“La Lollo”
versus
“la Loren”
.
In Italy, this conversation has often been ardently supported by film lovers.
It must be said that Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren, since it is they we are talking about, that in addition to their undeniable qualities as an actress, both presented a beauty to turn heads around the world.
The two Mona Lisas each maintained a very classy court of admirers.
Gina could claim the enthusiasm of Humphrey Bogart and Orson Welles.
The hero of
Casablanca
will go so far as to dare to say:
“What a woman!
Next to her, Marilyn Monroe, is Shirley Temple!”
The director of
Citizen Kane
, will not be in the lace either.
He even gave her a terribly flattering nickname:
“The most beautiful woman in the world.”
Sophia Loren, a few years her junior, and perhaps naturally more modest, can boast of having also had very respected admirers.
The great Vittorio de Sica then Marcello Mastroianni would repeat at will that for them the one and only "
Divine
" of Cinecitta was indeed Loren.
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Gina's too pink neorealism
In reality, the rivalry between the two beauties was more fantasized than real until 1955. That year, it was Dino Risi, the king of Italian-style satirical comedy, who declared war on pink neorealism embodied by Gina by choosing to have her replaced by Sophia Loren in the last episode of the triptych of
Pain, love and fantasy
entitled
Pain, love, so be it
.
The reassuring, almost perfect aestheticism of Lollobrigida which had so charmed and at the same time fascinated the Italians (and the French) had imperceptibly gone out of fashion.
The sublime Esmeralda of Notre Dame de Paris which had touched Quasimodo's heart had to bow before the more tormented beauty and sensibility of the Antonietta of
Read alsoFanfan la Tulipe, Notre-Dame de Paris… The greatest films of Gina Lollobrigida
Bread, Love and Fantasy
by Luigi Comencini in 1953 with Gina Lollobrigida, Vittorio de Sica...
La Lollo will have fun at the start of this bellissima duel.
She contrived for a long time in the big festivals, like in Cannes in 1961, to play comedy, no longer on the screen, but in front of the paparazzi who did not ask for so much.
She will end up giving up the fight in front of her
"tender enemy"
by preferring photography to film sets.
There would remain for eternity only the memory of the lover of
Fanfan la Tulipe
and the immortal Esmeralda of Victor Hugo.
Bread, love, so be it
by Dino Risi with Sophia Loren, Vittorio de Sica...