With the Golden Globes set to get underway a little later tonight, the movie world has become a little less glamorous as iconic screen actress Anita Ekberg has passed away at the age of 83.
There is no cinema lover who doesn’t know Ekberg from her most famous role, playing "the most wonderful woman created since the beginning of time" in Frederico Fellini‘s "La Dolce Vita." She landed the role after capturing Hollywood’s attention as the Swedish beauty who arrived in the United States to compete in the 1951 Miss Universe contest. She didn’t win, but she was nonetheless signed to a contract with Universal Studios. She appeared in a string of films — including King Vidor‘s "War and Peace" with Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn, "Back from Eternity," "Interpol," and others. But it was "La Dolce Vita" that would be her defining role, and the one that launched her to international stardom.
She would work again with Fellini three more times on "I clowns," "Intervista" and in the filmmaker’s segment in the omnibus "Boccaccio ’70," but the pair reached their greatest heights together with "La Dolce Vita," which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and was nominated for four Oscars, winning for Best Costume Design (Black And White). "It was I who made Fellini famous, not the other way around," Ekberg once quipped.
There are few who captivated the screen with as much as ease, presence, and sex appeal as Ekberg. She will be missed, but not forgotten.