Anita Ekberg, best known for her scene-stealing role in Federico Fellini’s legendary La Dolce Vita, has died. The Swedish actress was 83.
Ekberg died in Rome Sunday, her lawyer said, reports The BBC. She suffered illnesses and had been in the hospital since Christmas day.
The actress have kept a low profile in recent years, although she was at a 2010 Rome festival for a La Dolce Vita screening. According to The New York Times, there were reports in 2011 that she was nearly broke and hoped that the Fellini Foundation would help her financially.
While Ekberg is known mostly for her famous scene in the Trevi Fountain, wearing a strapless gown and seducing Marcello Mastroianni, she had actually started a promising career in 1956, when she shared the Golden Globe for most promising newcomer. However, in the years before the Fellini film, she was stuck playing sex symbol roles. She even appeared in the 1956 version of War And Peace and made comedies with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
But her relationship with Fellini cemented her status in film history. The 1960 film about decadent life in rome, told through the eyes of a journalist (Mastroianni) became an international smash. She later worked with Fellini again in a few other films.
Ekberg did not have any children. She married twice, first to Anthony Steel who died in 2001; and Rik Van Nutter, who died in 2005.