93-721: Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg (29 September 1931 – 11 January 2015) was a Swedish actress active in American and European films, known for her beauty and curvaceous figure. She became prominent in her iconic role as Sylvia in the Federico Fellini film La Dolce Vita (1960). Ekberg worked primarily in Italy, where she became a permanent resident in 1964. Anita Ekberg was born on 29 September 1931, in Malmö , Skåne (Sweden),
186-407: A docufiction both for cinema and television, based on his childhood memories of the circus and a "coherent theory of clowning." As he saw it, the clown "was always the caricature of a well-established, ordered, peaceful society. But today all is temporary, disordered, grotesque. Who can still laugh at clowns?... All the world plays a clown now." In March 1971, Fellini began production on Roma ,
279-434: A "public sinner", for La Dolce Vita , Fellini responded with The Temptations of Doctor Antonio , a segment in the omnibus Boccaccio '70 . His second colour film, it was the sole project green-lighted at Federiz. Infused with the surrealistic satire that characterized the young Fellini's work at Marc'Aurelio , the film ridiculed a crusader against vice, interpreted by Peppino De Filippo , who goes insane trying to censor
372-570: A 74-page booklet in ten chapters describing the absurd adventures of Pasqualino, an alter ego. Writing for radio while attempting to avoid the draft, Fellini met his future wife Giulietta Masina in a studio office at the Italian public radio broadcaster EIAR in the autumn of 1942. Well-paid as the voice of Pallina in Fellini's radio serial, Cico and Pallina , Masina was also well known for her musical-comedy broadcasts which cheered an audience depressed by
465-713: A Hollywood film, Northeast of Seoul (1972). In 1972, she sued an Italian magazine for publishing naked photographs of her. 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. Later performances included Count Max (1991), Ambrogio (1992), Cattive ragazze (1992), Witness Run (1996), and Bámbola (1996), in
558-411: A billboard of Anita Ekberg espousing the virtues of milk. In an October 1960 letter to his colleague Brunello Rondi, Fellini first outlined his film ideas about a man suffering creative block: "Well then – a guy (a writer? any kind of professional man? a theatrical producer?) has to interrupt the usual rhythm of his life for two weeks because of a not-too-serious disease. It's a warning bell: something
651-502: A brief period of therapy with Freudian psychoanalyst Emilio Servadio. Fellini cast American actor Broderick Crawford to interpret the role of an aging swindler in Il Bidone . Based partly on stories told to him by a petty thief during production of La Strada , Fellini developed the script into a con man's slow descent. To incarnate the role's "intense, tragic face", Fellini's first choice had been Humphrey Bogart , but after learning of
744-549: A comedy directed by Mario Monicelli with Goldie Hawn and Giancarlo Giannini . For Eduardo De Filippo , he co-wrote the script of Fortunella . The Hollywood on the Tiber phenomenon of 1958 in which American studios profited from the cheap studio labour available in Rome provided the backdrop for photojournalists to steal shots of celebrities on the via Veneto. The scandal provoked by Turkish dancer Haish Nana's improvised striptease at
837-596: A comedy writer on Mario Mattoli 's Il pirata sono io ( The Pirate's Dream ). Progressing rapidly to numerous collaborations on films at Cinecittà , his circle of professional acquaintances widened to include novelist Vitaliano Brancati and scriptwriter Piero Tellini. In the wake of Mussolini's declaration of war against France and Britain on 10 June 1940, Fellini discovered Kafka 's The Metamorphosis , Gogol , John Steinbeck and William Faulkner along with French films by Marcel Carné , René Clair , and Julien Duvivier . In 1941 he published Il mio amico Pasqualino ,
930-493: A consequence, Jung's seminal ideas on the anima and the animus , the role of archetypes and the collective unconscious directly influenced such films as 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 (1963), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Fellini Satyricon (1969), Casanova (1976), and City of Women (1980). Other key influences on his work include Luis Buñuel , Charlie Chaplin , Sergei Eisenstein , Buster Keaton , Laurel and Hardy ,
1023-425: A contract with his Batjac Productions at $ 75 a week. 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
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#17330929217501116-520: A decade. In February 1950, Paisà received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay by Rossellini, Sergio Amidei , and Fellini. After travelling to Paris for a script conference with Rossellini on Europa '51 , Fellini began production on The White Sheik in September 1951, his first solo-directed feature. Starring Alberto Sordi in the title role, the film is a revised version of a treatment first written by Michelangelo Antonioni in 1949 and based on
