It was the Turquoise fairy, from the “Adventures of Pinocchio”. Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida, a voluptuous brunette who burst onto the screen after the war in Hollywood, has died at the age of 95. Forgive us, but if you’re over 50, you’ll understand. You are like us, orphans. Of Gina Lollobrigida, disappeared at 95, and appeared in our amazement as a kid in her forties but who looked much younger, or perhaps the age of an ideal little mother. Many of us grew up with Luigi Comencini’s television soap opera, produced in 1972 for RAI, but multi-broadcast in France in the years that followed.
There was Pinocchio, played by a little boy who almost all of us identified with. There was its inventor, the craftsman Geppetto, kind, but not always there to protect his puppet, which had come alive from adventures that seemed very dangerous to us, at 6 or 7 years old, to tears. And there was the Turquoise fairy who appeared to save the little hero at dramatic or too lonely moments. Gorgeous. Solar. Basically Italian. Brunette, dark and ardent eyes, reassuring mamma and we didn’t know it yet, too childish and not naughty enough, absolute fantasy.
Lollobrigida… a name that made her laugh
Ah, that name that made her laugh. Lollobrigida. When, after her debut in Italy, where she first finished third in Miss Italy behind Lucia Bose -fans of filmmaker Antonioni will understand, Italian stars were misses- Gina started in France in “Fanfan the Tulip” (1952), and his producer wanted to find him another name. “He told me that it meant pretty breasts in French and that it was embarrassing”, she told in 1992 to Michael Field in “The Circle of Midnight”. She agreed to change, but discovered in the credits that these crazy and funny five syllables were written there.
Lola or lolos, Brigitte or Brigida, we could already fantasize about everything from this name which actually fit her like a glove, or rather a very push-up corset. Adeline la Franchise, such is her coat of arms that pushes Fanfan la Tulipe not to send her on the roses. First emotions. Love story on screen and in our hearts. “I owe my cinematic success to France,” she confirmed. We also confirm.
Sinatra, Steve McQueen… a Hollywood dance card
Black and white images where she radiated colors. Unforgettable also in Esmeralda of “Notre-Dame-de-Paris” (1956) by Jean Delannoy, facing Anthony Quinn equally memorable in Quasimodo. Hollywood on the Seine. Two films and a soap opera with which we grew up, when the TV had only two channels and we were often shown the same dishes, but for his own, we asked for more. Perhaps it was synonymous with gluttony, already in “Bread, love and fantasy” (1953), by Luigi Comencini, followed the year after by “Bread, love and jealousy”, signed by the same, so as not to forget that the gratin of Italian cinema had already made her his muse.
She will not Claudia Cardinale, much younger at the time, by eleven years, but who will exceed her. She will not discover her Sergio Leone from “Once upon a time in the West”, her Visconti from “Guépard”, her Fellini from “Huit et demi”. Perhaps he is missing a few masterpieces inscribed at the very top of the pantheon, even if his Hollywood dance card makes heads turn, playing with Frank Sinatra Where Steve McQueen, and edited by John Huston, John Sturges and Jules Dassin. And more recently, in 1997, in “XXL”, by Ariel Zeitoun, with Gérard Depardieu.
Return to France. François Mitterrand decorated her with the Legion of Honor in 1993. Married, divorced, mother of a son, she then ran unsuccessfully in the European elections, embarked on sculpture and photography. Give us the Turquoise Fairy instead. We never forget our first loves. His character transforms the puppet into a child to make Geppetto happy, who had none. It’s almost biblical, this holy family. Divine Gina. Sweet Jesus, the actress is gone. Goddess Lollobrigida. Forever, your grateful TV kids.