Who was Anita Ekberg? The explosive Swedish actress who would turn 90 today

Along with Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman, the devastatingly beautiful blonde Anita Ekberg completes the trilogy of divas that icy Sweden delivered to world cinema. However, Ekberg, born on September 29, 1931, did not convey coldness. Quite the opposite.

There is no doubt that it was Federico Fellini who put the voluptuous 1.70-tall actress in everyone’s sights by integrating her into one of the most remembered productions of his successful filmography: La Dolce Vita, premiered in Rome in 1960.

The film, which went on to gross about $ 20 million, is daring and boldly out of control, and marked a turning point in storytelling style. Above all, taking as a reference the same Italian cinema of the preceding decade of the fifties.

Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg, who was born in Malmo 90 years ago, got her start as a runway model, allowing her to expose her challenging charm (100-56-91) to lights and cameras. Then she tried her luck at beauty pageants.

She was crowned Miss Sweden before her twentieth birthday. She traveled to the United States on behalf of her country and there she was discovered by Howard Hughes, who seems to have been captivated by her physical attributes rather than by her artistic gifts.

Playboy appearance

Without a doubt, Hugh Hefner’s post was always a showcase for many aspiring divas, although it didn’t work for all of them as a strategy. But it was enough that the pages of the famous magazine showed Anita’s icy beauty for her fame to rise to the stratosphere.

Although his filmography began with a comedy film, together with Abbott and Costello, his career later took off with participation in “War and Peace” (1955), “Interpol” (1957) and Paris Holiday (1958).

The sweet life

This provocative film by Fellini brought to the fore the unbridled life of its characters, surrounded by a decadent and frivolous society, showing the darker and superficial side of the human being, which even caused it to be branded as immoral.

In this context Sylvia (Anita Ekberg), who shares roles with Marcello Mastroiani, is the diva flattered and harassed by the paparazzo (photographers), and who takes over the most remembered scene of the film with her mythical bathroom in the Trevi Fountain.

Ekberg was married twice; in 1956 with British actor Anthony Steel, whom she divorced at the age of three. Her next engagement was with Rik Van Nutter, in 1963. This relationship also failed. Ekberg, who never had children, settled in Italy in the 1960s.

After the second divorce, in 1975 she had a relationship with Giovanni Agnelli. In the nineties his career had a reasonable decline and he died at the age of 83 in Rome, in 2015.