1209-584: A feature. 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 ". Ekberg
1302-467: A living. The crisis came to a head in April when, sitting in his Cinecittà office, he began a letter to Rizzoli confessing he had "lost his film" and had to abandon the project. Interrupted by the chief machinist requesting he celebrate the launch of 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 , Fellini put aside the letter and went on the set. Raising a toast to the crew, he "felt overwhelmed by shame… I was in a no exit situation. I
1395-399: A mental institution, the character is a combination of La Strada ' s Gelsomina, Pinocchio , and Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi . Fellini improvised as he filmed, using as a guide a rough treatment written with Pinelli. Despite its modest critical and commercial success in Italy, and its warm reception by French critics, it failed to interest North American distributors. Man in
1488-447: A new Fellini, no longer just a screenwriter, working and sketching at his desk, but a filmmaker out in the field". The apolitical Fellini was finally freed of the draft when an Allied air raid over Bologna destroyed his medical records. Fellini and Giulietta hid in her aunt's apartment until Mussolini's fall on 25 July 1943. After dating for nine months, the couple were married on 30 October 1943. Several months later, Masina fell down
1581-519: A nightclub captured Fellini's imagination: he decided to end his latest script-in-progress, Moraldo in the City , with an all-night "orgy" at a seaside villa. Pierluigi Praturlon 's photos of Anita Ekberg after an evening spent with the actress in a Rome night club provided further inspiration for Fellini and his screenwriters. Changing the title of the screenplay to La Dolce Vita , Fellini soon clashed with his producer on casting: The director insisted on
1674-570: A nightclub, she was photographed kneeing one of them in the groin, and pulling out a bow and arrow to threaten others. Felice Quinto claimed she shot arrows at him. Ekberg did not live in Sweden after the early 1950s, and rarely visited the country. However, she welcomed Swedish journalists into her home outside Rome and in 2005, appeared on the popular radio program Sommar , talking about her life. She stated in an interview that she would not move back to Sweden but would be buried there. In 1963, she
1767-542: A part turned down by Gina Lollobrigida . She had a good part in Le nain rouge (1998). 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. Both of Ekberg's marriages were to actors, but neither of them succeeded. She
1860-599: A period of six months between January and June 1973, Fellini shot the Oscar -winning Amarcord . Loosely based on the director's 1968 autobiographical essay My Rimini , the film depicts the adolescent Titta and his friends working out their sexual frustrations against the religious and Fascist backdrop of a provincial town in Italy during the 1930s. Produced by Franco Cristaldi , the seriocomic movie became Fellini's second biggest commercial success after La Dolce Vita . Circular in form, Amarcord avoids plot and linear narrative in
1953-691: A second film with Martin and Lewis (and Tashlin), Hollywood or Bust (1956). Ekberg made a second film for Warwick with Mature, Interpol (1957). In 1956, Hedda Hopper said her fee was $ 75,000 per picture. She was announced for Glare directed by Budd Boetticher , but it was not made. When John Wayne split up with his producing partner Robert Fellows, Fellows took over Ekberg's contract. Ekberg returned to Hollywood to make Valerie (1957) with Sterling Hayden and her then-husband Anthony Steel for director Gerd Oswald . She co-starred with Bob Hope and Fernandel in Paris Holiday (1958). This film
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#17330929217502046-490: A seemingly random collection of episodes informed by the director's memories and impressions of Rome. The "diverse sequences," writes Fellini scholar Peter Bondanella , "are held together only by the fact that they all ultimately originate from the director's fertile imagination." The film's opening scene anticipates Amarcord while its most surreal sequence involves an ecclesiastical fashion show in which nuns and priests roller skate past shipwrecks of cobwebbed skeletons. Over
2139-811: A small town on the Adriatic Sea . On 25 January, at the San Nicolò church he was baptized Federico Domenico Marcello Fellini. His father, Urbano Fellini (1894–1956), born to a family of Romagnol peasants and small landholders from Gambettola , moved to Rome in 1915 as a baker apprenticed to the Pantanella pasta factory. His mother, Ida Barbiani (1896–1984), came from a bourgeois Catholic family of Roman merchants . Despite her family's vehement disapproval, she had eloped with Urbano in 1917 to live at his parents' home in Gambettola. A civil marriage followed in 1918 with
