European Actors

Collection of Classic European Actors

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger

TCM overview:

Over the last two decades, this charismatic Austrian bodybuilder has become one of the world’s leading box-office attractions, married into one of America’s foremost families and built a thriving business and real estate empire. Schwarzenegger played forgettable roles in several 1970s movies, first gaining attention as the subject of George Butler’s fine documentary, “Pumping Iron” (1976). He earned a Golden Globe Award as Most Promising Male Newcomer for his role in Bob Rafelson’s “Stay Hungry” (1977) and starred in two sword-and-sorcery sagas, “Conan the Barbarian” (1982) and “Conan the Destroyer” (1984), each of which grossed over $100 million worldwide. Schwarzenegger’s screen persona–a physique that strains the imagination combined with a thick Austrian accent–received a major credibility boost with “The Terminator” (1984), which cast him as an alien Ubermensch and established his trademark, automaton-like delivery of minimal lines such as “I’ll be back”. The modestly-budgeted film secured his status as an international star, established the careers of director James Cameron and producer Gale Ann Hurd, and set the pace for many of the violent, action-adventure, special effects-driven movies that would dominate the global market in the second half of 1980s. Schwarzenegger continued to star in such films for the rest of the 80s with the notable exception of the ludicrous, but successful, “Twins”, a 1988 comedy that paired him with Danny De Vito. Schwarzenegger’s career has been a carefully orchestrated one, reflecting an aggressive business and marketing acumen which has also brought him success in other fields (e.g., he now produces the “Mr. Universe” and “Mr. Olympia” pageants in which he once competed). With an eagerness not only to adapt to American life but to conquer it, reminiscent of the earlier immigrants who founded America’s entertainment industry, he became a naturalized citizen in 1983 and joined the country’s nobility with his 1986 marriage newscaster Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family. Schwarzenegger started the 90s with a big-budget sci-fi actioner, Paul Verhoeven’s “Total Recall” (1990), which some reviewers found repellent and violent. Audiences embraced it, making it one of the highest grossing films of its year. It was, however, trounced at the box office by more modest and seemingly harmless hits such as “Home Alone” and “Ghost”. Schwarzenegger scored another hit in 1990 with “Kindergarten Cop”, a change-of-pace comedy pitting the muscular tough guy against a classroom full of rowdy kids. This solidified the “kinder, gentler” nature that characterized his persona of the 90s. Prior to this conscious change in strategy, he had killed over 275 people onscreen in films that grossed over $1 billion worldwide. With a budget estimated as high as $95 million, Cameron’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (1991) was a blockbuster sequel to the $6.5 million original. After a violent opening, the Terminator becomes a relatively paternalistic softy who merely wounds those foolish enough to get in his way while reserving his most lethal weapons for a new improved robot (Robert Patrick). Virtually a lavish remake, the film grossed over $200 million. As an encore, Schwarzenegger made his executive producing debut starring in a kiddie-oriented action comedy-fantasy, “The Last Action Hero” (1993). The most expensive film of the summer season (perhaps as much as $100 million), the film reunited the star with “Predator” (1987) director John McTiernan. It turned out to be a resounding flop, Schwarzenegger’s first since achieving stardom. By contrast, his follow-up the next summer, “True Lies” (1994), gained a favorable response from critics and audiences who liked its good humor, astounding action sequences and more suitable use of its star. Written and directed by Cameron, this “domestic epic”-cum-Bond spoof successfully expanded the action hero’s range and demonstrated that Schwarzenegger could play a suave tuxedo-clad spy dancing a tango with elegant bad girl Tia Carrere as well as a credible family man breaking bread in the suburbs with his wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) and child. He and Curtis also proved surprisingly well matched as co-stars. Schwarzenegger turned to gentler, more farcical material with “Junior” (1994), spoofing his own body image as a man who becomes pregnant. Despite the auspicious reteaming with “Twins” director Ivan Reitman and co-star De Vito, the film proved a critical and commercial disappointment. He returned to familiar territory playing a US marshal with the witness protection program in “Eraser”, a high-tech actioner for the 1996 summer season. The industry buzzed with news of Schwarzenegger’s next project–playing the cool, cruel Mr. Freeze in the high-profile sequel “Batman and Robin” (1997). He has also made a few discreet forays behind the camera, helming a 1990 episode of HBO’s “Tales from the Crypt” entitled “The Switch” and a 1992 TNT made-for-cable movie remake of “Christmas in Connecticut”. The latter starred Dyan Cannon, Kris Kristofferson and Tony Curtis. In 2002, after a series of box office bombs, Schwarzenegger announced he was