ROME (dpa) – Italians like to compare her to Rome’s Coliseum. “Because I’ll never ever collapse,” she once joked.
Last summer Luigina ‘Gina’ Lollobrigida turned 75, but her charm and celebrity status refuses to wither.
Born from a humble family in Subiaco, south of Rome, on July 4, 1927, Lollobrigida’s voluptuous, hourglass body, sensual lips and large almond eyes grew to incarnate Italian beauty at its very best.
A 1998 poll among readers of Playboy magazine placed her in the top 20 of the sexiest women of the century, well ahead of Sharon Stone, Grace Kelly and Catherine Deneuve.
Her arrival in Hollywood, in the 1950s, prompted People Today magazine to publish a cover story entitled “Sex from Italy invades USA”, which featured “Lollo” on the cover.
Americans dubbed her the Mona Lisa of 20th Century Fox. Her beauty is said to have conquered the hearts of many, including Frank Sinatra, Henry Kissinger, Fidel Castro and Hollywood producer Howard Hughes.
But to portray Lollobrigida as just a heartthrob would not render justice to a woman whose physical beauty has all too often ended up concealing an artist’s soul and a capable mind.
Gina earned her first pennies by selling portraits of American soldiers stationed in Italy after World War II. Her first acting role took place in 1946, when a director noted her walking down the streets of Rome. But she only accepted the small part to pay for her singing lessons – her heart was set on becoming an opera singer.
A year later, she took part in a local beauty contest – with only the first prize accordion in mind, she says. Along with the accordion, she won a ticket to the Miss Italy contest, where she gained third place and the attention of cinema producers, who offered her the first major acting roles.
Lollobrigida went on to star in more than 60 movies, including Vittorio de Sica’s “Bread, Love and Dreams” (1954), “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1956) and “The Dolls” (1964).
She starred alongside the likes of Marcello Mastroianni, Rock Hudson, Humphrey Bogart and Sean Connery and played a blue-haired fairy in Luigi Comencini’s “The Adventures of Pinocchio” (1971).
Despite some provocative titles – notably “Wife For A Night” (1952), “Beautiful but Dangerous” (1955), “Fast and Sexy” (1958) – the Italian diva always refused to take her clothes off, a decision that contributed to her decision to abandon cinema in the late 1960s in favour of her other great passion, photography.
Her subjects included Brazilian football legend Pele, Ronald Reagan, Paul Newman and Salvador Dali. Her celebrity status allowed her unprecedented access to Fidel Castro, but also proved an obstacle when photographing workers at Italian car maker Fiat in Turin, who immediately saw through her disguise and brought the entire production line to a halt.
She has published several books of photographs and has also proved an accomplished sculptress.
Lollobrigida has put her celebrity status to good cause, helping troubled children at Italy’s Boys’ Town and serving as an ambassador for the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization. One of her most recent appearances in public came in March, when she was a guest of honour at Liza Minelli’s wedding in New York.
Despite her looks, Lollobrigida has not been so lucky with her love life. In 1948 she married a Yugoslav doctor, Milko Scofic, and gave birth to a son, Milko. But the couple divorced in 1971, and she has not entered a lasting relationship since.
“I hope that love will smile to me one more time before I turn 80,” she says.
