Anita Ekberg 1931-2015

La Dolce Vita actress dies aged 83

Anita Ekberg 1931-2015

by James White |
Published on

Anita-Ekberg-Obituary

It’s not every actor that can claim to have seared themselves a place in the cinematic pantheon with just one stroll through a fountain, but Anita Ekberg certainly fits that bill. The Swedish star, who most famously graced the screen in Federico Fellini’s** L****a Dolce Vita**, has died at the age of 83.

Born in Malmo, Sweden in 1931, Ekberg came from a large family, with seven siblings, and enjoyed close relationships with her parents. At the age of 20, she won the Miss Sweden title, parlaying that into a chance at the Miss Universe crown. She didn’t win, but Universal Pictures immediately snapped her up into a contract, kicking off a film career with a variety of small and uncredited parts, but moving her up the roster with a role as Helene Kuragina in 1956’s adaptation of War And Peace.

From there, she starred in films such as Pickup Alley, The Man Inside, Screaming Mimi, Sheba And The Gladiator, The Dam On The Yellow River and Paris Holiday. But it took Fellini’s eye to make her a lasting icon, when he cast her in 1960’s La Dolce Vita and, with one scene, secured her an immortal place in the cinematic sex symbol pantheon. The scene, in which she walks though a fountain in a strapless dress, wasn’t without its challenges, however. "I was freezing,'' Ekberg has since said. "They had to lift me out of the water because I couldn't feel my legs anymore."

Following the film, she won a variety of other roles, include in Call Me Bwana, The Alphabet Murders, The Killer Nun, Bambola, and worked again with Fellini on I Clowns, Intervista and a segment in portmanteau film Boccaccio ’70. Though her career cooled in her later life, she continued to work. Married twice – to Anthony Steel and then Rik Van Nutter – she had no children. Misfortune had also struck more recently, with a burglary and fire in her villa home forcing her to move into a care home. She broke her hip and was largely confined to a wheelchair after being knocked down by one of her pet Great Danes and died Sunday morning after a series of illnesses. "I don't know if paradise or hell exist," she told Sweden's Aftonbladet in 2006, "but I'm sure hell is more groovy."

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