Gina Lollobrigida, Italian film siren of the 1950s, dies at 95 - The Washington Post

But erstwhile Time mag examined the mightiness of Italian movie accumulation successful 1954, it did not enactment Rossellini oregon De Sica connected the cover. Instead it featured Gina Lollobrigida, a ruby-lipped bombshell encased successful clinging gowns, whose beingness successful comedies, romances and adventures powered a rebellion against neorealism.

Ms. Lollobrigida, who died Jan. 16 successful Rome astatine 95, was for a clip an planetary sensation with fewer equals.

In the estimation of histrion Humphrey Bogart, her allure made “Marilyn Monroe look similar Shirley Temple.” Life mag called “La Lollo” — arsenic she was nicknamed — “the astir fetching statement ever precocious for wide migration policies.” For New York Times movie professional Bosley Crowther, she was “the archetypal Italian over-stuffed star,” a pneumatic precursor to Sophia Loren, who would soon beryllium ensconced successful the nationalist imaginativeness arsenic the quintessential Italian enactment goddess.

Ms. Lollobrigida (pronounced lo-lo-BRIDGE-eeh-dah) was among the European surface beauties, on with Brigitte Bardot and Anita Ekberg, whose charms stirred the fantasies of a procreation of moviegoers.

In a heyday that spanned a quarter-century and much than 50 films, Ms. Lollobrigida had a decidedly mixed estimation arsenic an actress. “She is handicapped by a deficiency of intensity, deficiency of presence,” movie historiographer David Shipman noted. He likened her enactment entreaty to the 1 dimensionality of an advertisement billboard.

She began her vocation connected a lark successful 1946, erstwhile a movie manager eyed the onetime creation pupil connected the streets of Rome and was besotted. And it was a photograph of Ms. Lollobrigida successful a bikini that proved capable to entice billionaire industrialist and movie shaper Howard Hughes to alert her to Hollywood successful 1950. He kept her a virtual captive for weeks successful a fancy hotel, she aboriginal said, until she agreed to a contract. She said that she refused his intersexual advances and that he, successful return, made her prohibitively costly for different filmmakers successful the United States.

As a result, the younger Loren conquered Hollywood first. Ms. Lollobrigida, who often stoked their rivalry, would aboriginal cattily remark to Life: “We are arsenic antithetic arsenic a good contention equine and a goat.”

Her ascent continued, but successful European movies oregon European American co-productions specified arsenic “Beat the Devil” (1953) and “Trapeze” (1956). The erstwhile is simply a shaggy-dog caper astir con artists successful which Bogart and Ms. Lollobrigida were formed arsenic hubby and wife. The second featured her arsenic a circus performer whose wiles and ambition endanger to interruption up the concern of aerialists played by Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis.

Even aft she escaped Hughes, Ms. Lollobrigida was agelong subjected to the cinematic leer. In “Solomon and Sheba” (1959), she performed, arsenic Sheba, a memorable Technicolor pagan dance to the delight of co-star Yul Brynner arsenic Solomon. Her tub country was the item of an different wan World War II movie with Frank Sinatra, “Never So Few” (1959). In the play “Go Naked successful the World” (1961), she was a telephone miss wooed by a operation tycoon’s lad (Anthony Franciosa), and she played a caregiver recruited for a execution strategy successful “Woman of Straw” (1964) co-starring Sean Connery.

Her vocation diminished gradually with farces specified arsenic “Strange Bedfellows” (1965), other Rock Hudson, “The Private Navy of Sgt. O’Farrell” (1968), with Bob Hope, and “Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell” (1968), astir an Italian pistillate entangled with 3 ex-GIs (Telly Savalas, Peter Lawford and Phil Silvers).

Over the years, Ms. Lollobrigida had acquired a estimation arsenic quarrelsome and demanding, a performer with insatiable vanity and unbridled tendency for power implicit the set. She was besides litigious, filing arsenic galore arsenic 10 lawsuits astatine a time.

She sued producers for what she alleged were breached promises and sicced her lawyers connected advertisers and publications she claimed had utilized her representation without permission. According to Time, she prevailed implicit an Italian movie professional for his disparaging statement of her “udder.”

In interviews, Ms. Lollobrigida presented herself arsenic 1 of life’s indomitable survivors: an Italian state miss who endured wartime hardship, intersexual assault, deceitful producers and a vicious amusement press.

When her surface vocation dimmed, she moved connected with vigor. She became a sculptor, and she published books of her photography. “I whitethorn not beryllium Cartier-Bresson, but I tin bash thing good,” she aboriginal told the New York Times. She made a abbreviated movie documentary astir Cuban person Fidel Castro successful 1972.

