Gina Lollobrigida
Nude

Sad is the man who looks at what is and says, “if only,” especially if he is grieving an overview of Italian glamour queen Gina Lollobrigida. While it is true that hourglass-perfect Gina never reached the heights of American fame achieved by European rivals Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot, in her homeland Lollobrigida was second to none. A second runner-up (pageant talk for third place finisher) in the 1947 Miss Italy contest, former art student Gina followed a short modeling stint with a long-running career in cinema. After doing a handful of movies in Italy, Gina ended up getting signed to a three picture deal by Howard Hughes. She opted to make a few more movies in Europe, but eventually hooked back up with the aviator, which led her to take off her clothes for a brief, black and white butt shot in Les belles de nuit (1952), or “beauties of the night.” Once 50’s fellas had nutted to nuit, her stateside debut came in Beat the Devil (1954), before she played Esmerelda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956). Next, she popped up in a pair of films that increased her profile and the skimpiness of her costumes: Trapeze (1956) and Solomon and Sheba (1959). If you want to see her doing a sexy dance and bathing, but not quite exposing herself, check out her role alongside Yul Brynner as the Queen of Sheba. There’s no nudity, but Gina’s rack is tantalizingly close to popping out of the water. No wonder King Solomon saw her and said she’s all mine! Throughout the 1960s Lollobrigida made movies at the rate of two a year, including a nice look at her body in a bra and panties in Death Laid an Egg (1968), but her heart was in Italy. In the 1980s she ran for Parliament and won a seat, while her photojournalism career included an exclusive interview with a post-revolution Fidel Castro. She showed up on American TV as Francesa Gioberti on Falcon Crest and Carla Lucci on Fantasy Island, but although she has a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame, Gina’s impact in the USA cannot compare to her legacy overseas. She was so well known in Europe, she has both a Croatian-Slovenian electropop band, and a type of lettuce, “Lollo” named after her, as it resembled her hair. Imagine what would be named after her had she let us see her naked!