now working as a director and producer of pornographic movies. In his choice of screen name, Siffredi was allegedly inspired by a character from the movie Borsalino (1970), "Roch Siffredi", played by Alain Delon. He is also known as 'the Italian Stallion', a name he was given in reference to the size of his penis. As of 2005, he has starred in over 1,300 pornographic films. He is credited with helping launch the careers of porn stars Nacho Vidal and Kelly Stafford.
Siffredi was born in Ortona, Abruzzo.
After starting his film career in France, he subsequently starred in films abroad in such varied locales as Budapest, Hungary (which later became the headquarters of his production company, Rocco Siffredi Produzioni), Montreal, Canada, Russia, Brazil, and various Eastern European countries. He became infamous in the pornographic film community for his penchant for anal sex, which built him a cult following over the course of his career.
Siffredi's films are widely varied in content and tone. He has appeared in romantic adventures and comedies in the Vivid style, but his later work with John Stagliano's Evil Angel Video is informed by the artistic philosophy and wisdom of Max Hardcore. In these later films, Siffredi spits on women, slaps them, performs irrumatio and watersports (censored in U.S. versions), makes his co-stars gag during deepthroat, and occasionally pulls hair to the point of causing tears. On rare occasion, Siffredi himself has been the recipient of harsh sexual treatment, portraying the submissive in a BDSM scene in the films Rocco pi� che mai a Londra 2 and Il Marchese de Sade, the latter in which he appears in drag.
The productions in which Siffredi directed as well as starred are considered by many to have broken new grounds in hardcore pornography. Many of his films begin with affectionate, romantic scenes. A point is then reached when the film begins to quickly degenerate from a romance into scenes of marathon, violent anal sex. Shocking climaxes often involve such activities as Siffredi focusing the camera on the distended anus of one of his female co-stars, spitting into it, ejaculating into it, and then, in scenes meant to imply breaking the fourth wall, demanding that other co-stars clean the woman's anus with their tongues. Another hallmark of Siffredi's films is allowing male fans, picked up by the production crew, to ejaculate onto the faces of his female co-stars; Siffredi took this tradition one step further when directing Never Say Never to Rocco Siffredi, when, filming in a park, Siffredi grabbed passing strangers and then requested that his female co-stars perform oral sex on them. Despite the sometimes brutal nature of his genre of pornography, he has been consistently able to find young European actresses willing to star in his pictures.
Siffredi is one of few porn actors to enjoy cross-over appeal and success with respect to other segments of the adult-film industry, as well as in mainstream media. As a primary example, although his acting has been restricted exclusively to heterosexual pornography, his good looks have resulted in his attraction of a large gay audience. In December 1990 Rocco was selected to pose as the nude centerfold in the adult mainstream magazine Playgirl. Depicted on the cover next to Rocco was the caption "At last, a centerfold to die for". This publicity definitely helped Rocco's mass appeal to new American audiences.
In 1999, he appeared in the controversial Catherine Breillat film Romance. His impressive performance in this role, in which groundbreaking cinematic themes were explored, was followed by a part specifically written for him by the same director in her 2003 film Anatomie de L'enfer (Anatomy of Hell), in which he plays a bisexual man who becomes sexually involved with a woman. Both films feature unsimulated sexual scenes involving Siffredi, although it is disputed whether he actually has intercourse with co-star Caroline Ducey in Romance. (She says no, Siffredi says yes.)
Siffredi has been married to Hungarian-born, naturalised Italian porn actress and a former Miss Hungary Rosa Caracciolo (born Rozsa Tassi) since 1991. In June 2004, Siffredi declared, for the sake of his children, that he would retire from porn, and instead focus on filming and producing. He was quoted as saying, "My children are growing up, and I can no longer just say 'Dad is going to work to make money for the family.' They want to know more." However, as of 2006, Siffredi has continued to perform. Porn director Axel Braun told Adult Video News in 2004: "The problem is that he's been trying for years to find an 'heir to the throne,' but it's no easy task. He thought he found him in Nacho Vidal, but then Nacho went his own way."