parting ways with the William Morris Agency, where he had been repped since 1997. The following year, Schwarzenegger reprised his role in “Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines,” receiving his biggest earnings yet (reportedly over $30 million) for a feature film, despite the fact that the franchise’s originator, writer-director James Cameron, and its nominal central character, Linda Hamilton, had both opted out of the sequel. Instead, Schwarzenegger would approve a script by up-and-coming writer-director Jonathan Mostow, and play another heroic version of his android character, caught in a conflict between a more adult John Connor and the villainous female TX (Kristana Lokken). The film proved to capture some the steel-crunching power stunts and the time-bending twists of the original two movies, if lacking some of their original spark and intensity; nevertheless, despite a heavy promotional push from its star (who at the time was the center of much media attention due to his “will he, won’t he?” plan to run for governor of California) and mostly favorable reviews, “T3” performed merely adequately amid several other sequels in the American box office, making the majority of its profits internationally. In 2003, before promoting “T3,” Schwarzenegger, an avowed Republican despite his wife’s Kennedy connections, had dangled the possibility of his bid for the California governorship amid talks of a recall of the then-top official, Democrat Gray Davis, but cannily kept mum on his plans and his possible policies during interviews to promote his film. Perhaps waiting to see if he still had a A-level movie career ahead of him, the actor was expected to announce he would not run if the recall proceeded, then stunned everyone by jumping into the race with an announcement to Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show.” Steered by a cadre of top California Republicans and receiving the endorsement of President George W. Bush, Schwarzenegger leapt into the political fray and was criticized early on for failing to fully define his campaign platform and refusing to participate in several debates; nevertheless he did prove a popular candidate and potential threat to Davis, gaining in polls as his campaign matured (he was also famously egged at a public appearance). He was dogged by a 1970s-era interview with Oui magazine in which he claimed to have experimented with illegal drugs and group sex. Schwarzenegger would appear with his wife on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to deny the claims, asserting that he had made them up to sensationalize his background and pump up his then nascent career. Just a few days before California’s recall election, The Los Angeles Times ran a story featuring interviews with several women who alleged that, on various occasions betwen the mid-1970s and the year 2000, the actor had groped them against their will and/or made crude sexual remarks to them (many of the allegations first surfaced in a 2001 article in Premiere but were denied). Schwarzenegger did not admit to the latest round accusations, but he did make a public apology if he had offended anyone. The information did not dissuade the majority of California voters, who overwhelmingly approved the recall and elected Schwarzenegger to a three-year term as the governor of California on Oct. 7, 2003. The actor announced that his movie career would be shelved during his tenure as a public official, but he had one more film in the pipeline that had been filmed before he announced his political intentions. Ironically, his cameo role in the ensemble of the remake “Around the World in 80 Days” (2004) featured Schwarzenegger as Prince Halpi, a rakish Turkish potentate with many of the boorish characteristics that he himself was criticized for during his campaign: leering, groping, hot-tubbing and making uninvited advances toward the scantily clad women in his presence. The film’s producers said Schwarzenegger Schwarzenegger took an active role in designing his character’s appearance, right down to the prince’s skin color and hairstyle, resulting vain, bejeweled, silk-robed ruler with visible wrinkles, unusual tan and shoulder-length hair who invites Phileas Fogg (Steve Coogan) and his globetrotting friends into his opulent palace. Perhaps as a courtesy to the governor, the film’s distributor Disney did not make available any images of Schwarzenegger in character, and the governor’s office remained mum on the film. Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger secretly slipped away from Sacramento in 2004 to film sequences for “The Kid and I” (2005), written by his friend Tom Arnold and featuring the governor and Jamie Lee Curtis reprising their roles as “True Lies” heroes Harry and Helen Tasker for a cameo fantasy sequence in the story about a boy with cerebral palsy who is obsessed with the 1994 film. Though Schwarzenegger had a sometime rocky first term as governor and often stoked the ire of his more liberal Hollywood colleagues, he enforce legislation aimed at helping celebrities, signing a law which enforced new penalties against paparazzi who commit assaults in order to shoot potentially high-paying celebrity “money shots” after dangerous incidents involving such famous names as Reese Witherspoon, Lindsey Lohan and Scarlett Johannson.

