Italian movie legend Gina Lollobrigida, who achieved worldwide stardom through the Nineteen Fifties and was dubbed "probably the most lovely lady on the planet" after the title of one among her films, died in Rome on Monday, her agent mentioned. She was 95.
The agent, Paola Comin, did not present particulars. Lollobrigida had surgical procedure in September to restore a thigh bone damaged in a fall. She returned dwelling and mentioned she had rapidly resumed strolling.
Tradition minister Gennaro Sangiuliano wrote on Twitter: "Farewell to a diva of the silver display screen, protagonist of greater than half a century of Italian cinema historical past. Her allure will stay everlasting."
A drawn portrait of the diva graced a 1954 cowl of Time journal, which likened her to a "goddess" in an article about Italian movie-making. Greater than a half-century later, Lollobrigida nonetheless turned heads along with her brown, curly hair and statuesque determine, and most well-liked to be referred to as an actress as a substitute of the gender-neutral time period actor.
"Lollo," as she was lovingly nicknamed by Italians, started making films in Italy simply after the tip of World Struggle II, because the nation started to advertise on the large display screen a stereotypical idea of Mediterranean magnificence as buxom and brunette.
In addition to "The World's Most Lovely Girl" in 1955, profession highlights included Golden Globe-winner "Come September," with Rock Hudson; "Trapeze;" "Beat the Satan," a 1953 John Huston movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones; and "Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell," which gained Lollobrigida Italy's prime film award, a David di Donatello, as greatest actress in 1969.
In Italy, she labored with among the nation's prime administrators following the warfare, together with Mario Monicelli, Luigi Comencini, Pietro Germi and Vittorio De Sica.
Two of her extra widespread movies at dwelling had been Comencini's "Pane Amore e Fantasia" ("Bread, Love and Goals") in 1953, and the sequel a yr later, "Pane Amore e Gelosia" ("Bread, Love and Jealousy"). Her male foil was Vittorio Gassman, one among Italy's main males on the display screen.
Lollobrigida additionally was an completed sculptor, painter and photographer, and finally primarily dropped movie for the opposite arts. Along with her digicam, she roamed the world from what was then the Soviet Union to Australia. In 1974, Fidel Castro hosted her as a visitor in Cuba for 12 days as she labored on a photograph reportage.
Lollobrigida was born on July 4, 1927 in Subiaco, a picturesque hill city close to Rome, the place her father was a furnishings maker. She started her profession in magnificence contests, posing for the covers of magazines and making temporary appearances in minor movies. Producer Mario Costa plucked her from the streets of Rome to look on the large display screen.
Eccentric mogul Howard Hughes finally introduced Lollobrigida to america, the place she carried out with a few of Hollywood's main males of the Nineteen Fifties and 60s, together with Frank Sinatra, Sean Connery, Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis and Yul Brynner.
Hughes showered her with marriage proposals, the BBC reported.
After a lifetime heading off Hughes and lots of main males in Hollywood, Rock Hudson's failure to make a move got here as a shock, the BBC reported.
"I knew straight away that Rock Hudson was homosexual, when he didn't fall in love with me," she informed one reporter.
Through the years, her co-stars additionally included Europe's most voguish male stars of the period, amongst them Louis Jourdan, Fernando Rey, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Alec Guinness.
Whereas Lollobrigida performed some dramatic roles, her intercourse image picture outlined her profession, and her hottest characters had been in lighthearted comedies such because the "Bread, Love" trilogy.
With lush eyelashes and thick, brown curls framing her face, Lollobrigida began a coiffure rage within the Nineteen Fifties referred to as the "poodle lower." Gossip columnists commented on alleged rivalries between her and Sophia Loren, one other Italian movie star celebrated for her magnificence,
In center age, Lollobrigida's romance with a person 34 years her junior, Javier Rigau, from Barcelona, Spain, stored gossip pages buzzing for years.
"I've at all times had a weak point for youthful males as a result of they're beneficiant and haven't any complexes," the actress informed Spain's "Hola" journal. After greater than 20 years of relationship, in 2006, the then-79-year-old Lollobrigida introduced that she would marry Rigau, however the wedding ceremony by no means occurred.
Her first marriage, to Milko Skofic, a Yugoslavia-born physician, resulted in divorce in 1971.
Later, Lollobrigida took a couple of elements in American TV collection — together with "Falcon's Crest" and "Love Boat" — however then reinvented herself as an artist, the BBC reported.
Within the final years of her life, Lollobrigida's title extra regularly appeared in articles by journalists protecting Rome's courts, not the glamour scene, as authorized battles had been waged over whether or not she had the psychological competence to are inclined to her funds.
On her web site, Lollobrigida recalled how her household misplaced its home through the bombings of World Struggle II and went to dwell in Rome. She studied sculpture and portray at a highschool devoted to the humanities, whereas her two sisters labored as movie show ushers to permit her to proceed her research.