Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida has died

Born on July 4, 1927 in Subiaco (Italy, Lazio), Luigia Lollobrigida, who died on January 16, at the age of 95, was noticed by the cinematographic community in a photo novel where she posed under the pseudonym of Diana Loris, while pursuing studies at the Beaux-Arts and participating in beauty contests (in 1947, she finished second in the Miss Rome contest and third in the Miss Italy contest behind Lucia Bose and Gianna Maria Canale).

For years, her presence on the screen, in secondary roles, was dictated only by her physical assets, her voluptuous beauty. She shares with Silvana Mangano the honor of arousing the erotic fantasies of post-war Italian viewers. It is said in the Peninsula that Gina is “the best thing that has happened since the invention of spaghetti”.

Career revival

In 1952, in a sketch film by Alessandro Blasetti, Happy times, she embodies an attractive criminal who, on the day of her trial, uses an unfair argument (in the eyes of justice) to impress her judges: a dress opening in a diamond shape under the collar, as if the fabric had burst, revealing a deliciously filled white corset. But everything is regulated. In December 1953, one could read this in the Cinema notebooks (#30): “Lovely Gina Lollobrigida was throat-thrown. A generous throat in truth and made of a material that is both marmoreal and transparent which fascinates the eye and annoys the hand. those who have seen “The Merchant of Love”, by Mario Soldati, adapted from “The Provincial”, by Alberto Moravia, now know that Gina does not only have a throat, a navel and a very nice drop of the back, but also a very sure and very sensitive talent as an actress. »

Howard Hughes sequestered her for several months in a room at the Town House Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles

In the meantime, she married a doctor, Milko Skofic, who became her agent. And reached the leading roles, in Fanfan the Tulip, by Christian Jaque (1952) and night beauties, by René Clair (1952), both alongside Gérard Philipe, a career revival that she pursued in The Beautiful Roman, by Luigi Zampa (redemption of a prostitute under Mussolini, 1954), Notre Dame of Paris, by Jean Delannoy (Esmeralda, femme fatale in a red dress, 1956), Bread, love and fantasy then Bread, love and jealousy, by Luigi Comencini (a spicy Bersagliere, in 1953 and 1954, alongside Vittorio de Sica), The Great Game, by Robert Siodmak (a double role of mistress and prostitute in a brothel run by Arletty, 1954).

Then comes the Hollywood episode. Compulsive lover of canon busts, the producer Howard Hughes sees her in a photo in a bikini, sends an emissary to get her to sign a contract. And sequestration for several months in a room at the Town House Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard, in Los Angeles. A gorilla posted in front of his door has orders to prevent him from going out. Sometimes Hughes arrives at 2 a.m., takes her to the hotel restaurant where he has brought an orchestra, and takes her to the dance floor. She manages to pack up, but lines up a few American films.

Jealous of Sophia Loren

We see her with Humphrey Bogart (stronger than the devil, by John Huston, 1953), with Burt Lancaster (Trapeze, by Carol Reed, 1956), with Yul Brynner (Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, by King Vidor, a kitsch peplum for a spy sent to bewitch the King of Israel, 1959), with Rock Hudson (September meeting, by Robert Mulligan, 1961).

Upset by the rise of Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida sees her career stalling. “She plays the peasants, I the ladies”, she lets go, bad player. A new film with sketches earned him a sentence of two months in prison in 1966, fortunately amnestied, for indecent assault in The Dolls, because of daring outfits. In 1968, she did a brief number of self-mockery in The mad Navy, by Franck Tashlin, to make fun of her image as a volcanic brunette. In This wonderful autumn, by Mauro Bolognini (1969) and king, queen, valet, by Jerzy Skolimovski (1972), it nicely portrays mature aunts bewitching their young nephews. Then makes a brief appearance in The Adventures of Pinocchio, television series by Luigi Comencini: she plays a surly Turquoise fairy. Then devotes himself to his passion for photography.

Gina Lollobrigida will have played her own role several times, in Boom on Paris, by Maurice de Canonge (1954), and in 3D Box Office, by Ezio Greggio (2011), the first Italian film shot in 3D. She embodies the cinema fairy in The Hundred and One Nights, by Agnès Varda (1995), pink wig and very star system impulses. Appointed goodwill ambassador in 1999 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, she ran for the European elections the same year as number 2 on the list of Antonio Di Pietro, the former anti-corruption magistrate, without being elected.