 The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

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Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov
Sir Peter Ustinov

TCM biography:

By his mid-20s, this burly, multi-faceted talent had achieved considerable success in both theater and cinema directing, writing and acting in cultivated, witty comedies. Peter Ustinov later won international acclaim and reached the peak of his fame in the early 1960s for his appearances in sweeping epics and lighthearted romps. He won two Best Supporting Actor Oscars, for his clown in “Spartacus” (1960) and his engaging con man in “Topkapi” (1964). Ustinov has also earned critical praise for his directorial efforts (which he also produced, starred in and wrote): “Romanoff and Juliet” (1962), a biting Cold War satire based on his own play, the bracing “Billy Budd” (1962) and the “Faust”-inspired Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton vehicle “Hammersmith Is Out” (1972). The spotlight fell on Ustinov as a personality, too. Throughout the 60s and early 70s, he was a favored raconteur on talk shows whether or not he was publicizing a film. Yet his increasing girth often made his screen work seem either effortless or as if he were holding back and only giving a lazy indication of what he could muster.

Ustinov was only 17 years old when he made his stage debut in “The Wood Demon” in the provinces. The following year, he made his London debut in the title role of “The Bishop of Limpopoland”, a sketch at the Players Club, which he also wrote. His first play to reach NYC was “The Loves of Four Colonels” (1953) but it was not until 1957 that he made his Broadway acting debut as The General in “Romanoff and Juliet”, which he wrote. (He later toured the USA and the Soviet Union with the show.) By the time of his American debut, Ustinov was a top draw in England, having either written or starred in numerous stage productions. He continued playing roles on stage well into the 80s and in 1990 performed internationally in the one-man show “An Evening With Peter Ustinov”. Proving to be a true man of the theater, Ustinov has not only performed in and written shows but also has directed (e.g., “Fishing for Shadows” 1940) and designed sets and costumes (for the 1973 London production of “The Unknown Soldier and His Wife”). Among his successes as playwright are “Who’s Who in Hell” (1974), and “Beethoven’s Tenth” (1984).

Moving to the big screen in 1940, the portly, often mustachioed actor was featured in the British propaganda film “Mein Kampf, My Crimes”. He went on to play the title role in “Private Angelo” (1949), a deserter from the Italian army who accidentally becomes a hero, and garnered kudos for his turn as Emperor Nero in the costume epic “Quo Vadis” (1951). Some critics claim he stole the show as Lentulus Batiatus in “Spartacus” as he unquestionably did in “Topkapi”, as the duped con man turned mole. (The scene in which he is asked to hold the rope during the crime is alone worth the price of admission.) “Romanoff and Juliet” (1961) was adapted from the stage play, with Ustinov recreating his role. “Viva Max!” (1969) found him playing a Mexican general retaking the Alamo, and in 1978, he began his impersonations of Agatha Christie’s master detective Hercule Poirot in “Death on the Nile”, a role he again essayed in “Evil Under the Sun” (1982) and in three TV-movies produced in the 80s. More recently, he was a stuffy expert in “Lorenzo’s Oil (1992).

On the small screen, Ustinov’s work has often tilted towards the high brow, or substantive or prestige projects. He appeared in numerous installments of NBC’s “Omnibus” series in the late 50s, including an Emmy-winning portrayal of Dr Samuel Johnson, and was a regal Herod the Great in Franco Zeffirelli’s miniseries “Jesus of Nazareth” (NBC, 1977). Mostly, Ustinov is remembered for several remarkable Emmy-winning performances in “Hallmark Hall of Fame” specials: as Socrates in “Barefoot in Athens” (1966) and as a Jewish deli owner who takes in a black youth in “A Storm in Summer” (1970). he also was “Gideon” (NBC, 1971), the Israelite who defeats the oppressors only to have his own vainglory defeat himself. Ustinov has frequently hosted and/or narrated reality-based shows, such as “Omni: The New Frontier” (syndicated, 1981), and numerous specials. Although very British in manners, he was outwardly proud of his Russian heritage, speaking of it often and creating and hosting: “Peter Ustinov’s Russia: A Personal History” for the BBC in 1986.

 The above TCM biography can also be accessed online here.
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Marthe Keller
Marthe Keller
Marthe Keller

IMDB entry:

Keller’s earliest film appearances were in Funeral in Berlin (1966) (uncredited) and the German film Wild Rider Ltd. (1967). She appeared in a series of French films in the 1970s, including A Loser (1972), The Right of the Maddest (1973) and And Now My Love (1974) (And Now My Love, 1974). Her most famous American film appearances are her Golden Globe-nominated performance as Dustin Hoffman‘s girlfriend in Marathon Man (1976) and her performance as an Arab terrorist who leads an attack on the Super Bowl in Black Sunday (1977). Keller also acted with William Holden in the 1978 Billy Wilder film Fedora(1978). She appeared alongside Al Pacino in the auto racing film Bobby Deerfield (1977). Her later films included Dark Eyes (1987), with Marcello Mastroianni.

