FOG BLOG ENTERTAINMENT LOG: ITALIAN MOVIE STAR, GINA LOLLOBRIGIDA DIES AT 95.

Gina Lollobrigida, Italian screen star, dead at 95 Former model shot to movie fame in 1950s and 1960s, then embarked on a series of off-screen pursuits Gina Lollobrigida, who has died at the age of 95, shot to fame in the 1950s as a sultry Mediterranean sex symbol, then became a photographer and sculptor after stepping away from the movie world.

At the height of her fame in the 1950s and 1960s, Lollobrigida, who was known simply as "La Lollo," was an internationally recognized epitome of Italian post-war cinema, rivalled only by Sophia Loren.

Tempestuous and impulsive by nature, she made headlines again in 2006, when, at age 79, she announced that she would marry a man 34 years her junior. She later called off the wedding, blaming the media for spoiling it.

"All my life I wanted a real love, an authentic love, but I have never had one. No one has ever truly loved me. I am a cumbersome woman," she told an interviewer when she was 80. Born to a working class family in a poor mountainous area east of Rome, she studied sculpture then got her break in the film world after finishing third in the 1947 Miss Italia beauty contest.

Roles with Bogart, Hudson, Sinatra

She burst to fame in Italy with the leading roles in two Italian comedies by Luigi Comencini — Bread, Love and Dreams, and Bread, Love and Jealousy.

A role opposite Humphrey Bogart in John Huston's 1954 film Beat the Devil sealed her worldwide fame, and in 1955 she made what became one of her signature films, The World's Most Beautiful Woman.

Despite playing opposite other American stars such as Frank Sinatra, Rock Hudson and Burt Lancaster, she never clicked with Hollywood and preferred to work closer to home, making films throughout the 1960s. Born on July 4, 1927, she attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome to complete her education. She first earned her living as a model for fotoromanzi, the photographic novels avidly read in Italy, using the stage name Diana Loris.

Lollobrigida accompanied her success on the screen with a hectic, often turbulent life that provided a rich source for Italian paparazzi and gossip writers.

Brief Toronto residency

In 1950 she married Yugoslavian doctor Milko Skofic, who became her manager. The couple had one son.

For a short-lived time beginning in 1960, they were sponsored by Skofic's Canadian brother and set up a residence in Toronto's Rosedale neighbourhood. She denied the move was to avoid Italian tax authorities, but by 1963 the couple were no longer spending time in Toronto.

They separated after nearly 17 years of marriage.

"Marriages are boring and almost always like funerals, and couples so often restrict each other too much," she once said.