Winner of five Davids from Donatello and a Golden Globe from Hollywood foreign critics and early fame for films like “Bread, Love and Fantasy” (1953), “Pan, amor y celos” and “La romana” (1954), visited Argentina for the first time on the occasion of the 1954 Mar del Plata Film Festival.
Also known as La Bersagliera for the role played in the film Bread, Love and Fantasy of 1953, together with Victor de Sica – mentions Prensa Latina -, the diva was born on July 4, 1927 in Subiaco, a small municipality to the east of the province of Rome, near the capital.
In addition to a transcendental participation in Italian productions, the actress maintained a political commitment that led her to be a candidate for the Senate for a left-wing alliance in the September 2022 elections.
In 1999 she was named a Goodwill Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and in 2016 Italian President Sergio Mattarella presented her with a special David Award for her career.
In addition to a transcendental participation in Italian productions, such as The Most Beautiful Woman in the World, alongside Vittorio Gassman, which earned her a David di Donatello Award, she starred in international blockbusters such as Trapeze, alongside Burt Lancaster and The Treasure of Africa, with Humphrey Bogart. .
She also played Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, opposite Anthony Quinn; She acted in Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, with Yul Brynner, and in When September Comes, along with Rock Hudson, for which she won a Golden Globe, among many other films.
In Italy he appeared in “A Dog’s Life” by Steno and Mario Monicelli, “Woman for a Night” by Mario Camerini, “The City Defends Itself” by Pietro Germi, “Hearts Without Borders” and “La Romana” by Luigi Zampa, “Otros tiempos”, by Alessandro Blasetti, and in France in “Night beauties”, by René Clair, and later “Fanfan la Tulipe”, by Christian-Jaque, among many others.
It was the beginning of a career in which, with her deep gaze and exuberant bust, she played more than 60 films, as well as many other plays or roles in television series.
All the directors of the 1950s loved her, but it was Luigi Comencini who propelled her to her greatest splendor in “Pane, amore e fantasia” (1953), with which she won her first prize, the “Nastro d’Argento”, thanks to to a remembered role with Vittorio de Sica.
At that time he worked in major international productions, such as “Beat the Devil” (1953), with Humphrey Bogart; “Trapeze” (1956), with Tony Curtis, or “Notre-Dame de Paris” (1956), along with a hunchbacked Anthony Quinn.
Perhaps one of his most emblematic works is the production with the foreboding title “La donna più bella del mondo” (1956), together with Vittorio Gassman, in which he even sang fragments of Giacomo Puccini’s “Tosca”.
Established as one of the great icons of “Italianness”, Lollobrigida gradually distanced herself from the world of cinema, in which she won numerous awards, with the exception of the Oscar.
(With information from Prensa Latina and other agencies)
