Gina Lollobrigida, film star who conquered Italy, Hollywood and the world, dies at 95
There she is, waving from the backseat of a convertible on the eve of the Cannes Film Festival. And here she is again, stepping to the tarmac from a jet in Paris, her scarf billowing perfectly in the evening breeze. And again, cloaked in emerald — dress and rings, both — in her villa outside Rome.
An actor, yes, but somehow Gina Lollobrigida was always more than just that.
As Italy was pulling itself from the rubble of World War II and the grinding oppression of fascism, Lollobrigida emerged as the face of la dolce vita, a siren beckoning Romans to once again indulge, celebrate and embrace.
“She represented something iconic, far more important than the actual talent she often displayed in her work as an actress,” wrote the late author Peter Bondanella in his book “Italian Cinema.”
Never out of the headlines for long and with a life captured in film and an endless burst of celebrity photographs — squeezed up next to Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol or David Bowie — Lollobrigida remained planted firmly in public view until her death Monday.
Forever beloved in her homeland,
