At 95 years old, Gina Lollobrigida, legendary Italian actress who rose to fame in the 1950s as a sex symbol on the big screen has died.
"La Lollo", as she was affectionately known in Italy, became world famous for her most dramatic stage entrance: riding a donkey in Bread, Love and Dreams, from 1953, barefoot, resolute and in a dress that barely contained her charms.
No contemporary Italian actress, not even Monica Bellucci or Valeria Golino, has come close to the star status of La Lollo., who along with Sophia Loren and Claudia Cardinale, reigned in the 50s and 60s.
Luigia Lollobrigida was born in Subiaco, Italy, on July 4, 1927. In 1947, at just 20 years old, she moved to Roma, where she began to study Fine Arts and went to work as a model due to her extraordinary beauty and body.
Although he appeared in dozens of films, including The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956) in the role of Esmeralda, with Anthony Quinn, and Solomon and Sheba (1959) in which he starred opposite Yul Brynner, Lollobrigida was always more of a star than an actress.
With an exuberant beauty that conveyed innocence and experience, La Lollo was the embodiment of an Italy that, after World War II, leaped from extreme poverty to the glamor of the Dolce Vita years.
La Lollo was a personality that overshadowed her work in the cinema; she was simply one of the most beautiful women in the world. She, in a nutshell, represented something iconic, more important than the true talent she often displayed in her histrionic work.
Her best-known role remains her first, that of La Bersagliera, an insolent peasant girl in the comedy Bread, Love and Dreamsby Luigi Comencini.
In her last years of life, the actress dedicated herself to philanthropy, photography, activism and sculpture.
