Died the legend of Italian and world cinema Gina Lollobrigida

On Monday, January 16, the legend of Italian cinema, actress Gina Lollobrigida, died in Italy at the age of 95. Dailymail.

Photo: IStock

Once known as the Mona Lisa of the 20th century for its beauty, Lollobrigida was a film legend of the 1950s and 60s. She later retired from the film world to pursue photography and sculpture.

Last year, she even made some political moves by running in the Italian general election just after her 95th birthday, although she failed to win parliamentary elections.

This followed her unsuccessful attempt to run for the European Parliament in 1999 representing Romano Prodi's centrist Democratic Party.

This followed her unsuccessful attempt to run for the European Parliament in 1999 representing Romano Prodi's centrist Democratic Party.

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Known as "La Lollo", at the height of her fame in the 1950s and 1960s, Lollobrigida was an international sex symbol and one of the leading stars of Italian post-war cinema. La Lollo competed only with Sophia Loren, with whom she had a constant enmity.

Lollobrigida once said that confusing her with Lauren is “a real sin,” and Sophie, in turn, noted that they are just like “a horse and a goat.”

The actresses did not miss the opportunity to poke each other during the interview. Once, Sophia Loren, who was sometimes accused of not being able to do anything other than being sexy, broke down in earnest. Suddenly, she declared that Lollo's much-lauded figure was nothing more than a fake. Allegedly, she tightens her waist with corsets, and her breasts are full of silicone, reports WomanRu.

Gina was not at a loss and suggested that her rival be naked in public in order to once and for all put an end to the question of which of them was generously awarded by nature. We are sure that at that moment many men around the world began to beat a little faster and their knees gave way, but it never came to a real demonstration of busts.

Whether worried that this rivalry might go beyond reason, or simply protecting one of her main advantages, Gina Lollobrigida insured her breasts for $ 1 million.

Special measurements were taken every year. If the distance from the nipple to the navel would be less than expected, the insurance company undertook to pay the actress a huge amount. This happened when she was 70 years old.

As recently as 2017, there was still some overt animosity when Lollobrigida told an Italian newspaper that she was "not looking for rivalry with anyone", calling herself "number one".

The ladies reportedly got into a verbal altercation: Lauren, who was 88 years old, called herself the number one of the two, and Lollobrigida objected that her rival could "play a peasant woman, but never a lady."

Lollobrigida later dismissed the feud as a PR contraption espoused by Lauren's team for decades: "God! She and her press agent came up with this "competition" between us, and then she couldn't stop for 50 years. It was so boring. We are very different and have made completely different careers. I wanted above all to be an artist. I wanted a career at a high level!”

Paying tribute to Lollobrigida, Italian Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano said: “Farewell to the screen diva, the protagonist of more than half a century of Italian cinema history. Her charm will remain forever.

Lollobrigida was born into a working-class family in 1927 in a poor mountainous region east of Rome. She studied sculpture and then had her breakthrough in film, finishing third in the 1947 Miss Italia beauty pageant (that year's winner was actress Lucia Bose).

She first made a living as a model for photo novels, photographic novels that were voraciously read in Italy.

She gained fame in Italy, starring in two Italian comedies by Luigi Comencini - Bread, Love and Dreams and Bread, Love and Jealousy.

A role opposite Humphrey Bogart in John Huston's 1954 film Defeat the Devil cemented her worldwide fame, and in 1955 she starred in what became one of her signature pictures, The Most Beautiful Woman in the World.

But, despite the fact that Gina played with such American stars as Frank Sinatra and Burt Lancaster, she never got along with Hollywood and preferred to work closer to home.

Perhaps her last known film was Good Evening Mrs Campbell, a farce directed by Melvin Frank that also starred Phil Silvers, Peter Lawford and Telly Savalas.

In it, she played Carla, an Italian who had affairs with three American soldiers during World War II and meets them all again during the squadron's reunion 20 years later.

She tried to guard her privacy by secluded in an isolated villa in Rome, which was adorned with her own sculptures and paintings, as well as art she collected during her travels around the world.

In 1950, she married an expatriate doctor from Yugoslavia, Milko Skofitz, who became her manager. The couple had a son, Milko Jr.

For the sake of Lollobrigida, Skofich left his job as a doctor and became her manager and entrepreneur. Milko took Gina's portfolio to film studios, sent her photographs to newspapers, answered letters and tried to find the most profitable filming offers. Skofich used all his possible connections to make his wife more popular. The actress admitted that it was her husband who helped her in many ways to create the image of that very “national Gina”, reports Grace.

They separated after almost 17 years, and Lollobrigida later said she had no intention of remarrying. "Marriage is boring and almost always feels like a funeral, and couples often limit each other too much," she said.

When she stopped making films, Lollobrigida made a new career as a photographer and sculptor, as well as being a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and its Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

She published six books of her photographs between 1972 and 1994, including Italia Mia (My Italy), The Philippines and The Miracle of Innocence, photographs of and for children.

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“Children, with their big, wide-open eyes, question us. They can help us let go of selfishness, kids will surely bare our hearts,” she wrote in the introduction.

In 1975, she made the documentary A Portrait of Fidel Castro, and for many years there were rumors around her that she had an affair with the Cuban leader. She was credited with novels with Yuri Gagarin, Andrei Konchalovsky, Salvador Dali.

In later years, she returned to her first love - sculpting.

Exhibitions of her marble and bronze statues were also held in Paris, Moscow and the USA.

Hot-tempered and impulsive by nature, Gina made headlines again in 2006 when, at the age of 79, she announced that she would marry a man 34 years her junior. She later canceled the wedding, accusing the media of ruining it.

The young lover decided to take matters into his own hands and, without the knowledge of Lollobrigida, somehow registered their marriage. The woman immediately accused the young man of encroaching on her condition.

“All my life I wanted true love, pure love, but I never had it. No one has ever truly loved me. I am a heavy woman,” she said when she was 80 years old.

In 2013, when she was 85, her Sotheby's auction in Geneva fetched $4,9 million and set a record for a pair of diamond and pearl earrings, which fetched $2,37 million. The proceeds went to stem cell research.

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“Jewelry is meant to give pleasure, and over the years I have had great pleasure from it,” she said. “Selling my jewelry to raise awareness about stem cell therapy, which can cure so many diseases, seems like a wonderful use for it.”

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