When
Anita Ekberg came to Hollywood in the early
1950's from Sweden, she instantly become part of the 3B glamour culture--busty,
blonde and bold. She's was in good company with such pin-up legends as
Marilyn
Manroe, Jayne Mansfield, Mamie
Van Doren, and June Wilkinson.
She was given the nickname "the iceberg"-- a play on her name as well as
her cool European demeanor. She more exotic along the lines of the French
sex kitten Brigette Bardot than,
say, Britain's pin-up girl Sabrina.
Ekberg
knew how to play the Hollywood press, creating stunts that she hoped would
translate into movie roles. In an interview with Modern Man
magazine (Aug., 1961) she was asked about her biggest publicity stunt.
Her reply was classic: "It was after we had just finished War
and Peace. It was arranged for my strapless evening gown to
pop apart in the crowded lobby of a London hotel before a large crowd of
witnesses. We had it fixed up for an English magazine to be on the spot
to get still pictures of that scene so that the magazine could later be
banned. Newspapers condemned me at the time for being so tasteless. They
claimed I established a new low." Besides War and Peace,
she appeared in a few Martin and Lewis films and had bit parts here and
there. She is probably best known to modern audiences through her role
as the dancing beauty in Federico Fellini's 1961 classic
La
Dolce Vita.
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