Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida has died on Monday at the age of 95, according to the Italian news agency Ansa.
The interpreter of
Bread, Love
and Fantasy rose to fame in the middle of the last century and she participated in more than 60
films
, shot with directors such as De Sica, René Clair, John Huston or King Vidor;
writers like Truman Capote and stars like Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra or Marcello Mastroianni.
More information
Gina Lollobrigida: "I have not been able to give the cinema everything that I have inside"
Luigia Lollobrigida was born in Subiaco (in central Italy) on July 4, 1927 into a wealthy family that lost its heritage in World War II.
In 1947, at the age of 20, she moved to nearby Rome, where she began to study Fine Arts.
As she explains in the biography of her official website, she was the "privileged" one, since while she was studying art and poetry thanks to a scholarship, her family of "refugees" lived in a single, small room and "ate what little they could." I was able to pick up."
The springboard into show business occurred upon her arrival in the Italian capital, when she ended up on the stage of the Miss Roma pageant, in which she came second, and was later invited to the Miss Italy final, in which Lucía Bosé finally triumphed. .
Little by little, the young woman managed to enter the Roman studios of Cinecittà, playing small roles, and three years later she received an offer from the millionaire producer Howard Hughes.
After a brief stay in Hollywood, she returned to Rome to start a career that would establish her as one of the most acclaimed actresses in Italy and Europe.
During her career, she has acted in more than 60 films, as well as on stage and in television series.
Established as one of the great icons of Italianity, Lollobrigida gradually distanced herself from the world of cinema, in which she won numerous awards, with the exception of the coveted Oscar.
The actress in 1955.Getty
In parallel, his private life has always been news.
In 1949 she married the Yugoslavian doctor Milko Skofic, with whom she had a son, Andrea.
He divorced her in 1971. Lollobrigida also had a relationship with Spanish businessman Javier Rigau, 34 years her junior.
The actress ended up denouncing him for fraud and documentary falsification for the "proxy" marriage they contracted in 2010, although Rigau was acquitted in March 2017.
On the other hand, Lollobrigida's family tried for years to disqualify her for ceding a large part of her assets to her inseparable secretary, Andrea Piazzolla, 34.
The young man, as requested by the artist's relatives and the Rome prosecutor's office, is pending trial, accused of squandering the diva's assets "taking advantage of her advanced age and mental state."
In 2022, the muse of Italian cinema tried her luck in politics and ran as a candidate for the Senate in the general elections that were held in the transalpine country on September 25.
The diva assured when making her candidacy official that she threw herself into this electoral adventure because she was tired of seeing how "politicians argue among themselves without ever getting anywhere."
“As long as I have power, I use it for important things, especially for my country,” she explained then.