Keller has appeared in Europe and America in plays, directed opera and as a speaker on classical music in the last twenty years. For example, in 2001, Keller appeared in a Broadway adaptation of Abby Mann‘s play “Judgment at Nuremberg” as “Mrs. Bertholt” (the role played by Marlene Dietrich in the 1961 Stanley Kramer film version). She was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress for this performance.

In addition to her work in film and theatre, Keller has developed a career in classical music as a speaker and opera director. She has performed the speaking role of “Joan of Arc” in the oratorio “Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher of Arthur Honegger” on several occasions, with conductors such as Seiji Ozawa and Kurt Masur. She has recorded the role for Deutsche Grammophon with Ozawa (DG 429 412-2). Keller has also recited the spoken part in Igor Stravinsky‘s “Perséphone”. She has performed classical music melodramas for speaker and piano in recital. The Swiss composer Michael Jarrell wrote the melodrama “Cassandre”, after the novel of Christa Wolf, for Keller, who gave the world premiere in 1994. Keller’s first production as an opera director was “Dialogues des Carmélites”, for Opéra National du Rhin, in 1999. This production subsequently received a semi-staged performance in London that year. She has also directed “Lucia di Lammermoor” for the Washington National Opera and for the Los Angeles Opera. Her directorial debut at the Metropolitan Opera was in a 2004 production of “Don Giovanni”.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Marthe Keller

Marthe Keller (born January 28, 1945, Basel, Switzerland) is a Swiss actress. She studied ballet as a child but stopped after a skiing accident at age 16. She changed to acting, and worked in Berlin at the Schiller Theatre and the Berliner Ensemble.[1] Keller’s earliest film appearances were in Funeral in Berlin (1966) (uncredited) and the German film Wild Rider Ltd. (1967). She appeared in a series of French films in the 1970s, including A Loser(1972), The Right of the Maddest (1973) and And Now My Love (1974) (And Now My Love, 1974). Her most famous American film appearances are her Golden Globe-nominated performance as Dustin Hoffman‘s girlfriend in Marathon Man (1976) and her performance as an Arab terrorist who leads an attack on the Super Bowl in Black Sunday (1977). Keller also acted with William Holden in the 1978 Billy Wilder film Fedora (1978). She appeared alongside Al Pacino in the auto racing film Bobby Deerfield (1977), and subsequently the two of them were involved in a relationship. Since then, Keller has worked more steadily in European cinema compared to American movies. Her later films include Dark Eyes (1987), with Marcello Mastroianni.[2] In 2001, Keller appeared in a Broadway adaptation of Abby Mann‘s play “Judgment at Nuremberg” as “Mrs. Bertholt” (the role played by Marlene Dietrichin the 1961 Stanley Kramer film version).[3] [4] She was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress for this performance. In addition to her work in film and theatre, Keller has developed a career in classical music as a speaker and opera director. She has performed the speaking role of “Joan of Arc” in the oratorio “Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher of Arthur Honegger” on several occasions, with conductors such as Seiji Ozawa[5] Kurt Masur[7]. She has recorded the role for Deutsche Grammophon with Ozawa (DG 429 412-2). Keller has also recited the spoken part in Igor Stravinsky‘s “Perséphone”[8] [9]. She has performed classical music melodramas for speaker and piano in recital.[10] The Swiss composer Michael Jarrell wrote the melodrama “Cassandre”, after the novel of Christa Wolf, for Keller, who gave the world premiere in 1994. Keller’s first production as an opera director was “Dialogues des Carmélites”, for the Opéra National du Rhin, in 1999. This production subsequently received a semi-staged performance in London that year.[11] She has also directed “Lucia di Lammermoor” for the Washington National Opera and for the Los Angeles Opera.[12] Her directorial debut at the Metropolitan Opera was in a 2004 production of “Don Giovanni”.[13] [14] [15] Keller has a son, Alexandre (born 1971), from her relationship with Philippe de Broca.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: A.Nonymous

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

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Isabelle Corey

Vittorio de Sica, Isabelle Corey & June Laverick

Vittorio de Sica, Isabelle Corey & June Laverick

 