2232-426: A treatment based on a film adaptation of Mario Tobino 's novel, The Free Women of Magliano . Set in a mental institution for women, the project was abandoned when financial backers considered the subject had no potential. While preparing Nights of Cabiria in spring 1956, Fellini learned of his father's death by cardiac arrest at the age of sixty-two. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starring Giulietta Masina,
2325-434: A way similar to The Clowns and Roma . The director's overriding concern with developing a poetic form of cinema was first outlined in a 1965 interview he gave to The New Yorker journalist Lillian Ross : "I am trying to free my work from certain constrictions – a story with a beginning, a development, an ending. It should be more like a poem with metre and cadence." Organized by his publisher Diogenes Verlag in 1982,
2418-462: A wealthy family. Tommy's attentions to her get him a beating from Louie, another big thug. He is told Betty's face will be disfigured if he refuses to cooperate. Breaking into the box is no problem, but Tommy thinks he has been double-crossed by Betty and decides to keep the $ 200,000. He stashes the cash in a locker at the bowling alley. Flo confesses her part in the scheme to De Camp, who goes after Tommy, hurling bowling balls and shooting at him before
2511-635: A wheelchair for several years after being knocked down by one of her pet Great Danes, which broke her hip. Ekberg's funeral service was held on 14 January 2015, at the Lutheran-Evangelical Christuskirche in Rome, after which her body was cremated and her remains were buried at the cemetery of Skanör Church in Sweden, in accordance with her wishes to be buried in the land of her birth. Federico Fellini Federico Fellini Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI ( Italian: [fedeˈriːko felˈliːni] ; 20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993)
2604-464: Is blocking up his system." Unclear about the script, its title, and his protagonist's profession, he scouted locations throughout Italy "looking for the film", in the hope of resolving his confusion. Flaiano suggested La bella confusione (literally The Beautiful Confusion ) as the movie's title. Under pressure from his producers, Fellini finally settled on 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 , a self-referential title referring principally (but not exclusively) to
2697-470: Is not memory that dominates my films. To say that my films are autobiographical is an overly facile liquidation, a hasty classification. It seems to me that I have invented almost everything: childhood, character, nostalgias, dreams, memories, for the pleasure of being able to recount them. In 1937, Fellini opened Febo, a portrait shop in Rimini, with the painter Demos Bonini. His first humorous article appeared in
2790-534: Is soon demolished by his wife's obsession with the White Sheik. Highlighting the music of Nino Rota , the film was selected at Cannes (among the films in competition was Orson Welles 's Othello ) and then retracted. Screened at the 13th Venice International Film Festival , it was razzed by critics in "the atmosphere of a soccer match". One reviewer declared that Fellini had "not the slightest aptitude for cinema direction". In 1953, I Vitelloni found favour with
2883-741: The Avanguardista , the compulsory Fascist youth group for males. He visited Rome with his parents for the first time in 1933, the year of the maiden voyage of the transatlantic ocean liner SS Rex (which is shown in Amarcord ). The sea creature found on the beach at the end of La Dolce Vita (1960) has its basis in a giant fish marooned on a Rimini beach during a storm in 1934. Although Fellini adapted key events from his childhood and adolescence in films such as I Vitelloni (1953), 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 (1963), and Amarcord (1973), he insisted that such autobiographical memories were inventions: It
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2976-400: The I Ching and keep a record of his dreams. What Fellini formerly accepted as "his extrasensory perceptions" were now interpreted as psychic manifestations of the unconscious. Bernhard's focus on Jungian depth psychology proved to be the single greatest influence on Fellini's mature style and marked the turning point in his work from neorealism to filmmaking that was "primarily oneiric". As
3069-519: The 30th Academy Awards and brought Masina the Best Actress Award at Cannes for her performance. With Pinelli, he developed Journey with Anita for Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck . An "invention born out of intimate truth", the script was based on Fellini's return to Rimini with a mistress to attend his father's funeral. Due to Loren's unavailability, the project was shelved and resurrected twenty-five years later as Lovers and Liars (1981),
