Background
Lollobrigida, Gina was born on July 4, 1927 in Sibiaco, Italy. Daughter of Giovanni and Giuseppina Mercuri.
photojournalist sculptress actress
Lollobrigida, Gina was born on July 4, 1927 in Sibiaco, Italy. Daughter of Giovanni and Giuseppina Mercuri.
She went to art school, but was apparently kept from her own easel by demands from her fellows that she pose. Later she studied at Liceo Artistico, Rome.
Under the name of Diana Loris— Anna Doloris?—she modeled for magazine picture stories. In the years after the war she had her first parts in films: Acpiila Nera (46, Riccardo Freda); Delitto di Giovanni Episcopo (47, Alberto Lattuada); and Campane a Martello (49, Luigi Zampa). She soon became a continental star: Achtung, Banditti! (51, Carlo Lizzani): Fanfan la Tulipe (51, Christian-Jaque); Altii Tempi (51, Alessandro Blasetti); Night Beauties (52, René Clair); The Wayward Wife (52, Mario Soldati); Le Infedeli (52, Stefano Vanzina Steno and Mario Monicelli); Pane Amore e Fantasia (53, Luigi Comencini); Le Grand Jeu (53, Robert Siodmak); Pane, Amore e Gelosia (54, Comencini); and La Bella di Roma (54, Comencini).
It was Woman of Rome (54, Luigi Zampa) that made her famous beyond Italy. John Huston put her in Beat the Devil (54) and, after La Donna pin Bella del Mondo (55, Robert Z. Leonard), she was in Trapeze (56, Carol Reed). She now appeared in several “international” movies and had a few years in America: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (56, Jean Delannoy); Anna di Brooklyn (58, Reginald Denham); La Loi (58, Jules Dassin); Solomon and Sheba (59, King Vidor); Never So Few (59, John Sturges); Go Naked in the World (61, Ranald MacDougall); and Come September (61, Robert Mulligan).
Since then, she has slipped from eminence: Venus Imperiale (61, Delannoy); Mare Matto (62, Delannoy); Woman of Straw (63, Basil Dearden); Strange Bedfellows (64, Melvin Frank); with Akim Tamiroff in the “Monsignor Gupido” episode from Le Bambole (64, Mauro Bolognini); Les Sultans (65, Delannoy); Hotel Paradiso (66, Peter Glenville); Cervantes (67, Vincent Sherman); La Morte la Fatto L'Uovo (67, Giulio Questi); Un Bellissimo Novembre (68, Bolognini); Bnona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (68, Frank); Bad Man’s River (71, Eugenio Martin); and King, Queen, Knave (72, Jerzy Skolimowski).
In 1985, she did a TV movie, Deceptions (Robert Chenault and Melville Shavelson), and she appeared in the series Falcon Crest In 1997, she was in XXL (97, Ariel Zeitoun).
Gina Lollobrigida: knickerboeker glory—not quite an anagram, but an indication of fruit and cream, unnourishing sweetness, and sheen. She was very beautiful, but it was the name that endeared her to non-Italian audiences and conveyed an erotic flavor. The full name is redolent of curvaceous softness on a firm framework—like Bouchers Miss O’Murphv sprawled on a sofa; but the abbreviation, “La Lollo,” melted hearts and frivolity.
Photography.
Married Milko Skofic, 1949 (divorced 1971).