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Gina Lollobrigida, who has died aged 95, rose to fame in the 1950s as a Mediterranean sex symbol, then became a photographer and sculptor after leaving the film world.
At her peak in the 1950s and 1960s, Lollobrigida, known as “La Lollo,” was an internationally acclaimed example of Italian post-war cinema, rivaled only by Sophia Loren.
Tempestuous and impulsive by nature, she made headlines again in 2006, when, at the age of 79, she announced that she would marry a man 34 years her junior. He later canceled the party, blaming the media for spoiling it.
“All my life, I wanted true love, genuine love, but I never had it. No one really loved me. I’m a complicated woman,” she told an interviewer at the age of 80.
Born to a working-class family in a poor mountainous area east of Rome, she studied sculpture and then got her break in the film world after coming third in the 1947 Miss Italy beauty pageant.
Role with Bogart, Hudson, Sinatra
He became famous in Italy with the leading roles in two Italian comedies by Luigi Comencini – Bread, Love and Dreamsand Bread, Love and Jealousy.
Role opposite Humphrey Bogart in John Huston’s 1954 film Defeat the Devil sealed his worldwide fame, and in 1955 he made one of his signature films, The Most Beautiful Woman in the World.
Despite playing opposite other American stars such as Frank Sinatra, Rock Hudson and Burt Lancaster, he never clicked in Hollywood and preferred to work closer to home, making films in the 1960s.
Born on July 4, 1927, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome to complete his education. She first earned her living as a model for fotoromanzi, photographic novels that she enjoyed reading in Italy, using the stage name Diana Loris.
Lollobrigida accompanied her success on the screen with a busy, often turbulent life that provided a rich source for Italian paparazzi and gossip writers.
Toronto Residency Brief
In 1950 she married Yugoslavian doctor Milko Skofic, who became her manager. The couple has one son.
For a short time starting in 1960, he was sponsored by the Canadian brothers Skofic and made his home in the Rosedale neighborhood of Toronto. He denied the move to avoid Italian tax authorities, but by 1963 the couple were no longer in Toronto.
They separated after almost 17 years of marriage.
“Marriage is boring and almost like a funeral, and couples often limit each other,” she said.
In 2006, when she was 79, she announced her intention to marry Javier Rigau, a Spaniard 34 years her junior, with whom she had a secret friendship for many years.
A month later, he canceled the wedding, saying the media coverage had ruined his life with “endless attacks, defamation and violence.”
Charity work, photojournalism
Lollobrigida made only sporadic appearances on screen after the early 1970s, and was probably last seen by North American audiences in the mid-1980s in a guest role on Falcon Crest and The Love Boat.
When she stopped making films, Lollobrigida developed a new career as a photographer and sculptor and also became a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Between 1972 and 1994 he published six books of his photographs.
He also scored rare interviews with Cuban leaders, producing and directing a 1972 documentary film. Portrait of Fidel Castro.
In his last years he returned to his first love, sculpting, maintaining a summer house in the Tuscan town of Pietrasanta, an artists’ colony where he worked with sculptors such as Bottero.
She had a one-woman show there in 2008 and dedicated it to her friend, the late opera singer Maria Callas.
Exhibitions of his marble and bronze sculptures were also held in Paris, Moscow and the United States.
In 2013, when she was 85, her jewelry auctioned by Sotheby’s in Geneva fetched US$4.9 million and set a record for a pair of diamond and pearl earrings, which sold for US$2.37 million. Proceeds go to stem cell research.
“Selling gems to raise awareness of stem cell therapy, which can cure many diseases, seems worthwhile to me,” he said.
Last year, for the second time after his 1999 bid, he ran for the Senate in the Italian elections. Running as a Eurosceptic independent candidate in the Lazio race, he got just one percent of the vote.
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