Italian display screen legend Gina Lollobrigida has died on the age of 95, information company ANSA reported, citing members of her household.
Her grandnephew, Italian Minister of Agriculture Francesco Lollobrigida, tweeted information of her demise, calling her “one of many brightest stars of Italian cinematography and tradition”.
“In the present day #GinaLollobrigida has disappeared, one of many brightest stars of Italian cinematography and tradition,” he tweeted in Italian. “Incomparable champion, icon of magnificence and flexibility, extraordinary lady {and professional}. She is going to proceed to dwell on and encourage by way of his works.”
READ MORE: Jailed TV star ordered to finish psychological well being therapy program
RAI state media, an Italian free-to-air tv channel, additionally reported her demise.
Along with Sophia Loren, Lollobrigida got here to symbolise the earthy sexuality of Italian actresses within the Nineteen Fifties and Nineteen Sixties.
After coaching as a painter and sculptor, Lollobrigida grew to become a profitable magnificence queen and mannequin, earlier than making her first movie look in 1946, with a small position within the swashbuckling journey The Black Eagle.
READ MORE: Why singer Marie Osmond will not depart fortune to her eight children
By the early Nineteen Fifties, she was an enormous star in Europe. She made her English-language movie debut in 1953, in John Huston’s Beat the Satan, alongside Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones.
She was Esmerelda to Anthony Quinn’s Quasimodo within the 1956 adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and the Queen of Sheba to Yul Brynner’s King Solomon in King Vidor’s 1959 Technicolor epic Solomon and Sheba.
READ MORE: Comic’s James Corden sledge in Critics Selection speech
When movie roles started to dwindle within the Seventies, Lollobrigida made a brand new profession for herself as a photojournalist. She often appeared in movie and on TV, most famously in a recurring position in US prime-time cleaning soap Falcon Crest in 1984.
Final 12 months, she ran unsuccessfully for a seat within the Italian Senate, telling newspaper Corriere della Sera earlier than the nation’s elections: “I used to be simply bored with listening to politicians arguing with one another with out ever attending to the purpose.”
For a day by day dose of 9Honey, subscribe to our publication right here.
Remembering the celebrities we have misplaced in 2023
