Gina Lollobrigida
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Gina Lollobrigida (July 4, 1927 – January 16, 2023) was an Italian actress, born in Subiaco, and active in films from the late 1940s through the early 1970s. After retiring from filmmaking, she took up a second career as an artist and a humanitarian activist. She ran (unsuccessfully) for the European Parliament in 1999. She's been overshadowed by Sophia Loren in public notice, but still has a considerable following.
Gina Lollobrigida has performed in the following roles:
| Year | Film | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1946 | Lucia di Lammermoor | |
| 1946 | This Wine of Love | |
| 1946 | Black Eagle | Girl at party |
| 1947 | When Love Calls | |
| 1947 | Pagliacci | Nedda |
| 1947 | Flesh Will Surrender | Dancer |
| 1947 | Vendetta nel sole | Young girl |
| 1948 | Mad About Opera | Dora |
| 1949 | Alarm Bells | Agostina |
| 1949 | The Bride Can't Wait | Donata Venturi |
| 1949 | The White Line | Donata Sebastian |
| 1950 | A Dog's Life | Rita Buton |
| 1950 | Miss Italia | Lisetta Minneci |
| 1950 | Alina | Alina |
| 1951 | A Tale of Five Cities | Maria Severini |
| 1951 | The Young Caruso | Stella |
| 1951 | Four Ways Out | Daniela |
| 1951 | Love I Haven't... But... But | Gina |
| 1951 | Attention! Bandits! | Anna |
| 1952 | Wife For a Night (Moglie per una notte) | Ottavia |
| 1952 | Times Gone By | Mariantonia Desiderio |
| 1952 | Fanfan la Tulipe | Adeline La Franchise |
| 1952 | Beauties of the Night | Leila, Cashier |
| 1953 | The Wayward Wife | Gemma Vagnuzzi |
| 1953 | Bread, Love and Dreams | Maria De Ritis |
| 1953 | Le infedeli | Lulla Possenti |
| 1953 | Beat the Devil | Maria Dannreuther |
| 1954 | Woman of Rome | Adriana |
| 1954 | Bread, Love and Jealousy | Maria De Ritis |
| 1954 | Crossed Swords | Francesca |
| 1954 | Le Grand Jeu | Sylvia Sorrego, Helena Ricci |
| 1955 | The World's Most Beautiful Woman | Lina Cavalieri |
| 1956 | Trapeze | Lola |
| 1956 | The Hunchback of Notre Dame | Esmeralda |
| 1958 | Anna of Brooklyn | Anna |
| 1959 | The Law | Marietta |
| 1959 | Never So Few | Carla Vesari |
| 1959 | Solomon and Sheba | Queen of Sheba |
| 1961 | Go Naked in the World | Giulietta Cameron |
| 1961 | Come September | Lisa Helena Fellini |
| 1962 | Lykke og krone (documentary) | Herself |
| 1962 | La bellezza di Ippolita | Ippolita |
| 1963 | Venere Imperiale | Paulette Bonaparte |
| 1963 | Mad Sea | Margherita |
| 1964 | Woman of Straw | Maria Marcello |
| 1965 | Me, Me, Me... and the Others | Titta |
| 1965 | Le Bambole (The Dolls) | Beatrice |
| 1965 | Strange Bedfellows | Toni Vincente |
| 1965 | The Love Goddesses (documentary) | Herself |
| 1966 | Pleasant Nights | Domicilla |
| 1966 | The Sultans | Liza Bortoli |
| 1966 | Hotel Paradiso | Marcelle Cotte |
| 1967 | Cervantes | Giulia Toffolo |
| 1968 | Stuntman | Evelyne Lake |
| 1968 | Death Laid an Egg | Anna |
| 1968 | The Private Navy of Sgt. O'Farrell | Maria |
| 1968 | Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell | Carla Campbell |
| 1969 | That Splendid November | Cettina |
| 1971 | Bad Man's River | Alicia King |
| 1972 | King, Queen, Knave | Martha Dreyer |
| 1973 | No encontre rosas para mi madre | |
| 1983 | Wandering Stars (documentary) | Herself |
| 1995 | Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma | L'épouse médium du professeur Bébel |
| 1997 | XXL | Gaby |
| 2011 | Box Office 3D: The Filmest of Films | Herself |
| Year | Show | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1958 | Portrait of Gina | Herself |
| 1972 | The Adventures of Pinocchio | The Fairy with Turquoise Hair |
| 1984 | Falcon Crest | Francesca Gioberti |
| 1985 | Deceptions | Princess Alessandra |
| 1986 | The Love Boat | Carla Lucci |
| 1988 | Woman of Rome | Adriana's mother |
| 1996 | Una donna in fuga | Eleonora Riboldi |
Gina Lollobrigida provides examples of the following tropes:
- Beauty Contest: Gina first came to significant public notice in 1947, when she entered the Miss Italy beauty pageant and won 3rd place. The first- and second-place winners were, respectively, Lucia Bose and Gianna Maria Canale, who also became actresses; in fact, the Miss Italy pageants in the late 1940s and early 1950s turned out to be a fertile field for the discovery of stars and starlets for the burgeoning Italian film industry.
- Brainy Brunette: As detailed in the Renaissance Woman entry, Gina was multilingual and highly accomplished in many fields of the fine arts.
- The Fifties: The period of Gina's greatest success as an actress, though her best-known American films (Come September and Strange Bedfellows) were made in the early 1960s.
- Golden Age of Hollywood: A subversion, as Gina actually earned her fame in Italian cinema (her breakthrough role was in Bread, Love and Dreams in 1953) before beginning to get roles in American films in the late 1950s, when old Hollywood was beginning its transition to New Hollywood.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: A number of her movies, most notably La Donna Piu' Bella del Mondo (The Most Beautiful Woman in the World, a biopic of Edwardian Era opera diva Lina Cavalieri), have never been officially released in the United States on VHS or DVD.
- Ms. Fanservice: Most of her movies during her time as an international star, especially La Donna 'Piu Bella Del Mondo (she has a lengthy Stocking Filler scene as a music-hall singer early on), Anna di Brooklyn (Fast and Sexy) (the most famous image from the movie shows her in a very skimpy one-piece black lace outfit), and Trapeze (arguably one of the main purposes of the movie is to show La Lollo in a revealing circus-performer costume).
- Of Corsets Sexy: Her 1950s movie, La Donna 'Piu Bella Del Mondo (Beautiful But Dangerous) shows Gina snugly corseted in several scenes, most strikingly during a fencing duel with a professional rival.
- Renaissance Woman: Gina was a skilled photographer (with several published folios to her credit), sculptor, painter and singer.
- Soap Opera: Toward the end of her active career as an actress, Gina worked for a while on the U.S. nighttime soap Falcon Crest.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Gina turned her brown curls blue for her role as the Blue Fairy in Luigi Comenici's 1972 version of Pinocchio.