Film Diva - Gina Lollobrigida

Lollobrigida was one of the great divas of Italian cinema. Alongside Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale and Monica Vitti, who died in February, she achieved worldwide fame in the post-war decades and stood in front of the camera with the biggest film stars. Based on one of her films, she was even described as the “most beautiful woman in the world”. Later she also had success as a photographer and sculptor.

The artist with the complicated surname – which, despite the urging of some directors, she never wanted to exchange for a shorter stage name – was born in 1927 east of Rome. In 1946 she was making ends meet in Rome with extra roles and charcoal drawings of guests in bars when she was discovered by filmmaker Mario Costa and got her first major role in “Opera Rush”.

This was the beginning of an exciting career. As a heartthrob and sex symbol – clichés that she later complained about – she worked with a number of Hollywood greats from Humphrey Bogart to Marcello Mastroianni, Sean Connery, Alec Guinness, Burt Lancaster and Rock Hudson. She starred opposite Anthony Quinn in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956). “Fanfan, der Husar” (1952) and “Die Schönen der Nacht” (1952) were also among her great successes.

From 1956 to 1959 she won a Bambi as best international actress for four years in a row, as well as numerous prizes in her native Italy. However, it was not enough for “La Lollo” to win the Oscar, which her “bosom enemy” Sophia Loren won.

But the heart of many Italians was safe for Gina – a pet form of Luigina. Also because, in addition to glamor, she also had principles and therefore gave up acting in the early 70s. “I refused to take my clothes off,” she later explained. Film producers would therefore have ignored them. The self-confident Italian then became a photographer and got illustrious objects in front of her lens such as Fidel Castro, soccer idol Pelé, Ronald Reagan, Paul Newman, Salvador Dalí and also the German national soccer team.

In the 1990s she switched to sculpture, exhibiting sculptures and becoming a Unicef ​​ambassador. On the red carpets and at the film galas, the diva – mostly with garish make-up, with pompous evening gowns and wild hair – was still a welcome guest.

In her own words, she was “less lucky than others” in her private life and in love – even before the unpleasant developments in her last years. The 1949 marriage to the Yugoslavian doctor Milko Skofic gave birth to a son, Andrea Milko Jr., with whom she later fell out and who then managed to get a financial guardian placed in front of his mother because of her mental state.