Winner of five Davids by Donatello and a Golden Globe by Hollywood foreign critics and early fame for such films as Bread, Love and Fantasy (1953), Bread, Love and Jealousy and La Romana (1954), she visited Argentina for the first time at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in 1954.
Also known as La Bersagliera for the role played in the 1953 film Bread, Love and Fantasy, along with Vittorio de Sica – mentioned Prensa Latina – the diva was born on July 4, 1927 in Subiaco, a small commune east of the province born of Rome, near the capital.
Alongside a transcendental involvement in Italian productions, the actress maintained a political commitment that led her to run for a left-wing coalition for the Senate in the September 2022 election.
In 1999 she was appointed Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and in 2016 the Italian President Sergio Mattarella presented her with a special David Award for her career.
Alongside transcendental involvement in Italian productions such as The Most Beautiful Woman in the World opposite Vittorio Gassman, which earned her a David di Donatello Award, she has 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; He starred in Solomon and the Queen of Sheba with Yul Brynner and in When September Comes with Rock Hudson, for which he won a Golden Globe among many other films.
In Italy he appeared in Steno and Mario Monicelli’s A Dog’s Life, Mario Camerini’s Woman for a Night, Pietro Germi’s The City Defends Itself, Luigi Zampa’s Hearts Without Borders and La Romana . “Otros tiempos” by Alessandro Blasetti and in France, among others, “Night beauties” by René Clair and later “Fanfan la Tulipe” by Christian-Jaque.
He celebrated his first successes with tapes such as “Campane a martello” (1949) commissioned by Luigi Zampa. In 1952 he starred alongside French Divo Gérard Philipe in French director Christian-Jaque’s ‘Fanfán La Tulipe’, a film which won awards in Cannes and Berlin, earning it widespread attention on the continent.
It was the beginning of a career in which she starred in more than 60 films, as well as many other plays or roles in television series, with her deep gaze and ample bust size.
All the directors of the 1950s loved her, but it was Luigi Comencini who brought her to her greatest glory in “Pane, amore e fantasia” (1953) with which she owed her first prize, the “Nastro d’Argento”. a well-known 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) with the hunchbacked Anthony Quinn.
Perhaps one of his most emblematic works is the forebodingly titled production La donna più bella del mondo (1956) 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 moved away from the world of cinema, where she won numerous awards, except for the Oscar.
(With information from Prensa Latina and other agencies)