Gina Lollobrigida death: Italian culture minister says her 'charm will remain eternal'

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described her as a 'great talent, passionate, intense, enthralling'

Italian film actress Gina Lollobrigida pictured in 2006. Reuters

FILE - Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida speaks at the media viewing of the first exhibition of her sculptures at Moscow's Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, on June 23, 2003. Gina Lollobrigida, the Italian actress, photographer and sculptor who was dubbed "the most beautiful woman in the world" after the title of one her movies, has died in Rome. (AP Photo / Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

From left, filmmaker John Landis, Lollobrigida and director Claude Lelouch at the 10th Monte Carlo Film festival in 2010. Reuters

The actress pictured in the 1950s. AP

FILE - A photo taken in the 50s of Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida. Lollobrigida, who embodied the Italian stereotype of Mediterranean beauty and was dubbed “the most beautiful woman in the world” after the title of one her movies, has died in Rome at age 95. Italian news agency Lapresse reported Lollobrigida’s death on Monday, Jan. 16, 2023 quoting Tuscany Gov. Eugenio Giani. (LaPresse via AP)

Lollobrigida pictured in 1972. AP

Lollobrigida with two of her sculptures in her Rome villa in 2006. Reuters

The actress pictures in Los Angeles in the 1950s. AP

The actress is pictured in the 1950s. AP

From left, Michael Jackson, Lollobrigida and fashion designer Valentino in 1988. AP

Italian sculptor Giacomo Manzu pictured with the actress in Rome in 1972. Italian Mia featured a selection of pictures of the country that took her two years to complete and edit. AP

The actress pictured in the 1950s. AP

Lollobrigida, left, and Raquel Welch at the Bafta Awards ceremony at the London Palladium in 1995. PA

Lollobrigida at the opening of the International Moscow Film Festival in 1997. PA

Princess Margaret and Countess of Snowdon (right) meets Lollobrigida in London in 1967. PA

American baseball player Joe DiMaggio with the actress in 1955. PA

US actress Olivia de Havilland, left, and Lollobrigida at a Parisian airport in 1963. AFP

American actor Rock Hudson and Lollobrigida, pictured here in 1960, starred together in the film Come September. AP

Lollobrigida with her husband Dr Milko Skofic and their son in 1960. AP

German actor Horst Buchholz with Lollobrigida at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1958. AP

Lollobrigida at the 7th Cannes Film Festival in 1954. AFP

Lollobrigida and French singer Gilbert Becaud received the Prix Orange prize, awarded by a jury of journalists to the artists most co-operative with the press in 1959. AFP

Marilyn Monroe, right, and Lollobrigida in New York in 1954. AFP

The Italian actress with her four Dalmatian dogs at Hotel Carlton in Cannes in 1972. AFP

Italian actor Gina Lollobrigida, one of the last pillars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, has died aged 95, culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano announced on Monday.

"Farewell to a diva of the silver screen, protagonist of more than half a century of Italian cinema history. Her charm will remain eternal," Sangiuliano wrote after Italy's Ansa news agency reported her death.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also paid tribute to Lollobrigida, famed when younger for her biting wit and beauty, describing the actor as a "great talent, passionate, intense, enthralling".

She was "one of the most important performers of her generation, who contributed to the diffusion of the Italian image in the world," Meloni said.

Ansa reported that Lollobrigida had undergone an operation in a Rome clinic in September after breaking her femur.

Her funeral will be held on Thursday in one of the churches in Piazza del Popolo in Rome.

Best known for Luigi Comencini's 1953 classic Bread, Love and Dreams, and Jean Delannoy's 1956 The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Lollobrigida starred with many of the leading men of the time, including Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster and Humphrey Bogart.

Born on July 4, 1927, in Subiaco, a mountain village 50kms east of Rome, her big breakthrough came in 1953 starring alongside Bogart in John Huston's romp Beat the Devil.

Bogart said at the time Lollobrigida made "Marilyn Monroe look like Shirley Temple".

The actress won seven David di Donatello awards, Italy's Oscar equivalent.

But by the 1970s, she had turned from acting to sculpture and photojournalism, including getting a scoop interview and photo shoot with Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

She was back in the spotlight in 2021, amid a bitter legal battle with her son over her fortune.

Italy's Supreme Court ruled that she needed a legal guardian to stop people from preying on her wealth, because of a "weakening" in her perception of reality.

Sheikh Khalifa, Queen Elizabeth II, Pele and 119 notable names we lost in 2022 — in pictures