Mondadori Portfolio by Getty ImagesAnita Ekberg, a legendary Hollywood sex symbol and actress best known for her role in the controversial Oscar-winning 1960 film La Dolce Vita, has died at age 83.
The blonde star, who was also a former Miss Sweden, passed away on Sunday, local time, near Rome, Italy, Reuters and the Italian website Excite Italia quoted her lawyer as saying. She had been hospitalized over the holidays and had been ill for two years.
"She had many friends who were with her until the end," her lawyer told Reuters.
The actress is set to be cremated, after which her ashes will be sent to her native Sweden. A funeral will take place this week.
Ekberg was born on Sept. 9 1931. In her teens, she worked as a model. She won the Miss Sweden pageant in 1951 and later concentrated on a film career. Her first major acting role was as a role was an alien guard in the 1953 movie Abbott and Costello Go to Mars.
But it was La Dolce Vita that made her an international sex icon and launched her to international fame. The dramedy was directed by Federico Fellini, who died in 1993 at age 73. Ekberg played a sultry and temperamental actress, Sylvia, alongside Marcello Mastroianni, who portrayed a passive journalist, Marcello, in search for love and happiness, or, as the movie title states, "The Sweet Life," in Rome. The actor died in 1996 at age 72.
A scene in which Sylvia wades through Rome's Trevi fountain in a strapless gown, then seductively calls Marcello to join her, is one of the most memorable in film history.
The movie, which was a box office hit, featured risqué themes and scenes for its time, depicting sex, a striptease and even an orgy. The Vatican condemned the film. Its newspaper L'Osservatore Romano called the film an "incitement to evil crime and vice," according to the U.K. newspaper The Guardian.
In 1998, Ekbert was named No. 14 on Playboy's list "Top 100 Sexiest Stars of the Century."
"I don't know why she's on the list," she joked in an interview with the BBC arts show Arena. "No, to me it's such nonsense."
Akberg retired from acting about 11 years ago after appearing in some 50 films overall, including the 1956 movie War and Peace, the 1962 romantic comedy Boccaccio '70 and the 1997 biographical dramedy Intervista, the latter of which were also directed by Fellini. She won her first and only Golden Globe in 1956 for Most Promising Newcomer, an honor she shared with stars Victoria Shaw and Dana Wynter.
Throughout her life, she was married and divorced twice, to actors Anthony Steel and Rik Van Nutter, and had no children. She was also linked romantically to several other stars, such as Gary Cooper, and Errol Flynn and Frank Sinatra, her co-star in the 1963 western 4 for Texas, according to NPR. The late crooner had also proposed to her she had refused, Reuters reported.