Luigina “Gina” Lollobrigida is an Italian actress, photojournalist and sculptor. She was one of the highest profile European actresses of the 1950s and early 1960s, a period in which she was an international sex symbol.
In 1950, Howard Hughes invited Lollobrigida to work in Hollywood, but she refused, preferring to remain in Europe; this decision prevented her from working in American movies filmed in the USA until 1959, though not from working in American productions shot in Europe.
Her performance in Bread, Love and Dreams (Pane, amore e fantasia, 1953) led to her receiving a BAFTA nomination and won a Nastro d’Argento award. Lollobrigida also appeared in The Wayward Wife (1953) and in Woman of Rome (1954).
These were three of her most renowned Italian films, but she worked also in the French industry on such films as Fearless Little Soldier (Fanfan la Tulipe, 1952), Beauties of the Night (Les Belles de nuit, also 1952) and Le Grand Jeu (1954).
Arival of the Italian actress in Mar de Plata Source
Gina Lollobrigida at the Miss Italy contest, in Stresa , in 1947 Source
Gina Lollobrigida in La Romana 1954 Source
Gina Lollobrigida in La donna più bella del mondo (1955) Source
Gina Lollobrigida in La romana (1954) Source
Gina Lollobrigida in Le avventure di Pinocchio (1972) Source
Gina Lollobrigida in Mar de Plata Source
Gina Lollobrigida in Moglie per una notte (1952) Source
Gina Lollobrigida in the 1960s Source
Gina Lollobrigida, Raf Vallone, Enzo Stajola in film Cuori senza frontiere (1950) Source
Gina Lollobrigida Source
Gina Lollobrigida. Source
Renato Tontini and Gina Lollobrigida .Source
By the end of the 1970s, Lollobrigida had embarked on what she developed as a successful second career as a photographic journalist. She photographed, among others, Paul Newman, Salvador Dalí,Henry Kissinger, David Cassidy, Audrey Hepburn, Ella Fitzgerald and the German national football team. She even managed to obtain an exclusive interview with Fidel Castro, leader of Communist Cuba. In 1973, a collection of her work was published under the title Italia Mia.