Anita Ekberg

Born: 29 September 1931
Where: Skane, Sweeden

Ekberg utilized her natural attributes to win the Miss Sweden contest in 1951. She travelled to the US to compete in the Miss Universe pageant and remained in America where she first found work as a model.

Hollywood eventually beckoned but the studios and filmmakers cast the voluptuous blonde more for her looks than for her talent in such films as Abbott and Costello Go to Mars and The golden Blade.

She had one of her best Hollywood roles as Helene in King Vidor's War and Peace, but it was in 1960 that Ekberg was given the movie role of a lifetime as Federico Fellini cast her La Dolce Vita. The scene of her character dancing in the Trevi Fountain remains one of the most memorable screen images ever captured.

She stayed in Italy and made around 20 movies during the next ten years. During the 1970s the roles became less frequent.

Fellini offered her a second good role in Boccaccio '70 in the segment The Temptation of Doctor Antonio, and several years later she co-starred with Shirley MacLaine in Vittorio de Sica's Woman Times Seven.

Over the next few decades she was once again trapped in substandard genre fare and lame comedies.

Twenty-seven years after La Dolce Vita, Ekberg appeared in Fellini's mock documentary Intervista, watching film clips of herself during her heyday of the 1950s and 60s.

While she remained active in films in the 90s, the roles were hardly memorable. An exception came with her portrayal of an aging opera singer who succumbs to the charms of the titular The Red Dwarf (Le Nain Rouge).