Anita Ekberg

Anita Ekberg Biography

Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg (29 September 193111 January 2015) was a Swedish actress in American and European films. She is best known for her role as Sylvia in the Federico Fellini film La Dolce Vita (1960). Ekberg worked primarily in Italy, where she became a permanent resident in 1964.

Early life

Anita Ekberg was born on 29 September 1931, in Malm, Skne, the sixth of eight children of Gustav Fredrik Ekberg by the former Alva Maria Larsson. In her teens, Anita worked as a fashion model. Ekberg entered the Miss Malm competition in 1950 at her mother's urging. This led to the Miss Sweden contest which she won. She consequently went to the United States to compete for the 1951 Miss Universe title (an unofficial pageant at that time, the pageant became official in 1952), despite speaking very little English.

Career

Early career

Although Ekberg did not win the Miss Universe pageant, as one of six finalists she did earn a starlet's contract with Universal Studios, as was the practice at the time.

As a starlet at Universal, she received lessons in drama, elocution, dancing, horseback riding, and fencing. She appeared briefly in the 1953 Universal films Abbott and Costello Go to Mars and The Golden Blade. Ekberg skipped many of her drama lessons, restricting herself to riding horses in the Hollywood Hills. Ekberg later admitted she was spoiled by the studio system and played instead of pursuing bigger film roles.

Mainstream career

The combination of Ekberg's voluptuous physique and colorful private life (such as her well-publicized romances with Hollywood's leading men like Frank Sinatra, Tyrone Power, Yul Brynner, Rod Taylor, and Errol Flynn) appealed to the gossip magazines, like Confidential, and she soon became a major 1950s pin-up, appearing in men's magazines like Playboy. Additionally, Ekberg participated in publicity stunts. She once admitted that an incident in which her dress burst open in the lobby of London's Berkeley Hotel was prearranged with a photographer.

By the mid-1950s, after several modeling jobs, Ekberg finally broke into the film industry. She guest-starred in the short-lived TV series Casablanca (1955) and Private Secretary. She had a small part in the film Blood Alley (1955) starring John Wayne and Lauren Bacall. She appeared alongside the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy act in Artists and Models (1955) and Hollywood or Bust (1956), both for Paramount Pictures. For a time, she was even publicized as "Paramount's Marilyn Monroe".

Ekberg was featured in five films released during 1956. Paramount cast her in War and Peace (1956) which was shot in Rome, alongside Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn. Meanwhile, RKO Pictures gave the actress her first leading role in an early disaster film Back from Eternity (also 1956). The last two were Man in the Vault and Zarak, both minor studio productions that had a limited impact on her career.

Ekberg starred in the British drama Interpol with Victor Mature and in Valerie (both 1957) with Sterling Hayden. She then co-starred with Bob Hope in Paris Holiday and with Philip Carey and Gypsy Rose Lee in Screaming Mimi (both 1958). A European film, Sheba and the Gladiator (1959), followed.

Federico Fellini gave Ekberg her best known role in La Dolce Vita (1960), performing as Sylvia Rank, the unattainable "dream woman" of the character played by Marcello Mastroianni. The film features a scene of her cavorting in Rome's Trevi Fountain alongside Mastroianni, which has been called "one of cinema's most iconic scenes".

After this, she accepted a role in The Dam on the Yellow River in 1960. She then appeared in Boccaccio '70 (1962), a film that also featured Sophia Loren and Romy Schneider. Soon thereafter, Ekberg was being considered to play the first Bond girl, Honey Ryder in Dr. No, but the role went to the then-unknown Ursula Andress.

Ekberg co-starred with Andress, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin in the western-comedy 4 for Texas (1963). Fellini would call her back for two more films: The Clowns (1972) and Intervista (1987). In the latter, she appeared as herself in a reunion scene with Mastroianni.

Personal life

Both of Ekberg's marriages were to actors, but neither of them succeeded. She was married to Anthony Steel from 1956 until their divorce in 1959 and to Rik Van Nutter from 1963 until their divorce in 1975. In one interview, she said she wished she had a child but stated just the opposite on another occasion.

Ekberg was often outspoken in interviews, e.g., naming famous people she reportedly "couldn't bear." She was also frequently quoted as saying that it was Fellini who owed his success to her, rather than vice versa: "They would like to keep up the story that Fellini made me famous, that Fellini discovered me", she said in a 1999 interview with The New York Times.

Ekberg did not live in Sweden after the early 1950s, and rarely visited the country. However, she welcomed Swedish journalists into her home outside Rome and in 2005 appeared on the popular radio program Sommar, telling about her life. She stated in an interview that she would not move back to Sweden before her death but would be buried there.

