Gabriella Licudi, born Gabrielle Carmen Stuttard, was the only child of Wilfred James Stuttard, a naval engineer from Northern Ireland, and Olga Maria Licudi of Gibraltar, who inspired her stage name. Following a profound emotional response to a film about the education of deaf mutes, Gabriella decided to pursue a career as a teacher of elocution.
To prepare for her chosen profession, Gabriella enrolled in courses at the Central School of Speech and Drama, where she was discovered by an agent while performing in a class production in 1961. Just a week before departing for Scotland, Gabriella "gate-crashed" an audition for John Mortimer's stage play "Two Stars for Comfort," starring Trevor Howard.
The play was a huge success, running for nine months in London's West End. Producer Samuel Bronston attended a performance and offered Gabriella a small role in his upcoming epic film, "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964). Gabriella went on to appear in several more films and popular television series, including the title role in the sci-fi cult classic "Unearthly Stranger" (1963),as a widowed expatriate opposite Patrick McGoohan in an episode of "Secret Agent" (1964),one of the conspiratorial McTarry daughters in the Bond-spoof extravaganza "Casino Royale" (1967),in the Henry Hathaway African adventure "The Last Safari" (1967),and the female lead in the legendary and little-seen experimental feature "Herostratus" (1967) by Don Levy.
Gabriella left the film industry in the 1970s and relocated to Africa, where she and her South African husband ran a safari lodge for several years before eventually returning to London to run her own production company.
