Farewell to Gina Lollobrigida: Icon and Diva of Italian Cinema Dies

Gina Lollobrigida, an icon of Italian cinema who devoted her life to artwork, died Monday on the age of 95. She died in a clinic in Rome, her former lawyer Giulia Citani advised Reuters.

A legendary actress — and intercourse image — who got here to characterize Italian postwar cinema, Lollobrigida introduced many much-loved characters to life, from Adriana in Luigi Zampa’s Girl of Rome, to Esmeralda within the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Queen of Sheba in Solomon and Sheba, alongside Yul Brynner. She was an idol and diva of a era, alongside Sophia Loren, with whom she had a bitter rivalry that she reignited even on her ninetieth birthday. “I used to be not searching for any rivalry towards anybody: I used to be the No. 1,” Lollobrigida advised Corriere della Sera then.

Born in Subiaco, Italy on July 4, 1927 to a household of furnishings producers, Lollobrigida at all times felt a deep connection to the world of creativity. She moved to Rome in 1944 and enrolled on the Institute of Effective Arts, drawing caricatures with charcoal and posing for a couple of photostories beneath the pseudonym Diana Loris to assist herself. After inserting third in Miss Italy in 1947 behind Lucia Bosè and Gianna Maria Canale, she started her profession in cinema first as an additional and stand-in, after which in more and more outstanding roles. She was rapidly observed for each her magnificence and her expressive expertise. Her function within the Most Stunning Girl within the World, a biographical movie concerning the lifetime of soprano Lina Cavalieri, the place Lollobrigida sang, opened doorways for her. She went on to play in Zampa’s Campane a martello and Christian-Jaque’s Fanfan la Tulipe, which was extraordinarily common in France. 

Lollobrigida clutched her most iconic function within the Nineteen Fifties: La Bersagliera, a wonderful, penniless lady, able to struggle off males with crafty wit, in Luigi Comencini’s Bread, Love and Goals, a task that earned her the Nastro d’Argento.