On 19 July 2009, she was admitted to the San Giovanni Hospital in Rome after falling ill in her home in Genzano, according to a medical official in the hospital's neurosurgery department. Despite her condition not being serious, Ekberg was put under observation in the facility.

In December 2011, it was reported that the 80-year-old Ekberg was "destitute" following three months in a Rimini hospital with a broken hip, during which time her home was robbed of jewelry and furniture, and her villa was badly damaged by fire. Ekberg applied for help from the Fellini Foundation, which also found itself in difficult financial straits.

Death

Ekberg died on 11 January 2015, at the age of 83, at the clinic San Raffaele in Rocca di Papa in Castelli Romani, Italy from complications of enduring illnesses. Ekberg's funeral service was held on 14 January 2015, at the Lutheran-Evangelical Christuskirche in Rome, after which her body was cremated and her remains were buried at the cemetery of Skanr Church in Sweden.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1953	The Mississippi Gambler	Maid of Honor
	Abbott and Costello Go to Mars	Venusian Guard	American science fiction comedy film directed by Charles Lamont.
	The Golden Blade	Handmaiden	An adventure film directed by Nathan Juran.
1955	Blood Alley	Wei Ling, Big Han's wife	Propaganda seafaring adventure movie set in China directed by William A. Wellman.
1955	Artists and Models	Anita
1956	War and Peace	Helene	American-Italian war drama film directed by King Vidor.
	Back from Eternity	Rena	Drama film directed and produced by John Farrow.
	Hollywood or Bust	Herself
	Man in the Vault	Flo Randall	Film noir directed by Andrew V. McLaglen.
	Zarak	Salma
1957	Interpol	Gina Broger
1957	Valerie	Valerie Horvat	Western film directed by Gerd Oswald.
1958	Paris Holiday	Zara	Comedy film directed by Gerd Oswald
	The Man Inside	Trudie Hall	British crime adventure film directed by John Gilling .
	Screaming Mimi	Virginia Wilson aka Yolanda Lange
1959	Sheba and the Gladiator	Zenobia	) Directed by Guido Brignone. Originally called The Sign of Rome. American International Pictures acquired the American rights to the film and retitled it Sign of the Gladiator despite their being no gladiators in the film. }}
1960	La Dolce Vita	Sylvia	Italian comedy-drama film written and directed by Federico Fellini.
1961	The Mongols	Hulina	Directed by Andr De Toth.
	A porte chiuse	Olga Duvovich
	The Dam on the Yellow River	Miss Dorothy Simmons	Released in UK as Last Train to Shanghai. Italian-French drama film written and directed by Renzo Merusi. }}
1962	Boccaccio '70	Herself
1963	Call Me Bwana	Luba	Farce film directed by Gordon Douglas.
1963	4 for Texas	Elya Carlson
1965	The Alphabet Murders	Amanda
1965	Who Wants to Sleep?	Lolita Young
1966	How I Learned to Love Women	Margaret Joyce	Also known as Love Parade' Italian-French-German comedy film directed by Luciano Salce. }}
	Way...Way Out	Anna	American comedy film directed by Gordon Douglas.
	Pardon, Are You For or Against?	Baroness Olga	Italian comedy film written, directed and starred by Alberto Sordi. }}
1967	The Glass Sphinx	Paulette	Italian-American 1967 adventure film directed by Luigi Scattini. }}
	Woman Times Seven	Claudie
	The Cobra	Lou	Also known as Cobra and Female Cobra Italian-Spanish crime film directed by Mario Sequi. }}
1969	Death Knocks Twice	Sophia Perretti	Detective film directed by Harald Philipp. }}
1969	Malenka	Malenka / Sylvia Morel
1970	The Clowns	Herself	Film by Federico Fellini about the human fascination with clowns and circuses.
1970	The Divorce	Flavia	Italian comedy film directed by Romolo Guerrieri. }}
1972	Casa d'appuntamento	Madame Colette
1972	Northeast of Seoul	Katherine	Film directed by David Lowell Rich.
1978	Killer Nun	Sister Gertrude
1980	SHE	Dr. Biebling	American spy film directed by Robert Michael Lewis.
1987	Intervista	Herself	Italian film directed by Federico Fellini.
1991	Count Max	Marika	French-Italian comedy film directed by Christian De Sica
1996	Bambola	Mother Greta	French-Spanish-Italian erotic melodrama film written and directed by Bigas Luna.

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes	ref
1979	Gold of the Amazon Women	Queen Na-Eela