Post by Jaga on Jan 18, 2023 20:40:53 GMT -7
Gina Lollobrigida was already an icon and a bit old-fashioned when I was able to understand film and media. She was always considered a second to famous Sophie Loren. At least it looks that she had a life AFTER her career that kept her going.
Here is quite an interesting and in depth analysis of her life.
www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/01/16/gina-lollobrigida-italian-film-actress-dead/
She began her career on a lark in 1946, when a movie director eyed the onetime art student on the streets of Rome and was besotted. And it was a photo of Ms. Lollobrigida in a bikini that proved sufficient to entice billionaire industrialist and film producer Howard Hughes to fly her to Hollywood in 1950. He kept her a virtual prisoner for weeks in a fancy hotel, she later said, until she agreed to a contract. She said that she refused his sexual advances and that he, in return, made her prohibitively expensive for other filmmakers in the United States.
As a result, the younger Loren conquered Hollywood first. Ms. Lollobrigida, who often stoked their rivalry, would later cattily remark to Life: “We are as different as a fine race horse and a goat.”
....
Over the years, Ms. Lollobrigida had acquired a reputation as quarrelsome and demanding, a performer with insatiable vanity and unbridled desire for control over the set. She was also litigious, filing as many as 10 lawsuits at a time.
She sued producers for what she alleged were broken promises and sicced her lawyers on advertisers and publications she claimed had used her image without permission. According to Time, she prevailed over an Italian film critic for his disparaging description of her “udder.”
In interviews, Ms. Lollobrigida presented herself as one of life’s indomitable survivors: an Italian country girl who endured wartime hardship, sexual assault, deceitful producers and a vicious entertainment press.
When her screen career dimmed, she moved on with vigor. She became a sculptor, and she published books of her photography. “I may not be Cartier-Bresson, but I can do something good,” she later told the New York Times. She made a short film documentary about Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 1972.
Here is quite an interesting and in depth analysis of her life.
www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/01/16/gina-lollobrigida-italian-film-actress-dead/
She began her career on a lark in 1946, when a movie director eyed the onetime art student on the streets of Rome and was besotted. And it was a photo of Ms. Lollobrigida in a bikini that proved sufficient to entice billionaire industrialist and film producer Howard Hughes to fly her to Hollywood in 1950. He kept her a virtual prisoner for weeks in a fancy hotel, she later said, until she agreed to a contract. She said that she refused his sexual advances and that he, in return, made her prohibitively expensive for other filmmakers in the United States.
As a result, the younger Loren conquered Hollywood first. Ms. Lollobrigida, who often stoked their rivalry, would later cattily remark to Life: “We are as different as a fine race horse and a goat.”
....
Over the years, Ms. Lollobrigida had acquired a reputation as quarrelsome and demanding, a performer with insatiable vanity and unbridled desire for control over the set. She was also litigious, filing as many as 10 lawsuits at a time.
She sued producers for what she alleged were broken promises and sicced her lawyers on advertisers and publications she claimed had used her image without permission. According to Time, she prevailed over an Italian film critic for his disparaging description of her “udder.”
In interviews, Ms. Lollobrigida presented herself as one of life’s indomitable survivors: an Italian country girl who endured wartime hardship, sexual assault, deceitful producers and a vicious entertainment press.
When her screen career dimmed, she moved on with vigor. She became a sculptor, and she published books of her photography. “I may not be Cartier-Bresson, but I can do something good,” she later told the New York Times. She made a short film documentary about Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 1972.