Web Page  No2100

25th October 2014

First Picture Gina in her Heyday

Second Picture The supposed wedding picture

Third Picture Gina today

Gina Lollobrigida

Yes lads that screen siren whose name we could never spell when we were 16 was born on July 4, 1927 in Subiaco in Italy. Destined to be called "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", Gina possibly had St. Brigid as part of her surname. She was the daughter of a furniture manufacturer, and grew up in a very pictorial mountain village. The young Gina did some modelling and from there, went on to participate successfully in several beauty contests. In 1947, she entered a beauty competition for Miss Italy, but came in third. The winner was Lucia Bosé (born 1931), who would go on to appear in over 50 movies, and the first runner-up was Gianna Maria Canale (born 1927), who would appear in almost 50 films. After appearing in a half-dozen films in Italy, it was rumoured that, in 1947, film tycoon Howard Hughes had her flown to Hollywood; however, this did not result in her staying in America, and she returned to Italy (her Hollywood movie fame would not come along until six years later in the John Huston film Beat the Devil (1953)).

Back in Italy, in 1949, she married Milko Skofic, a Slovenian (at the time, "Yugoslavian") doctor, by whom she had a son, Milko Skofic Jr. They would be married for 22 years, until their divorce in 1971. As her film roles and national popularity increased, she was tagged "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", after her signature movie Beautiful But Dangerous (1955). She was also nicknamed la "Lollo" as she embodied the prototype of Italian beauty. Her natural looks and short hairdo were especially influential. Her film Come September (1961), co-starring Rock Hudson, won the Golden Globe Award as the World's Film Favorite. In the 1970s, she was seen in only a few films, as she took a break from acting and concentrated on another career: photography. Among her subjects were Paul Newman, Salvador Dalí and the German national soccer team.

A skilled photographer, she had a collection of her work "Italia Mia", published in 1973. Immersed in her other passions (sculpting and photography), it would be 1984 before she appeared on US television in Falcon Crest (1981). Although she was always active, she only appeared in a few films in the 1990s. In June 1999, she turned to politics and ran, unsuccessfully, for one of Italy's 87 European Parliament seats, from her hometown of Subiaco. Gina was also a corporate executive for fashion and cosmetics companies. As she told "Parade" magazine in April 2000: "I studied painting and sculpting at school and became an actress by mistake". She went on to say: "I've had many lovers and still have romances. I am very spoiled. All my life, I've had too many admirers".

But recently things have changed as she hit out at her only son after the pair were locked in a ‘horrendous’ legal fight over her £30 million fortune. Andrea Milko Skofic, 56, her  only son and heir, had asked a court in Rome to appoint a judge to oversee her wealth amid claims that she had been duped into marrying  Javier Rigau y Rafols, a businessman 34 years her junior. She is 87. Mr Skofic claimed his mother had become ‘unable to think for herself’. But the Sixties’ screen siren, labelled her son’s legal battle a ‘dirty, ugly business and I’m speechless that my son could consider taking this to court. I’m delighted the request was dismissed but I would have preferred it if none of this had never happened.

The actress met Rafols at a party in Monte Carlo in the 1980s and the couple became companions and they were set to marry in 2006 but she changed her mind before the ceremony could go ahead. Meanwhile, Rafols, who insists the wedding did take place, faces fraud allegations in Spain and Italy.

The actress, known for her rivalry with fellow Italian Sophia Loren, made headlines the world over last year when she claimed that Rafols paid an impersonator to stand in for her at a proxy wedding in Spain in 2010.

 The former sex symbolsaid she had no knowledge of her 2010 wedding to Mr Rafols and would never have agreed to it and that she only discovered it by chance on the internet.

She is reported of having said  'I knew nothing about this until I did some research on the internet. He invented a false document to carry out this wedding and now he will pay. I will not rest until he has been brought to justice. He is nothing but a vulture, circling me, sniffing my blood. He falsely married me and was waiting for me to die so he could inherit my possessions.'

But Rafols claimed the marriage was ‘completely legitimate,’ and witnessed by eight people.

Watch this space !!!!!

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Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

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