3162-471: The Hollywood Hills . Ekberg later admitted she was spoiled by the studio system and played, instead of pursuing bigger film roles. Universal dropped her after six months. 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 ) appealed to
3255-507: The Marx Brothers , and Roberto Rossellini . Exploiting La Dolce Vita ' s success, financier Angelo Rizzoli set up Federiz in 1960, an independent film company, for Fellini and production manager Clemente Fracassi to discover and produce new talent. Despite the best intentions, their overcautious editorial and business skills forced the company to close down soon after cancelling Pasolini's project, Accattone (1961). Condemned as
3348-672: The Palme d'Or for La Dolce Vita in 1960, two times the Moscow International Film Festival in 1963 and 1987, and the Career Golden Lion at the 42nd Venice International Film Festival in 1985. In Sight & Sound ' s 2002 list of the greatest directors of all time, Fellini was ranked 2nd in the directors' poll and 7th in the critics' poll. Fellini was born on 20 January 1920, to middle-class parents in Rimini , then
3441-462: The Sapienza University of Rome to please his parents. Biographer Hollis Alpert reports that "there is no record of his ever having attended a class". Installed in a family pensione , he met another lifelong friend, the painter Rinaldo Geleng. Desperately poor, they unsuccessfully joined forces to draw sketches of restaurant and café patrons. Fellini eventually found work as a cub reporter on
3534-492: The fotoromanzi , the photographed cartoon strip romances popular in Italy at the time. Producer Carlo Ponti commissioned Fellini and Tullio Pinelli to write the script but Antonioni rejected the story they developed. With Ennio Flaiano , they re-worked the material into a light-hearted satire about newlywed couple Ivan and Wanda Cavalli ( Leopoldo Trieste , Brunella Bovo) in Rome to visit the Pope. Ivan's prissy mask of respectability
3627-455: The "Postcards to Our Readers" section of Milan's Domenica del Corriere . Deciding on a career as a caricaturist and gag writer, Fellini travelled to Florence in 1938, where he published his first cartoon in the weekly 420 . According to a biographer, Fellini found school "exasperating" and, in one year, had 67 absences. Failing his military culture exam, he graduated from high school in 1939. In September 1939, he enrolled in law school at
3720-604: The 80-year-old Ekberg was "destitute" following three months in a Rimini hospital with a broken hip, during which time her home was robbed of jewelry and furniture, and her villa was badly damaged by fire. Ekberg applied for help from the Fellini Foundation, which also found itself in difficult financial straits. Ekberg died on 11 January 2015, at the age of 83, at the clinic San Raffaele in Rocca di Papa , Roman Castles , from complications of chronic illnesses. The actress had been in
3813-587: The Carlo Tonini public school two years later. An attentive student, he spent his leisure time drawing, staging puppet shows and reading Il corriere dei piccoli , the popular children's magazine that reproduced traditional American cartoons by Winsor McCay , George McManus and Frederick Burr Opper . (Opper's Happy Hooligan would provide the visual inspiration for Gelsomina in Fellini's 1954 film La Strada ; McCay's Little Nemo would directly influence his 1980 film City of Women .) In 1926, he discovered
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3906-706: The Christian Democrats demanded tolerance for the film's controversial themes. The Vatican 's official press organ, L'Osservatore Romano , lobbied for censorship while the Board of Roman Parish Priests and the Genealogical Board of Italian Nobility attacked the film. In one documented instance involving favourable reviews written by the Jesuits of San Fedele, defending La Dolce Vita had severe consequences. In competition at Cannes alongside Antonioni's L'Avventura ,
3999-598: The Desert , 1942), directed by Osvaldo Valenti and Gino Talamo. Fellini welcomed the assignment as it allowed him "to secure another extension on his draft order". Responsible for emergency re-writing, he also directed the film's first scenes. When Tripoli fell under siege by British forces, he and his colleagues made a narrow escape by boarding a German military plane flying to Sicily . His African adventure, later published in Marc'Aurelio as "The First Flight", marked "the emergence of
4092-697: The Miss Universe pageant, as one of six finalists, she did earn a starlet 's contract with Universal Studios . As a starlet at Universal, she received lessons in drama, elocution, dancing, horseback riding, and fencing. She appeared briefly in The Mississippi Gambler (1953) with Tyrone Power , Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) (playing a woman on Venus), Take Me to Town (1953) with Ann Sheridan , and The Golden Blade (1953) with Rock Hudson and Piper Laurie . Ekberg skipped many of her drama lessons, restricting herself to riding horses in
