Italian film legend Gina Lollobrigida has died at the age of 95.

Italian film legend Gina Lollobrigida has died at the age of 95, citing family members, according to ANSA.

Her nephew, Francesco Lollobrigida, Italy’s Minister of Agriculture, announced her death on Twitter, calling her “one of the brightest stars of Italian cinematography and culture.”
Her death was also reported by RAI state media.

Lollobrigida, along with Sophia Loren, represented the down-to-earth sexuality of Italian actresses in the 1950s and her 1960s.

After studying her painting and sculpture, Lollobrigida found success as a beauty queen and model, and she made her film debut in 1946 with her swashbuckle adventure Black Her Eagle.

In the early 1950s, she was a big star in Europe. She made her English-language film debut in 1953 in John Huston’s Beat the Devil opposite Humphrey Bogart and Jennifer Jones. In the 1956 adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, she played Esmeralda in Anthony Quinn’s Quasimodo, and in King Vidor’s 1959 Technicolor epic Solomon and Sheba, she played the Queen of Sheba in Yul Brynner’s King Solomon.

As her film roles began to decline in her 1970s, Lollobrigida embarked on her new career as a photojournalist. She has made occasional film and television appearances, most notably her recurring role in the 1984 US soap opera Falcon Crest.

She ran for the Italian Senate last year but was unsuccessful.