Isabelle Corey was born in Metz, France in 1939. She was discovered by directorJean-Pierre Melville, walking the streets of Montmartre. Her film debut was his film noir Bob le flambeur/Bob the Gambler (1956, Jean-Pierre Melville) starringRoger Duchesne as an old gangster and Corey played his young femme fatale, Anne. When Anne is down on her luck Bob takes her under his wing, hoping to steer her away from a life of prostitution. But Anne begins a love affair with Paulo (Daniel Cauchy), one of Bob’s young associates. Alice Liddel at IMDb writes: “Isabelle Corey is unprecedented among all film heroines, her amoral, seemingly indifferent sexuality far more suggestive and powerful than her contemporary, Bardot’s”. That same year Corey appeared opposite Brigitte Bardot

in the hit Et Dieu… créa la femme/And God created Woman (1956, Roger Vadim), which made a superstar of BB. James Travers writes at Films de France: “Vadim was so impressed with his work that he remade the film in the late 1980’s, but, lacking the presence of Bardot, the result was scarcely a patch on the original. The original Et Dieu… créa la femme succeeded, despite the shallowness of its subject matter, because it happened at just the right time. Its impact on French cinema can only be guessed at, but it was probably very considerable indeed”.

The following years Isabelle Corey played in several French-Italian coproductions, filmed in Italy. Among them were the romantic comediesVacanze a Ischia/Holiday Island (1957, Mario Camerini) with Vittorio de Sica,Souvenir d’Italie/It Happened in Rome (1957, Antonio Pietrangeli), and Adorabili e bugiarde/Adorable and a Liar (1958, Nunzio Malasomma). More interesting were the comedies Giovani mariti/Young Husbands (1958, Mauro Bolognini) based on a screenplay by Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Amore a prima vista/Love at First Sight(1958, Franco Rossi) with Walter Chiari. Three years later, she reunited with director Mauro Bolognini for La Giornata balorda/A Crazy day (1961, Mauro Bolognini) which featured Jean Sorel

and Lea Massari. Again the script was written by Pier Paolo Pasolini, before he became a director himself. It is a black-and-white film about the lower class of Rome, based on a novel by Alberto Moravia. Corey then worked with the future horror master Mario Bava at the peplum spectacle L’Ultimo dei Vikinghi/Last of the Vikings (1961, Giacomo Gentilomo, Mario Bava) starring Cameron Michell in the good-guy role and Edmund Purdom as the mincing, giggling villain. That year she also worked with maestro Roberto Rossellini on the costume dramaVanina Vanini/The Betrayer (1961, Roberto Rossellini) starring Sandra Milo andLaurent Terzieff. This is her last film according to IMDb. Rovi also lists the Italian/Spanish peplum Il Gladiatore Invincibile/Invincible Gladiators (1963, Alberto de Martino, Robert Mauri) with Richard Harrison. After only 16 films Isabelle Corey’s film career was over.

Trailer for Bob le flambeur/Bob the Gambler (1956). Source: CynicalC1 (YouTube).

Sources: James Travers

(Films de France), Rovi, Wikipedia

and IMDb.

The above entry can be accessed online here.

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Vittorio de Sica
Vittorio de Sica, Isabelle Corey & June Laverick
Vittorio de Sica, Isabelle Corey & June Laverick

TCM Overview:

Italian director Vittorio De Sica was also a notable actor who appeared in over 100 films, to which he brought the same charm and brightness which infused his work behind the camera.

By 1918, at the age of 16, De Sica had already begun to dabble in stage work and in 1923 he joined Tatiana Pavlova’s theater company. His good looks and breezy manner made him an overnight matinee idol in Italy with the release of his first sound picture, “La Vecchia Signora” (1931). De Sica turned to directing during WWII, with his first efforts typical of the light entertainments of the time. It was with “The Children are Watching Us” (1942) that he began to use non-professional actors and socially conscious subject matter. The film was also his first of many collaborations with scenarist Cesare Zavattini, a combination which shaped the postwar Italian Neorealist movement.

With the end of the war, De Sica’s films began to express the personal as well as collective struggle to deal with the social problems of post-Mussolini Italy. “Shoeshine” (1946), “The Bicycle Thief” (1948) and “Umberto D” (1952) combined classic neorealist traits–working-class settings, anti-authoritarianism, emotional sincerity–with technical and compositional sophistication and touches of poignant humor.