4185-505: The Spirits (1965), Fellini Satyricon (1969), Roma (1972), Amarcord (1973), and Fellini's Casanova (1976). Fellini was nominated for 17 Academy Awards over the course of his career, winning a total of four in the category of Best Foreign Language Film (the most for any director in the history of the award). He received an honorary award for Lifetime Achievement at the 65th Academy Awards in Los Angeles. Fellini also won
4278-476: The Spirits (1965), depicting Giulietta Masina as Juliet, a housewife who rightly suspects her husband's infidelity and succumbs to the voices of spirits summoned during a séance at her home. Her sexually voracious next door neighbor Suzy ( Sandra Milo ) introduces Juliet to a world of uninhibited sensuality, but Juliet is haunted by childhood memories of her Catholic guilt and a teenaged friend who committed suicide. Complex and filled with psychological symbolism,
4371-600: The Vault Man in the Vault is a 1956 film noir about a locksmith, played by William Campbell , who is forced to help gangsters commit a robbery. The screenplay by Burt Kennedy was based on the novel The Lock and the Key by Frank Gruber . The film was the directorial debut of Andrew V. McLaglen . Willis Trent wants to rob the safety deposit box of a crooked Los Angeles businessman, Paul De Camp. He has lawyer Earl Farraday smooth-talk
4464-467: The Yellow River ), then was in Le tre eccetera del colonnello (1960), The Call Girl Business (1960), Behind Closed Doors (1961), and The Mongols (1961), which had an American director ( Andre 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
4557-549: The actor to play the role of Father Giuseppe Morosini , the parish priest executed by the SS on 4 April 1944. In 1947, Fellini and Sergio Amidei received an Oscar nomination for the screenplay of Rome, Open City . Working as both screenwriter and assistant director on Rossellini's Paisà ( Paisan ) in 1946, Fellini was entrusted to film the Sicilian scenes in Maiori . In February 1948, he
4650-474: The actor's lung cancer, chose Crawford after seeing his face on the theatrical poster of All the King's Men (1949). The film shoot was wrought with difficulties stemming from Crawford's alcoholism. Savaged by critics at the 16th Venice International Film Festival , the film did miserably at the box office and did not receive international distribution until 1964. During the autumn, Fellini researched and developed
4743-546: The critics and public. Winning the Silver Lion Award in Venice, it secured Fellini his first international distributor. Fellini directed La Strada based on a script completed in 1952 with Pinelli and Flaiano. It starred his wife Giulietta Masina , Anthony Quinn , and Richard Basehart . During the last three weeks of shooting, Fellini experienced the first signs of severe clinical depression. Aided by his wife, he undertook
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#17330929217504836-448: The dailies Il Piccolo and Il Popolo di Roma , but quit after a short stint, bored by the local court news assignments. Four months after publishing his first article in Marc'Aurelio , the highly influential biweekly humour magazine, he joined the editorial board, achieving success with a regular column titled But Are You Listening? . Described as "the determining moment in Fellini's life",
4929-471: The feasibility of a film. After first meeting Castaneda in Rome in October 1984, Fellini drafted a treatment with Pinelli titled Viaggio a Tulun . Producer Alberto Grimaldi , prepared to buy film rights to all of Castaneda's work, then paid for pre-production research taking Fellini and his entourage from Rome to Los Angeles and the jungles of Mexico in October 1985. When Castaneda inexplicably disappeared and
5022-636: The film is set to a jaunty score by Nino Rota . To help promote Satyricon in the United States, Fellini flew to Los Angeles in January 1970 for interviews with Dick Cavett and David Frost . He also met with film director Paul Mazursky who wanted to cast him in a starring role alongside Donald Sutherland in his new film, Alex in Wonderland . In February, Fellini scouted locations in Paris for The Clowns ,
5115-466: The film took its inspiration from news reports of a woman's severed head retrieved in a lake and stories by Wanda, a shantytown prostitute Fellini met on the set of Il Bidone . Pier Paolo Pasolini was hired to translate Flaiano and Pinelli's dialogue into Roman dialect and to supervise researches in the vice-afflicted suburbs of Rome. The movie won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at
