Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida has died at the age of 95, according to the ANSA news agency.
She was one of the highest-profile European actresses of the 1950s and early 1960s, acting alongside such Hollywood stars as Humphrey Bogart, Rock Hudson, Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, and Frank Sinatra.
Lollobrigida with Tony Curtis in Trapeze, in 1956. Photo: Snap/Shutterstock
Coming from humble beginnings, he became one of the most recognizable faces in post-war Italian cinema.
An international sex symbol, rivaled only by Italian actress Sophia Loren, Lollobrigida was one of the last remaining stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
His former lawyer, Giulia Citani, said he died in a clinic in Rome, but did not give a cause of death.
Affectionately known in her native Italy simply as “La Lollo,” she starred in such films as The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Solomon and Sheba, Beautiful But Dangerous and The Most Beautiful Woman in the World during her five-decade acting career.
Finally moving away from the word cinematographic, Lollobrigida found success as a photographer and sculptor in later life, also venturing into the world of politics.
In 1975, rumors spread that she had been having an affair with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, after she gained exclusive access to him for a documentary she produced.
She later made headlines in 2006, when at the age of 79 she announced that she would marry a man 34 years her junior. She later called off the wedding and blamed the media for messing it up.
Lollobrigida with Yul Brynner in Solomon And Sheba, in 1959. Photo: Moviestore/Shutterstock
Last September, he failed to win a seat in the Italian parliament for Sovereign and Popular Italy (ISP), a left-wing political party, in national elections, after they failed to reach the 3% electoral threshold.
In 1975, rumors spread that she had been having an affair with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, after she gained exclusive access to him for a documentary she produced.
She later made headlines in 2006, when at the age of 79 she announced that she would marry a man 34 years her junior. She later called off the wedding and blamed the media for messing it up.
Lollobrigida with Anthony Quinn in The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1957. Photo: Snap/Shutterstock
When she was 80 years old, she said in an interview: “All my life I wanted a real love, a real love, but I have never had it. No one has ever really loved me. I am a cumbersome woman.”