She besides was a fundraiser for U.N. humanitarian missions, enactment that led to her failed effort successful 1999 to triumph 1 of Italy’s seats successful the European Parliament. Through it all, she remained “La Lollo,” managing to spice up ungraded sheets and personage magazines with backstage travails brought connected by her self-professed “weakness for young men.”

As an octogenarian, she sued a fellow 25 years her inferior who she alleged had orchestrated an unauthorized matrimony to siphon disconnected her sizeable fortune, estimated successful the tens of millions of dollars. Her lad tried unsuccessfully to person her declared mentally unfit to grip her concern affairs. She emphasized her independency by comparing herself to the Colosseum, declaring, “I volition ne'er crumble and ne'er collapse.”

The 2nd of 4 daughters, Luigia Lollobrigida was calved successful the Sabine upland municipality of Subiaco connected July 4, 1927. Her begetter mislaid his furnishings mill successful an Allied bombing raid during World War II and moved the household to Rome, 50 miles to the west, wherever helium began selling black-market cigarettes and subject blankets.

“We were truthful mediocre I made my shoes from unchangeable straw,” she aboriginal told the Weekly World News. After Italy’s surrender, she sang and sold sketches to American GIs. She utilized the wealth she earned to wage for singing lessons and won a assistance to the Academy of Fine Arts successful Rome.

A accidental brushwood with a workplace authoritative led to roles arsenic a movie other and past to gradually bigger parts. She besides worked arsenic a exemplary and won the rubric of Miss Rome earlier placing 3rd successful the Miss Italy competition.

In 1949, she joined a Yugoslav doctor, Milko Skofic, who became her manager. He took the ribald publicity photos of 23-year-old Ms. Lollobrigida that intrigued Hughes, who promptly provided her with a single, one-way summons to Los Angeles.

Hughes had her chauffeured to a luxury hotel, wherever guards were stationed extracurricular her doorway and she was allowed nary message oregon telephone calls. He told her to permission her hubby and, to property the point, assigned her divorcement scenes for her surface test.

Weary aft six weeks successful gold-plated captivity, Ms. Lollobrigida said she broke down during a 2 a.m. gathering with Hughes and signed a contract. Only past was she allowed to alert home.

Ms. Lollobrigida precocious up the marquee successful European films. She made a bodice-busting content successful “Fanfan la Tulipe” (1952), a swashbuckler starring the French prima Gérard Philipe. She had a breakthrough the adjacent year, playing a sparky, barefoot peasant successful the vivacious drama “Bread, Love and Dreams” other De Sica, who was besides a noted histrion and portrayed the uptight but smitten Carabinieri officer.

She commanded $48,000 for the film, a interest that was doubled for the arsenic fashionable sequel “Bread, Love and Jealousy” (1954). When she held retired for fractional the profits of the 2nd sequel, “Scandal successful Sorrento” (1955), Loren was hired alternatively and mamboed her mode to Hollywood.

Meanwhile, Ms. Lollobrigida drew headlines much for her romances than her movie roles. In the 1960s, she had a little engagement to New York existent property heir George S. Kaufman and a torrid matter with South African bosom surgeon Christiaan Barnard, whom she aboriginal called a “cheap publicity seeker” for revealing that she had erstwhile driven him to his edifice successful a Jaguar portion wearing lone a mink coat. She said she tried to seduce Hudson, who was cheery and who, she aboriginal told CNN big Larry King, “fell asleep” successful bed.

In 2006, Ms. Lollobrigida said she called disconnected a planned matrimony to Javier Rigau y Rafols, a Spanish businessman. But successful 2010, Rigau staged the wedding successful Barcelona with a proxy “stand-in” bride. She called the substance a “horrific and vulgar fraud” perpetrated by a luck hunter.

Rigau produced witnesses who testified to her having signed authorization for a proxy. After a tribunal successful Rome ruled against Ms. Lollobrigida successful 2017, she continued to question an annulment. Meanwhile, arsenic her son, Andrea Milko Skofic, challenged her competence, she was often seen successful the institution of her caller manager, Andrea Piazzolla, who was 60 years her inferior and whom she called “the champion idiosyncratic I person ever recovered successful my beingness until now.”

Gennaro Sangiuliano, Italy’s civilization minister, announced the decease but gave nary further details. A implicit database of survivors was not instantly available.

Ms. Lollobrigida erstwhile told Vanity Fair mag that, immoderate her nationalist image, she saw herself arsenic fundamentally a solitary soul, needing small but art. “I person ne'er made immoderate compromise, remaining autarkic and ever alone,” she said successful 2015. “My spot is my escaped spirit, and my large imaginativeness gives maine spot and vitality.”