5208-485: The film won the Palme d'Or awarded by presiding juror Georges Simenon . The Belgian writer was promptly "hissed at" by the disapproving festival crowd. A major discovery for Fellini after his Italian neorealism period (1950–1959) was the work of Carl Jung . After meeting Jungian psychoanalyst Dr. Ernst Bernhard in early 1960, he read Jung's autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963) and experimented with LSD . Bernhard also recommended that Fellini consult
5301-677: The first major exhibition of 63 drawings by Fellini was held in Paris , Brussels , and the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York . A gifted caricaturist, he found much of the inspiration for his sketches from his own dreams while the films-in-progress both originated from and stimulated drawings for characters, decor, costumes and set designs. Under the title, I disegni di Fellini (Fellini's Designs), he published 350 drawings executed in pencil, watercolours, and felt pens. On 6 September 1985 Fellini
5394-426: The first time he visited Cinecittà in 1939 with present-day footage of himself at work on a screen adaptation of Franz Kafka 's Amerika . A meditation on the nature of memory and film production, it won the special 40th Anniversary Prize at Cannes and the 15th Moscow International Film Festival Golden Prize. In Brussels later that year, a panel of thirty professionals from eighteen European countries named Fellini
5487-468: The gossip magazines, like Confidential and she soon became a major 1950s pin-up , appearing in men's magazines like Playboy . 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. Ekberg toured Greenland with Bob Hope , entertaining American servicemen. Hope spoke of her beauty and John Wayne signed her to
5580-457: The guy's girlfriend, the two-timing Flo Randall, into revealing the bank box's number. Now they need a locksmith. A henchman called Herbie is sent to find one. He settles on Tommy Dancer, who works as a locksmith. Tommy is quickly smitten with Earl's girl Betty Turner, but is a law-abiding citizen and rejects an offer of $ 5,000. Tommy takes Betty to the Hollywood Bowl and learns she comes from
5673-635: 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
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#17330929217505766-446: The maestro's cinema. Nominated for four Oscars, 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 won awards for best foreign language film and best costume design in black-and-white. In California for the ceremony, Fellini toured Disneyland with Walt Disney the day after. Increasingly attracted to parapsychology , Fellini met the Turin antiquarian Gustavo Rol in 1963. Rol, a former banker, introduced him to
5859-609: The magazine gave him steady employment between 1939 and 1942, when he interacted with writers, gagmen, and scriptwriters. These encounters eventually led to opportunities in show business and cinema. Among his collaborators on the magazine's editorial board were the future director Ettore Scola , Marxist theorist and scriptwriter Cesare Zavattini , and Bernardino Zapponi , a future Fellini screenwriter. Conducting interviews for CineMagazzino also proved congenial: when asked to interview Aldo Fabrizi , Italy's most popular variety performer, he established such immediate personal rapport with
5952-457: The man that they collaborated professionally. Specializing in humorous monologues, Fabrizi commissioned material from his young protégé. Retained on business in Rimini, Urbano sent his wife and family to Rome in 1940 to share an apartment with his son. Fellini and Ruggero Maccari, also on the staff of Marc'Aurelio , began writing radio sketches and gags for films. Not yet twenty and with Fabrizi's help, Fellini obtained his first screen credit as
6045-534: The number of films he had directed up to that time. Giving the order to start production in spring 1962, Fellini signed deals with his producer Rizzoli, fixed dates, had sets constructed, cast Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée , and Sandra Milo in lead roles, and did screen tests at the Scalera Studios in Rome. He hired cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo , among key personnel. But apart from naming his hero Guido Anselmi, he still couldn't decide what his character did for
6138-401: The postwar recession drawing caricatures of American soldiers. He became involved with Italian Neorealism when Roberto Rossellini , at work on Stories of Yesteryear (later Rome, Open City ), met Fellini in his shop, and proposed he contribute gags and dialogue for the script. Aware of Fellini's reputation as Aldo Fabrizi's "creative muse", Rossellini also requested that he try to convince
6231-585: The project fell through, Fellini's mystico-shamanic adventures were scripted with Pinelli and serialized in Corriere della Sera in May 1986. A barely veiled satirical interpretation of Castaneda's work, Viaggio a Tulun was published in 1989 as a graphic novel with artwork by Milo Manara and as Trip to Tulum in America in 1990. For Intervista , produced by Ibrahim Moussa and RAI Television, Fellini intercut memories of
