Farewell to Gina Lollobrigida: Icon and Diva of Italian Cinema Dies

Gina Lollobrigida, an icon of Italian cinema who devoted her life to art, died Monday at the age of 95. She died in a clinic in Rome, her former lawyer Giulia Citani told Reuters.

A legendary actress — and sex symbol — who came to represent Italian postwar cinema, Lollobrigida brought many much-loved characters to life, from Adriana in Luigi Zampa’s Woman of Rome, to Esmeralda in the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Queen of Sheba in Solomon and Sheba, alongside Yul Brynner. She was an idol and diva of a generation, alongside Sophia Loren, with whom she had a bitter rivalry that she reignited even on her 90th birthday. “I was not looking for any rivalry against anyone: I was the No. 1,” Lollobrigida told Corriere della Sera then.

Born in Subiaco, Italy on July 4, 1927 to a family of furniture manufacturers, Lollobrigida always felt a deep connection to the world of creativity. She moved to Rome in 1944 and enrolled at the Institute of Fine Arts, drawing caricatures with charcoal and posing for a few photostories under the pseudonym Diana Loris to support herself. After placing third in Miss Italy in 1947 behind Lucia Bosè and Gianna Maria Canale, she began her career in cinema first as an extra and stand-in, and then in increasingly prominent roles. She was quickly noticed for both her beauty and her expressive talent. Her role in the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, a biographical film about the life of soprano Lina Cavalieri, where Lollobrigida sang, opened doors for her. She went on to play in Zampa’s Campane a martello and Christian-Jaque’s Fanfan la Tulipe, which was extremely popular in France. 

Lollobrigida clutched her most iconic role in the 1950s: La Bersagliera, a beautiful, penniless woman, ready to fight off men with cunning wit, in Luigi Comencini’s Bread, Love and Dreams, a role that earned her the Nastro d’Argento.