Gina Lollobrigida, the 79-year-old former screen idol who is marrying a man 34 years her junior, told an Italian weekly that he wooed her with exotic birds and a huge emerald. In an interview with the weekly Gente on Tuesday, the actress said that women over 70 should never give up on love because there was still a chance they would meet the love of their life.
"I hope our love affair will inspire others."
The groom-in-waiting is Javier Rigau Rifols, a Spanish property entrepreneur from Barcelona, whom she claims to have known for 22 years, ever since they met at Monte Carlo. "Whoever says there's no passion once you reach 60 is wrong. It was passion at first sight for us and the flame is
still burning."
Lollobrigida, better known to Italians as 'La Lollo', said she would be getting married in a New York church sometime before Christmas but ruled out wearing a white dress for the ceremony. The actress said Rifols gave her a 36-carat emerald when he popped the question.
Over the years he also showered her with something else she "adores": a peacock and a number of exotic birds. A sloe-eyed, buxom brunette, La Lollo long vied with fellow Italian bombshell Sophia Loren and French sex kitten Brigitte Bardot for the title of the world's sexiest woman.
She even starred in a 1955 film called La Donna Piu Bella del Mondo (The World's Most Beautiful Woman), which became her signature movie.
The daughter of a furniture manufacturer from a mountain village near Rome, she has made over 60 films including some during the 1990s.
Lollobrigida's Hollywood breakout role came in the John Huston film Beat the Devil (1953). In 1961 she won a Golden Globe with Come September co-starring Rock Hudson. Since retiring from cinema Lollobrigida has tried her hand as a photographer, sculptor, photojournalist and a fashion and cosmetics executive. Seven years ago she stood unsuccessfully for the European Parliament.
Rigau will be her second husband. The diva was divorced in 1971 after a 22-year marriage to a Yugoslav doctor, by whom she had a son.
