Italian cinema icon Gina Lollobrigida has passed away at the age of 95
Monument of the 7th art, the Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida died at the age of 95. In France, she remains associated with her role in the film “Fanfan la Tulipe” with Gérard Philipe in 1952.
Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida, a passionate brunette who shared the spotlight with the greatest actors of the 1950s, has died at the age of 95, Italy’s Minister of Culture announced on Monday, January 16.
Gina Lollobrigida broke her femur in a fall at her Roman home last September and required surgery. The former sex symbol was revealed in 1952 in “Fanfan la tulipe” by the French director Christian-Jaque.
The former sex symbol broke her femur in a fall at her Roman home last September and required surgery.
“Farewell to a diva of the big screen, champion of more than half a century of Italian cinema history. Her beauty is eternal. Ciao Lollo”, tweeted the Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano.
Goodbye to a diva of the big screen, protagonist of oltre mezzo secolo di storia del cinema italiano. It suo fascino stay in eternity.
Hello Lollo. pic.twitter.com/LbHf2MMXFy— Gennaro Sangiuliano (@g_sangiuliano) January 16, 2023
Luigina Lollobrigida was born on July 4, 1927 in the small village of Subiaco, in Abruzzo, in the mountains of central Italy, in a small family that later moved to Rome.
A student of the École des Beaux-Arts, passionate about drawing and sculpture, he just happened to take his first steps in the cinema.
“I didn’t want to be an actor, but an actor. I was an extra just to bring money home. Then I was offered a real role. That’s not what I wanted. I thought: “I went there and I asked them for a month, a million . They gave it to me and I started making films,” he told Vanity Fair Italy in 2007.
At the top of the poster
For four years, from 1947 to 1951, he got only secondary roles, until Christian-Jaque’s “Fanfan la tulipe” and its 6.7 million viewers consecrated him in 1952.
This petite brunette with a thick figure and smoldering eyes went on to star in René Clair’s “Les Belles de nuit” in 1952 and Luigi Comencini’s “Bread, love and fantasy” in 1953.
Gina Lollobrigida plays with the greatest actors: Frank Sinatra, Sean Connery, Marcello Mastroianni, Yul Brynner or Humphrey Bogart in “Stronger Than the Devil” in 1954 and Anthony Quinn in “Notre-Dame de Paris” by Jean Delannoy (1956) , where she plays Esmeralda.
He toured the United States until 1962, then returned to Italy. He acted only occasionally for cinema and for television, appearing in several films in the 1990s such as “XXL” by Ariel Zeitoun with Gérard Depardieu and “Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma” by Agnès Varda.
“I always liked sculpture”
In a sign that her aura has not waned, a 2013 auction of her jewelry soared, with pearl drop earrings fetching $2.39 million, surpassing the previous record set by goldsmiths. similar jewelry from Elizabeth Taylor.
But, in the meantime, “La Lollo” returned to his first artistic love, photography and then sculpture, to which he fully devoted himself in the early 1980s.
“I always loved sculpture. I gave myself to the cinema and I don’t regret it, but when the cinema changed, I decided to rediscover my passion”, the star confessed on the occasion of the inauguration. in Paris of his first exhibition, which was also shown in Moscow and Venice.
He mainly sculpts characters, usually women who look like him in his greatest roles.
His only regret? To “never find a soul mate” and only met “one-sided” love, he declared to Vanity Fair in 2007.
In 1969, Gina Lollobrigida divorced Milko Skofic, the doctor she married in 1949 and with whom she had her only son, Milko Jr, who gave her a grandchild.
In 2006, at the age of 79, Gina Lollobrigida made headlines when she announced her marriage to Spanish entrepreneur Javier Rigau Rafols, 34 years her junior. But the couple split amid turmoil and legal battles months later.
Political career ambitions
In a television program in November 2017, he also revealed, with modesty and dignity, that he had suffered two sexual assaults in his youth. “It stays with you and it marks your personality,” he assured.
He was also involved in two trials. Initially, the Court of Cassation imposed on him a guardian for the management of his assets. In the second, still ongoing, her former handyman was accused of abusing her vulnerability.
A goodwill ambassador for Unicef, the actress also ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the European Parliament in 1999 on the list of a left-wing party. He will try in 2022, again in vain, to get a seat in the Italian Senate.
In France, he was made an officer of arts and letters in 1986 and a commander in 2004. But he had to wait until February 2018 to have his star in Hollywood.
AFP included
