Gina Lollobrigida, legend of Italian cinema, dead at 95 - CNN

Milan, Italy CNN  — 

Italian surface fable Gina Lollobrigida has died astatine the property of 95, quality bureau ANSA reported, citing members of her family.

Her grandnephew, Italian Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida, tweeted quality of her death, calling her “one of the brightest stars of Italian cinematography and culture.”

RAI authorities media besides reported her death.

Together with Sophia Loren, Lollobrigida came to symbolize the earthy sexuality of Italian actresses successful the 1950s and 1960s.

After grooming arsenic a creator and sculptor, Lollobrigida became a palmy quality queen and model, earlier making her archetypal movie quality successful 1946, with a tiny relation successful the swashbuckling escapade “The Black Eagle.”

By the aboriginal 1950s, she was a immense prima successful Europe. She made her English-language movie debut successful 1953, successful John Huston’s “Beat the Devil,” alongside Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones.

She was Esmerelda to Anthony Quinn’s Quasimodo successful the 1956 adaptation of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” and the Queen of Sheba to Yul Brynner’s King Solomon successful King Vidor’s 1959 Technicolor epic “Solomon and Sheba.”

When movie roles began to dwindle successful the 1970s, Lollobrigida made a caller vocation for herself arsenic a photojournalist. She occasionally appeared successful movie and connected TV, astir famously successful a recurring relation successful US prime-time soap “Falcon Crest” successful 1984.

Last year, she ran unsuccessfully for a spot successful the Italian Senate, telling newspaper Corriere della Sera earlier the country’s elections: “I was conscionable bushed of proceeding politicians arguing with each different without ever getting to the point.”