Italian screen legend Gina Lollobrigida dies at 95

Gina Lollobrigida, one of Italy's most celebrated actresses, died at age 95. Known as 'La Bersagliera' for her iconic role in Luigi Comencini's 1953 film 'Bread, Love and Dreams' opposite Vittorio De Sica, she had been hospitalized last September after breaking her femur. She had also run for Senate in Latina in the September 25 elections under the 'Italia sovrana e popolare' list. Born in Subiaco in 1927, she moved to Rome in 1944 after her family lost their furniture business in a bombing. She studied at the Institute of Fine Arts, selling charcoal caricatures and posing for photo novels to fund her studies. In 1947 she placed second in Miss Rome and third in Miss Italia. Her film debut came as an extra and stunt double, with early roles in Luigi Zampa's 'Campane a martello' (1949) and Carlo Lizzani's 'Achtung! Banditi!' (1951). She won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for 'Fanfan la Tulipe' (1952) and a Nastro d'Argento for 'Bread, Love and Dreams'. Her Hollywood career included films with John Huston, Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen, Rock Hudson, and Sean Connery. In later years she returned to art, exhibiting at the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, the Musée Monet in Paris, and the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome (2009, curated by Philippe Daverio). She cited sculptor Giacomo Manzù as an inspiration.