De Sica continued his career as an actor with sufficient success to finance some of his directorial projects, playing a host of twinkling-eyed fathers and Chaplinesque figures in films such as “Pane, amore e gelosia” (1954). His later directorial career was highlighted by his work with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in “Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow” (1963), which won the Oscar as best foreign film. After a period of decline in which he came to be perceived as a slick, rather tasteless master of burlesque, De Sica resurfaced with “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” (1971), a baroque political romance which won him another Oscar for best foreign film.

Active to the end, De Sica appeared as himself in Ettore Scola’s “We All Loved Each Other So Much” (1975), which was released after his death.

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Anita Ekberg
Anita Ekberg
Anita Ekberg

One of the screen’s great beauties, Anita Ekberg was born in Malmo, Sweden in 1931.   She won thge ‘Miss Sweden’ contest in 1950 and went to the U.S, to compete in the ‘Miss Universe’ competition.  Although she did not win the competition, she went on secure a movie contract.   After a numberof small parts, she had a major role in “Artists and Models” in 1955 with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.   She then had about ten years in major roles including “War and Peace”, “Back From Eternity” and her most famous film “La Dolca Vita” in 1960.   She died in Rome in 2015.

GRonald Bergan & John Francis Lane’s obituary in “The Guardian”:

 In Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960), a tipsy blond starlet, wearing a black low-cut dress, wanders into the Trevi fountain in Rome. She tries to entice her escort to join her by calling “Marcello, Marcello” in seductive tones. The scene made the Swedish-born Anita Ekberg, who has died aged 83, a sex symbol par excellence. “She had the beauty of a young goddess,” Fellini said. “The luminous colour of her skin, her clear ice-blue eyes, golden hair and exuberance, joie de vivre made her into a grandiose creature, extraterrestrial and at the same time moving and irresistible.” Her co-star, Marcello Mastroianni, was initially less impressed: “She reminded me of a German soldier of the Wehrmacht who in a round-up asked me into a truck.” However, after a week of getting wet in the fountain and drying her frocks in the sunlight, Ekberg gained his respect and even affection.

The director Frank Tashlin once commented: “There’s nothing more hysterical to me than big-breasted women – like walking leaning towers.” Ekberg was a beautiful, tall, voluptuous leaning tower in Tashlin’s punningly titled Hollywood or Bust (1956). Later, in Le Tentazioni del Dottor Antonio (The Temptation of Dr Antonio), the Fellini episode from the omnibus film Boccaccio 70 (1962), she was the gigantic model who comes down from her billboard promoting milk to pursue a puritan who has campaigned against the advert.

Both Tashlin and Fellini had found a way of using the former Miss Sweden in erotic satire. She was born in the city of Malmö, on the south-western tip of Sweden, the sixth of eight children of August, a doctor, and his wife, Alvah. Having been crowned Miss Malmö and then Miss Sweden, Ekberg went to the US in the early 1950s for the Miss Universe contest and stayed to appear in a number of Hollywood films. These included The Golden Blade (1953), an Arabian Nights tale starring Rock Hudson, in which she played a handmaiden, and Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953).

Ekberg was asked to be merely decorative in a few further exotic adventure tales, such as Zarak (1956), in which Victor Mature portrayed an Afghan outlaw; and to be a stooge to Jerry Lewis in Artists and Models (1955) and Hollywood or Bust, and to Bob Hope in Paris Holiday (1958) and Call Me Bwana (1963). Her looks were used more effectively in King Vidor’s War and Peace (1956), in the role of Hélène, the adulterous wife of the besotted Pierre Bezukhov (Henry Fonda).

Larger dramatic roles followed in B-movies, including Screaming Mimi (1958), a bizarre psychological thriller in which she performs striptease numbers at a sleazy nightclub called El Madhouse, and gets attacked while taking a shower – two years before Psycho. In Valerie (1957), she appeared opposite Anthony Steel, whom she had married in 1956.

It was said that the career of Steel, one of Britain’s biggest movie stars in the 50s, was ruined when he married Ekberg and moved to Hollywood. There, he struggled to find much work and was often referred to by the tabloids as Mr Ekberg. Their stormy marriage ended in 1959. One of their public arguments, while being pursued by the paparazzi in Rome, was said to have inspired some scenes in La Dolce Vita.

