Italian film legend Gina Lollobrigida passed away at the age of 95

Agent Paola Comin did not provide details. Lollobrigida had surgery in September to repair a broken femur in the fall. She returned home and said she quickly resumed walking, as reported by the AP.

A posed portrait of the diva graced the 1954 cover of Time magazine, which likened her to a “goddess” in an article about Italian film-making. More than half a century later, Lollobrigida still turns heads with her gray, frizzy hair and coiffure. idolized person, and preferred to be called an actress rather than the gender-neutral term actor.

“Lolo,” as she was affectionately nicknamed by Italians, began making films in Italy just after the end of World War II, as the country promoted the stereotypical concept of Mediterranean beauty as buxom and brunette on the big screen. Started giving

In addition to “The World’s Most Beautiful Woman” in 1955, the Golden Globe-winning “Come September” with Rock Hudson; “trapeze;” “Beat the Devil,” a 1953 John Huston film starring Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones; and “Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell,” which won the Lollobrigida Italy’s top film award, a David di Donatello, as Best Actress in 1969.

In Italy, she worked with some of the country’s top directors after the war, including Mario Monicelli, Luigi Comensini, Pietro Germi and Vittorio De Sica.

They had two more popular films at home, Comencini’s “Pan amore e fantasia” (“Bread, Love and Dreams”) in 1953 and a sequel a year later, “Pan amore e gelosia” (“Bread, Love and Jealousy”). ). Her male foil was Vittorio Gassmann, one of Italy’s leading men on screen.

Born into a working-class family in a poor mountainous area east of Rome, she studied sculpture and then made her break in the film world after placing third in the 1947 Miss Italia beauty pageant. (That year’s winner was Lucia Bose.)

When she stopped making films, Lollobrigida developed a new career as a photographer and sculptor and was also a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and its Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Between 1972 and 1994 she published six books of her photographs, including Italia Mia (My Italy), The Philippines and The Wonder of Innocence, photographs of and for children.

With her camera, she traveled around the world from the then Soviet Union to Australia. In 1974, Fidel Castro hosted her as a guest in Cuba for 12 days as he worked on a photo reportage.

Lollobrigida was born on July 4, 1927, in Subiaco, a picturesque hill town near Rome, where her father was a furniture maker. Lollobrigida began her career in beauty pageants, posing for magazine covers and making brief appearances in short films. Producer Mario Costa pulled them off the streets of Rome to appear on the big screen.

Eccentric mogul Howard Hughes eventually brought Lollobrigida to the United States, where she performed with some of Hollywood’s leading men of the 1950s and ’60s, including Frank Sinatra, Sean Connery, Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, and Yul Brynner.

Over the years, her co-stars included some of Europe’s most flamboyant male stars of the era, including Louis Jourdan, Fernando Rey, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Alec Guinness.

While Lollobrigida played few dramatic roles, her sex symbol image defined her career, and her most popular characters were in light-hearted comedies such as the “Bread, Love” trilogy.

With lush eyelashes and thick, brown curls framing her face, Lollobrigida debuted a hairstyle known as the “poodle cut” in the 1950s. Gossip columnists commented on the alleged rivalry between her and Sophia Loren, another Italian film star celebrated for her beauty.

In middle age, Lollobrigida’s romance with Javier Rigau, 34 years her junior from Barcelona, ​​Spain, kept the gossip pages buzzing for years.

“I’ve always had a weakness for young men because they are generous and have no complexes,” the actress told Spain’s “Hola” magazine. After more than 20 years of dating, in 2006, the then 79-year-old Lollobrigida announced that she would marry Rigau, but the wedding never took place.

“All my life I’ve wanted one true love, one true love, but I’ve never found one. Nobody’s ever really loved me. I’m a burdensome woman,” she told an interviewer when she was 80. .

Her first marriage to Yugoslavian-born doctor Milko Skofic ended in divorce in 1971.

In the last years of her life, Lollobrigida’s name appeared more frequently in articles by journalists covering the courts of Rome, rather than as a glamor scene, as legal battles were waged over whether she had the means to manage her finances. Has mental capacity for.

On her website, Lollobrigida recalled how her family lost their home and moved to Rome during the bombings of World War II. She studied sculpture and painting at a high school devoted to the arts, while two of her sisters worked as movie theater assistants to allow her to continue her studies.

In 2013, when she was 85, her jewelery fetched $4.9 million at an auction by Sotheby’s in Geneva and set a record for a pair of diamond and pearl earrings, which sold for $2.37 million. Proceeds went to stem cell research.

“Jewelry is meant to give pleasure and for many years I have enjoyed wearing mine,” she said. “Selling my jewelry to help raise awareness of stem cell therapy, which can cure so many diseases, is an amazing use of how I think they are put to use.”

(with inputs from agencies)