6324-484: The reality of my unreal environment. I was an instrument in a virtual world that constantly renewed its own meaningless image in a living world that was itself perceived outside of nature. And since the appearance of things was no longer definitive but limitless, this paradisiacal awareness freed me from the reality external to my self. The fire and the rose, as it were, became one. Fellini's hallucinatory insights were given full flower in his first colour feature Juliet of
6417-416: The relatively unknown Mastroianni while De Laurentiis wanted Paul Newman as a hedge on his investment. Reaching an impasse, De Laurentiis sold the rights to publishing mogul Angelo Rizzoli . Shooting began on 16 March 1959 with Anita Ekberg climbing the stairs to the cupola of Saint Peter's in a mammoth décor constructed at Cinecittà . The statue of Christ flown by helicopter over Rome to St. Peter's Square
6510-427: The religious ceremony held at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome a year later. The couple settled in Rimini where Urbano became a traveling salesman and wholesale vendor . Fellini had two siblings, Riccardo (1921–1991), a documentary director for RAI Television, and Maria Maddalena (m. Fabbri; 1929–2002). In 1924, Fellini started primary school in an institute run by the nuns of San Vincenzo in Rimini, attending
6603-573: The role of a vagabond rogue mistaken by Magnani for a saint, Fellini had to bleach his black hair blond. In 1950 Fellini co-produced and co-directed with Alberto Lattuada Variety Lights ( Luci del varietà ), his first feature film. A backstage comedy set among the world of small-time travelling performers, it featured Giulietta Masina and Lattuada's wife, Carla Del Poggio . Its release to poor reviews and limited distribution proved disastrous for all concerned. The production company went bankrupt, leaving both Fellini and Lattuada with debts to pay for over
6696-595: The same role – the movie star from America who comes over to Italy." 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 . However Broccoli then cast her in Call Me Bwana (1963) with Bob Hope . Call Me Bwana
6789-436: The seemingly chaotic, incessant improvisation on the set, Deena Boyer, the director's American press officer at the time, asked for a rationale. Fellini told her that he hoped to convey the three levels "on which our minds live: the past, the present, and the conditional — the realm of fantasy". After shooting wrapped on 14 October, Nino Rota composed various circus marches and fanfares that would later become signature tunes of
6882-526: The sixth of eight children. In her teens, Anita worked as a fashion model. Ekberg entered the Miss Malmö competition in 1950 at her mother's urging. This led to the Miss Sweden contest which she won. Despite speaking very little English, she went to the United States to compete for the 1951 Miss Universe title (an unofficial pageant at that time, the pageant became official in 1952). Although Ekberg did not win
6975-506: The stairs and suffered a miscarriage. She gave birth to a son, Pierfederico, on 22 March 1945, but the child died of encephalitis 11 days later on 2 April 1945. Masina and Fellini had no other children. The tragedy had enduring emotional and artistic repercussions. After the Allied liberation of Rome on 4 June 1944, Fellini and Enrico De Seta opened the Funny Face Shop where they survived
7068-409: 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". The movie was an international sensation and Ekberg settled in Rome. She had the lead in an Italian-French co production, Last Train to Shanghai (1960) (aka The Dam on
7161-411: The war. Giulietta is practical, and likes the fact that she earns a handsome fee for her radio work, whereas theater never pays well. And of course the fame counts for something too. Radio is a booming business and comedy reviews have a broad and devoted public. In November 1942, Fellini was sent to Libya , occupied by Fascist Italy, to work on the screenplay of I cavalieri del deserto ( Knights of
7254-499: 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
7347-713: The world of Grand Guignol , the circus with Pierino the Clown and the movies. Guido Brignone 's Maciste all'inferno (1925, Maciste in Hell ), the first film he saw, would mark him in ways linked to Dante and the cinema throughout his entire career. Enrolled at the Ginnasio Giulio Cesare in 1929, he made friends with Luigi Titta Benzi, later a prominent Rimini lawyer (and the model for young Titta in Amarcord (1973)). In Mussolini 's Italy, Fellini and Riccardo became members of
7440-450: The world of Spiritism and séances . In 1964, Fellini took LSD under the supervision of Emilio Servadio, his psychoanalyst during the 1954 production of La Strada . For years reserved about what actually occurred that Sunday afternoon, he admitted in 1992 that ... objects and their functions no longer had any significance. All I perceived was perception itself, the hell of forms and figures devoid of human emotion and detached from