After that film, Ekberg, never much of an actor, became a prisoner of her own image. She posed for Playboy, Bob Dylan named her in the song I Shall Be Free, and she appeared in a number of mediocre international productions including The Mongols (1961) and Four for Texas (1963), in which the director Robert Aldrich concentrated on Ekberg’s bust, especially as

After an unhappy second marriage, to the actor Rik Van Nutter, which lasted from 1963 to 1975, Ekberg drank heavily and gradually gained a great deal of weight. She lived alone in a grand villa in the country near Rome, guarded by two Dobermans. After a fire and a break-in at her house, she moved into a care home and in 2011 sought financial assistance from the Fellini Foundation.

When invited to celebrate the 40th anniversary of La Dolce Vita she declined, but in 2009 agreed to appear in a BBC documentary. Previously, Fellini visited her in his film Intervista (Interview, 1987), in which there is a moving reunion between Mastroianni and Ekberg, who nostalgically watch their key scene from La Dolce Vita together.
Ronald Bergan

John Francis Lane writes: WhenFederico Fellini asked me to play one of the reporters milling around at the news conference of the movie star played by Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita, I suspected he only vaguely remembered what I’d told him of my experience as a real reporter at her wedding to Anthony Steel.

At the time of the wedding, I was Rome stringer for the British newspaper the News Chronicle. It could not afford to send its showbiz columnist to Florence so I went instead. The wedding, at the Palazzo Vecchio, was attended by 50 members of the press. When we got back to the hotel, the luminaries rushed to their rooms to write their gilded prose, while I, knowing how unreliable the Italian phones were, thought it a good idea to ask the telephonist if there were problems getting through to London. She offered me a line immediately.

What to do? I took a chance. Laboriously I started adlibbing the article, following my first instinct which had been to send it all up. I had only the pay-off in my head: “The next morning they will be back on the real film set.” I came out of the booth sweating and trembling, and, as I stumbled towards the bar, who should suddenly appear but Ekberg, still in that fabulous white dress with one bare shoulder that I had just ridiculed. Seeing me, the only one of her “wedding guests” around, she beckoned me to join her for a glass of champagne.

What had I done? I had dared to make fun of a goddess. It was the end of my hopes of becoming a foreign correspondent. I sipped my champagne and gulped desperately as I saw my illustrious colleagues fighting to get a line to London for what would certainly be their rapturous accounts of the fairytale we had been privileged to witness.

When I next saw Ekberg, on the set of La Dolce Vita, she was more concerned that Fellini might be sending her up. Of course he was, yet I heard him console her affectionately: “But Anitona, how could I? You are meant to be Ava Gardner!” Her marriage was brief, but thanks to Fellini, the Nordic goddess became immortal.

• Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg, actor, born 29 September 1931; died 11 January 2015

The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.

“Movies Unlimited” article:

It’s one of the most iconic scenes in Italian cinema: a voluptuous woman in a clinging, strapless black dress wading into Rome’s famed Trevi Fountain. The actress chosen to take this memorable dip in Federico Fellini’s 1960 film La Dolce Vita wasn’t Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Virna Lisi or another native beauty, however. It was stunning Swedish blonde Anita Ekberg, who was one of the screen’s leading sex symbols in the 1950s and ’60s and who passed away this past weekend in Rome at the age of 83.

Born Kirsten Anita Marianne Ekberg in the southern coastal town of Malmo in September of 1931, the sixth of eight children, Ekberg started modeling as a teen and in 1950 won the Miss Sweden beauty contest. Although she failed to take the Miss Universe crown the following year, Anita was awarded a contract with Universal Pictures. Her screen debut was an uncredited role in the 1953 Tyrone Power western The Mississippi Gambler (Power was also the first of several leading men–some married–she would be romantically linked with), and while with Universal she would be used as attractive “window dressing” in such 1953 films as Abbott and Costello Go to Mars and The Golden Blade, with Rock Hudson. After playing a Chinese villager (!) in the John Wayne adventure Blood Alley (1955), she appeared with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in two of the duo’s final picturestogether, 1955’s Artists and Models and Hollywood or Bust (as an exaggerated version of herself) the following year.

In between clowning with Dean and Jerry, Anita got several chances to display her dramatic potential. She was cast in Paramount’s lavish adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace in the role of Helene, ambitious wife of Count Bezukhov (Henry Fonda); as one a group of plane crash survivors lost in the South American jungle in RKO’s Back from Eternity, with Robert Ryan and Rod Steiger; and as a criminal’s duplicitous girlfriend in the “B” drama Man in the Vault. 1956 also saw her earn a Golden Globe Award (a share of one, at least: she tied with fellow starlets Victoria Shaw and Dana Wynter) for Most Promising Newcomer. Other late ’50s Ekberg efforts included a pair of films with Victor Mature, the costume adventure Zarak (1956) and a drug-smuggling thriller, Pickup Alley (1957); Valerie (also ’57), an offbeat psychological drama set in the Old West which co-starred her then-husband, Anthony Steel; the Bob Hope comedy Paris Holiday (1958); and the decidedly off-the-wall Screaming Mimi (also ’58), a burlesque-themed noir thriller with Anita as an asylum escapee who becomes an exotic dancer under the tutelage of stripshow legend Gypsy Rose Lee.


