Anita Ekberg

Although Ekberg did not win the Miss Universe pageant, as one of six finalists, she did earn a starlet's contract with Universal Studios.[4]

As a starlet at Universal, she received lessons in drama, elocution, dancing, horseback riding, and fencing. She appeared briefly in The Mississippi Gambler (1953), Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) (playing a woman on Venus), Take Me to Town (1953), and The Golden Blade (1953).

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.[4] Universal dropped her after six months.[5]

Ekberg in War and Peace (1956)

The combination of Ekberg's voluptuous physique and colourful 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)[2][6] appealed to the gossip magazines, like Confidential and she soon became a major 1950s pin-up, appearing in men's magazines like Playboy.[7] 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.[4]

Ekberg toured Greenland with Bob Hope, entertaining American servicemen. Hope spoke of her beauty and John Wayne signed her to a contract with his Batjac Productions at $75 a week.[5]

By the mid-1950s, after several modelling 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, made for Wayne's Batjac Productions. It was her first real speaking role in a feature.[8] She appeared alongside the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy act in Artists and Models (1955), directed by Frank Tashlin for Paramount, playing "Anita".

Ekberg's greatest opportunity was when Paramount cast her in War and Peace (1956) which was shot in Rome, alongside Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn, directed by King Vidor. For a time, she was even publicised as "Paramount's Marilyn Monroe".[9]

Ekberg in Hollywood or Bust (1956)

Ekberg was third billed in a thriller for Batjac, Man in the Vault (1956).[10] It was distributed by RKO Pictures who had given Ekberg an excellent part in Back from Eternity (1956), directed by John Farrow.[11]

Ekberg signed a deal with Warwick Pictures, the company of producers Albert Broccoli and Irwin Allen, who made films in England. She did Zarak (1956) with Victor Mature.

Ekberg returned to Hollywood to make a second film with Martin and Lewis (and Tashlin), Hollywood or Bust (1956). Ekberg made a second film for Warwick with Mature, Interpol (1957).[11] In 1956, Hedda Hopper said her fee was $75,000 per picture.[5]

She was announced for Glare directed by Budd Boetticher, but it was not made.[12]

When John Wayne split up with his producing partner Robert Fellows, Fellows took over Ekberg's contract.[13]

Ekberg returned to Hollywood to make Valerie (1957) with Sterling Hayden and her then-husband Anthony Steel for director Gerd Oswald.[11][14] She co-starred with Bob Hope and Fernandel in Paris Holiday (1958). It was also directed by Oswald as was Screaming Mimi (1958). She did a third for Warwick, The Man Inside (1958) with Jack Palance. Another film was announced for her, entitled A Lot of Woman, but it was not made.[15]

Ekberg went to Italy to star in Sheba and the Gladiator (1959), playing Zenobia.[16]

Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita (1960)

She stayed in Rome to make La Dolce Vita (1960) for Federico Fellini, 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".[2][17]

The movie was an international sensation and Ekberg settled in Rome.[18] She had the lead in an Italian-French co production, Last Train to Shanghai (1960) (aka The Dam on the Yellow River), then was in Le tre eccetera del colonnello (1960), The Call Girl Business (1960),[11] Behind Closed Doors (1961), and The Mongols (1961), which had an American director (André de Toth) and co star (Jack Palance).

She later said "things became a little bit boring for me after La Dolce Vita because every producer or director in Italy, England and America wanted me to recreate the same role – the movie star from America who comes over to Italy."[19]

Ekberg then appeared in Boccaccio '70 (1962), a film that also featured Sophia Loren and Romy Schneider. Soon thereafter, Ekberg was being considered by Broccoli to play the first Bond girl, Honey Ryder in Dr. No, but the role went to the then-unknown Ursula Andress.[11] However Broccoli then cast her in Call Me Bwana (1963) with Bob Hope. Call Me Bwana was featured in the second Bond film, From Russia with Love, during a sequence where Ali Kerim Bey assassinates the Russian agent Krilencu with a sniper rifle. Krilencu attempts to escape through a window, which is situated in Anita Ekberg's mouth, on the wall-sized poster: "She should have kept her mouth shut", Bond quips.[20]

Ekberg co-starred with Andress, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin in the western-comedy 4 for Texas (1963). She returned to Europe to make Love Factory (1964) and Who Wants to Sleep? (1965). She went to England for an Agatha Christie adaptation, The Alphabet Murders (1965), directed by Frank Tashlin who had directed her two Martin and Lewis films.

Ekberg was in the Italian How I Learned to Love Women (1966) then had a small role in a Jerry Lewis comedy, Way... Way Out (1966). She was in Pardon, Are You For or Against? (1966), an Alberto Sordi comedy; The Cobra (1967), an Italian crime film with Dana Andrews; The Glass Sphinx (1967) with Robert Taylor; Woman Times Seven (1967), an anthology directed by Vittorio De Sica, in a segment with Michael Caine; and Crónica de un atraco (1968).

She had a cameo in If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969) and the lead in Fangs of the Living Dead (1969), Death Knocks Twice (1969), and A Candidate for a Killing (1969).

Fellini called Ekberg back for a cameo in The Clowns (1970). She had bigger parts in The Divorce (1970) with Vittorio Gassman; The Conjugal Debt (1970); Quella chiara notte d'ottobre (1970); The French Sex Murders (1972), a giallo; and Deadly Trackers (1972).

She went to Asia to make a Hollywood film, Northeast of Seoul (1972). In 1972, she sued an Italian magazine for publishing naked photographs of her.[21]

Ekberg was also in Gold of the Amazon Women (1979), Killer Nun (1979), S.H.E: Security Hazards Expert (1980), Cicciabomba (1982), and The Seduction of Angela (1986). Fellini used her in Intervista (1987), appearing as herself in a reunion scene with Mastroianni.[11]

Later performances included Count Max (1991), Ambrogio (1992), Cattive ragazze (1992), Witness Run (1996), and Bámbola (1996), in a part turned down by Gina Lollobrigida. She had a good part in Le nain rouge (1998).[22][23]

She guest-starred in the Italian TV series Il bello delle donne (2001).

In 2021 actress Monica Bellucci co-produced and starred in a mockumentary dedicated to Ekberg, called “The girl in the fountain” presented as a special event at the 2021 Torino Film festival.

• Sullivan, Steve (1995). VaVaVa Voom! Glamour Girls of The Pinup Era. Stoddart. ISBN 978-1-881649-60-1.
• McDonough, Jimmy (2005). Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-07250-1.
• Mancini, Henry (2002). Did They Mention the Music?: The Autobiography of Henry Mancini. Copper Square Press. ISBN 978-0-8154-1175-8.
• Pendo, Stephen (1985). Aviation in the Cinema. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8-1081-746-2.