The actress Italian Gina Lollobrigida, one of the great stars in the history of cinema, passed away this Monday at the age of 95, according to local media reports.
Lollobrigida, the muse of Italian cinematography, had recently been admitted to a clinic in Rome after suffering a fractured femur last September.
Actress Gina Lollobrigida has passed away today at the age of 95. The muse of Italian cinema has appeared in more than 60 feature films and has worked with stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra and Truman Capote. D.E.P pic.twitter.com/lNLykWUBjM
— Vanity Fair Spain (@VanityFairSpain) January 16, 2023
Lollobrigida was born in Subiaco (downtown) on July 4, 1927 into a wealthy family that lost their assets in World War II and in 1947, at the age of 20, moved to nearby Rome, where he began to study Fine Arts. .
As he explains in his biography, which is cited in his obituary by the agency efeshe was the “privileged” in a family of “refugees” who lived poorly in a harsh room and ate “what little she managed to collect.”
The springboard into show business came upon her arrival in the city, when she ended up on the stage of the “Miss Roma” pageant, in which she placed second, and later she was invited to the “Miss Italy” final, in which she finally won. Lucía Bosé triumphed.
Little by little he managed to enter the Roman studios of Cinecittà, playing small roles, and three years later he received an offer from the millionaire producer Howard Huges for which he took a plane to fly to that effervescent Hollywood.
However, she soon regretted it, realizing that she could only work in productions of her patron, and it was then that she decided to return to Rome to start a career that would establish her as one of the most applauded actresses in Europe.
His first successes came under the orders of Luigi Zampa, with tapes such as bell to hammer (1949). In 1952 she starred alongside the French divo Gérard Philipe Fanfan La Tulipeby French director Christian-Jaque, a film that won awards at Cannes and Berlin, which gave it great visibility on the continent.
It was the beginning of a career in which, with her deep gaze and exuberant bust, according to specialists such as Gonzalo Sánchez from the agency efeinterpreted more than 60 tapes, in addition to many other theater pieces or roles in television series.
All the directors of the 1950s loved it, but it was Luigi Comencini who pushed it to its peak in Bread, love and fantasy (1953), with which he won his first prize, the Nastro d’Argento, thanks to a memorable role alongside Vittorio de Sica.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG_EiX0UUdU
At that time he worked in major international productions, such as beat the devil (1953), with Humphrey Bogart; trapeze (1956), with Tony Curtis, or Notre Dame de Paris (1956), alongside a hunchbacked Anthony Quinn.
Perhaps one of his most emblematic works is the production of the premonitory title The beautiful più lady of the world (1956), together with Vittorio Gassman, in which he even sang fragments of Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca”.
Little by little Lollobrigida separated from the world of cinema, in which he won numerous awards, with the exception of the Oscar.
In parallel, her private life was in the spotlight since she married the Yugoslav doctor Milko Skofic in 1949, with whom she had a son, Andrea, and from whom she divorced in 1971.
Frank Sinatra and Gina Lollobrigida for their roles in “Never So Few”. 1959 pic.twitter.com/nJa32xTvko
— ✨ Cinemania ✨?? (@Taniawlt) January 12, 2023
Then she married the Spanish businessman Javier Rigau, 34 years younger than her and whom she ended up denouncing for fraud and document falsification, although he was acquitted in March 2017. The marriage was annulled by Pope Francis, according to notes efe.
Gina lived in a villa on the Via Appia Antica in Rome and had the help of her assistant Andrea Piazzolla, whom Rigau and the star’s family had recently denounced, accusing him of manipulating her and squandering her fortune.
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