Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida, one of the greatest European film stars of the 50s and 60s, has died at the age of 95. Often described as “the most beautiful woman in the world”, she played in films such as Crossed Swords, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Beautiful But Dangerous.
She was a darling of the paparazzi, a photo novel heroine at the beginning of her career, and then went on to play leading roles with the greatest directors and acted with Gérard Philipe, Burt Lancaster, Yul Brynner, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Rock Hudson and Errol Flynn. She died on January 16, at the age of 95. Among her most famous films are Fanfan la Tulipe (1952) with Gerard Philipe, Bread, Love and Fantasy (1953), a huge success of Italian cinema, and Notre-Dame de Paris (1956), where she played Esmeralda.
The former sex symbol had been hospitalized last September after a broken neck of the femur.
Born on July 4, 1927 in the small village of Subiaco, in the heart of the Abruzzo mountains (central Italy), in a modest family that later moved to Rome, Gina Lollobrigida has played with the greatest actors from Frank Sinatra to Sean Connery, Marcello Mastroianni to Humphrey Bogart.
Gina Lollobrigida also gave memorable performances in the historical dramas Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (1959) and Imperial Venus (1962). In Hollywood, she also starred with Humphrey Bogart in Louder than the Devil (1953), and with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis in Trapeze (1956).