1960 would bring Ekberg the role for which she would be most be remembered, as the glamorous actress who catches the eye of gossip magazine writer Marcello Mastroianni during his pleasure-seeking excursion through the streets of Rome, in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. Incidentally, the pair’s late-night romp through the Trevi Fountain didn’t bother the Scandinavian beauty, who stood in the unheated water for hours during the winter shoot, one bit. Co-star Mastroianni, on the other hand, needed a wetsuit under his clothes–and a bottle of vodka–to get through the scene. Things were considerably hotter years later, though, when Anita told the New York Times, “They would like to keep up the story that Fellini made me famous, Fellini discovered me,” and claimed that in fact it was her aquatic romp that put the director on the map. Such feelings didn’t stop her from working with Fellini again in Boccaccio ’70 (1962), The Clowns (1970), and Intervista (1987), which also reunited her with Mastroianni.

Once she came back to Hollywood, Anita found quality roles harder to come by. She was nearly tapped to be the first “Bond Girl,” Honey Ryder, in 1962’s Dr. No before the filmmakers ultimately went with Ursula Andress. She reunited with Bob Hope (who once quipped that her parents “won the Nobel Prize for architecture”) in 1963 for Call Me B’wana, and later that year co-starred with Andress, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and The Three Stooges in the frontier comedy 4 for Texas. Ekberg proved to be a charming distraction for Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Tony Randall) in the light-hearted 1965 whodunit The Alphabet Murders, based on an Agatha Christie novel, and she went to the moon as a Russian cosmonaut in the Jerry Lewis outer space romp Way…Way Out in 1966. By decade’s end, however, she was down to making European horror films like 1969’s Fangs of the Living Dead.

The 1970s and ’80s would find Ekberg cast in such exploitation efforts as the Euro-western The Deadly Trackers (1974); the title role in the convent-set shocker Killer Nun (1978); the made-for-TV adventure Gold of the Amazon Women (1979); a distaff 007 spoof, S.H.E: Security Hazards Expert (1980); and Cicciabomba (1982), an Italian dark comedy about a once-fat girl who turns into a bombshell and seeks revenge on her former tormentors. In response to audience comments about her own weight gain since her days as a ’50s starlet, the always outspoken Anita said, “I’m very much bigger than I was…so what? It’s not really fatness, it’s development.”

By the early ’90s Ekberg was semi-retired and living full-time in Italy. Her final big-screen turn came in 1999’s The Red Dwarf, a Belgian/Italian oddity in which she played a middle-aged opera diva who has an affair with a diminutive legal office clerk. Beset by financial and health problems in recent years (A 2009 report said she was “destitute” and that she lost her home to fire while hospitalized for a broken thigh), she had been using a wheelchair since a pet Great Dane broke her hip in 2011. Married and divorced twice with no children, the beauty queen-turned-movie goddess told an Italian newspaper in an 80th birthday interview that, while she was lonely, she had “no regrets” about her life. “I have loved, cried, been mad with happiness. I have won and I have lost.” Anita Ekberg may not have always lived “the sweet life,” but she had a full one, and moviegoers are the better for her sharing it with them.

The above “Movies Unlimited” article can also be accessed online here.

 

14th January 1956: Swedish actress Anita Ekberg (1931 – 2015) is featured for the cover of Picture Post magazine. Original Publication: Picture Post Cover – Vol 70 No 02 – pub. 1956. (Photo by John Chillingworth/IPC Magazines/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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Pia Degermark
Pia Degermark
Pia Degermark

Pia Degermark was born in 1949 in Stockholm.   She is best know for her performance in the title role in “Elvira Madigan” in 1967.   Her only other major movie role was “The Looking Glass War” with Christopher Jones in 1969.

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ABOUT ME

Anyone who knows me are aware that I am a bit of a movie buff. Over the past few years I have been collecting signed photographs of my favourite actors. Since I like movies so much there are many actors whose work I like.

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