The Italian diva Gina Lollobrigida is campaigning at the age of 95. The film icon is running for a seat in the Senate in the ranks of the anti-establishment party Italia sovrana e popolare. She submitted her candidacy in the city of Latina, south of Rome.
“I’m tired of hearing politicians argue without getting results. I will fight so that the people can decide, in a wide range of areas, from health to the judiciary. I want to make a constructive and positive contribution to my country,” said Lollobrigida in an interview with the Milan daily Corriere della Sera.
Anti-mafia lawyer advised to run
Her lawyer Antonio Ingroia, a former anti-mafia prosecutor who has political experience himself, persuaded her to run for office. “As long as I have energies, I want to use them for important things, especially for my country. If necessary, I will also run an election campaign,” explained the diva, who had already tried to run for the EU Parliament in 1999 in the ranks of the centre-left alliance around ex-EU Commission President Romano Prodi. At that time she had received 10,000 votes, but missed the leap into the Strasbourg Parliament.
“Italia sovrana e popolare” is a rallying movement of left-wing parties and anti-system groups campaigning for Italy’s return to stronger national sovereignty away from Brussels. The movement takes part in parliamentary elections for the first time.
One of the great cinema divas
Lollobrigida was one of the great divas of Italian cinema. Alongside Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale and Monica Vitti, who died in February, she achieved worldwide fame in the post-war decades and stood in front of the camera with the biggest film stars. Based on one of her films, she was even described as the “most beautiful woman in the world”. Later she also had success as a photographer and sculptor.
Today she is no longer allowed to make decisions about her assets after a court assigned her a guardian after years of family disputes. The dispute with her son and grandson is not about the well-being of the diva, but about money, says Lollobrigida’s lawyer Ingroia. A marriage swindler from Spain, whom Lollobrigida almost married in 2006, was probably also after the fortune.