7533-452: The world's best director and 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 the best European film of all time. In early 1989 Fellini began production on The Voice of the Moon , based on Ermanno Cavazzoni's novel, Il poema dei lunatici ( The Lunatics' Poem ). A small town was built at Empire Studios on the via Pontina outside Rome. Starring Roberto Benigni as Ivo Salvini, a madcap poetic figure newly released from
7626-475: Was a director who wanted to make a film he no longer remembers. And lo and behold, at that very moment everything fell into place. I got straight to the heart of the film. I would narrate everything that had been happening to me. I would make a film telling the story of a director who no longer knows what film he wanted to make". The self-mirroring structure makes the entire film inseparable from its reflecting construction. Shooting began on 9 May 1962. Perplexed by
7719-512: 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. Ekberg went to Italy to star in Sheba and the Gladiator (1959), playing Zenobia . She stayed in Rome to make La Dolce Vita (1960) for Federico Fellini , performing as Sylvia Rank,
7812-587: Was an Italian film director and screenwriter. He is known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. His films have ranked highly in critical polls such as that of Cahiers du Cinéma and Sight & Sound , which lists his 1963 film 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 as the 10th-greatest film. Fellini's best-known films include I vitelloni (1953), La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957), La Dolce Vita (1960), 8½ (1963), Juliet of
7905-613: Was awarded the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 42nd Venice Film Festival. That same year, he became the first non-American to receive the Film Society of Lincoln Center 's annual award for cinematic achievement. Long fascinated by Carlos Castaneda 's The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge , Fellini accompanied the Peruvian author on a journey to the Yucatán to assess
7998-504: 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. Ekberg co-starred with Andress, Frank Sinatra , and Dean Martin in
8091-502: 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
8184-472: Was inspired by an actual media event on 1 May 1956, which Fellini had witnessed. La Dolce Vita broke all box office records. Despite scalpers selling tickets at 1000 lire, crowds queued in line for hours to see an "immoral movie" before the censors banned it. At an exclusive Milan screening on 5 February 1960, one outraged patron spat on Fellini while others hurled insults. Denounced in parliament by right-wing conservatives, undersecretary Domenico Magrì of
8277-526: Was introduced to Marcello Mastroianni , then a young theatre actor appearing in a play with Giulietta Masina. Establishing a close working relationship with Alberto Lattuada , Fellini co-wrote the director's Senza pietà ( Without Pity ) and Il mulino del Po ( The Mill on the Po ). Fellini also worked with Rossellini on the anthology film L'Amore (1948), co-writing the screenplay and in one segment titled, "The Miracle", acting opposite Anna Magnani . To play
8370-414: Was married to Anthony Steel from 22 May 1956 until their divorce on 14 May 1959 and to Rik Van Nutter from 9 April 1963 until their divorce in 1975. In a 2006 interview she said she wished she had a child, but stated just the opposite six months later. Ekberg's great love was Gianni Agnelli , the Italian industrialist and owner of Fiat. They were lovers for several years, although he was married. Ekberg
8463-430: Was often outspoken in interviews, e.g. , naming famous people she reportedly "couldn't bear". She was also frequently quoted as saying that it was Fellini who owed his success to her , rather than vice versa : "They would like to keep up the story that Fellini made me famous, that Fellini discovered me", she said in a 1999 interview with The New York Times . In 1960, after paparazzi followed her home to her villa from
8556-614: Was sued by her publicist. In 1977, she was robbed in August and in December. On 19 July 2009, she was admitted to the San Giovanni Hospital in Rome after falling ill in her home in Genzano , according to a medical official in the hospital's neurosurgery department. Despite her condition not being serious, Ekberg was put under observation in the facility. In December 2011, it was reported that
8649-574: Was third billed in a thriller for Batjac, Man in the Vault (1956). It was distributed by RKO Pictures who had given Ekberg an excellent part in Back from Eternity (1956), directed by John Farrow . 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
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