ANITA EKBERG, who was the very definition of “Swedish bombshell”, has died at 83.
Anita, had been hospitalized recently due to several unspecified illnesses. Living in Italy, She had been in a wheelchair for many years after breaking a hip after breaking a hip, Variety reported.
Anita was the curviest of cinema’s sex bombs renowned for her performances as she was for her alleged list of romances with the era’s major hunks.
Ekberg was born in Malmo, Sweden, on Sept. 29, 1931, the sixth of eight children. After doing some modeling she won the 1951 Miss Sweden title. She traveled to the U.S. to compete for the Miss Universe but didn’t win. Anita was put under contract by Universal pictures.
She won a Golden Globe for promising newcomer for her role in “Blood Alley” with John Wayne and Lauren Bacall. Anita also paid her dues in backlot B-pictures including “Screaming Mimi” and “Abbott and Costello Go to Mars”.
However it was her appearance in Italian director Federico Fellini s 1960s masterpiece “La Dolce Vita" that shot Anita into the stratosphere as a worldwide icon.
She played Sylvia the movie star visiting to Italy to promo a new film. The dream-like sensuality of her wading into the Fountain of Trevi beckoning a disillusioned journalist Marcello Mastroianni has become the stuff of cinema immortality.
Among her many films Anita also starred in “War and Peace” with Audrey Hepburn, “Artists & Models” with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin and “Call Me Bwana” with Bob Hope.
Anita and Marcello reunited in Fellini's "Intervista" (1987) in a touching reunion of sex symbols past.
She reprotedly died penniless.
Au revoir, Anita.
