Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg is a Swedish model, actress and cult sex symbol.
Ekberg was born in 1931 in Malmö, Skåne, the oldest girl and the sixth of eight children. In her teens she worked as a fashion model. In 1950 Ekberg entered the Miss Malmö competition at her mother's urging, leading to the Miss Sweden contest, which she won. She consequently went to America to compete for Miss Universe in the United States despite not speaking English.
Although she did not win Miss Universe, as one of six finalists she did earn a starlet's contract with Universal Studios, as was the rule at the time. In America, Ekberg met Howard Hughes, who at the time was producing films and wanted her to change her nose, teeth, and name. She refused to change her name, saying that if she became famous, people would learn to pronounce it, and if she didn't become famous, it would not matter.
As a starlet at Universal, Ekberg received lessons in drama, elocution, dancing, horse-riding and fencing. Ekberg skipped many of the lessons, restricting herself to horse riding in the Hollywood hills. Ekberg later admitted that she was spoiled by the studio system and played instead of pursuing bigger film roles.
By the mid-50s, other studios offered Ekberg work. Paramount Studios and Frank Tashlin cast her in Hollywood or Bust (1956) and Artists and Models (1955) both starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Both films show off her stunning body but also use her as a foil for many of the director's clever sight gags. Ekberg also played an Amazonian extraterrestrial in 1953's Abbott and Costello Go to Mars.
Bob Hope joked that her parents had received the Nobel Prize for architecture as she was touring with him and William Holden to entertain U.S. troops in 1954. The tour led her to a contract with John Wayne's Batjac Productions. Wayne cast her in Blood Alley, a small role (1955), where Ekberg's features and appearance were Orientalized to play a Chinese woman, a role that earned her a Golden Globe award.
RKO gave Ekberg the female lead in Back From Eternity. Co-starring Robert Ryan and Rod Steiger. Anita was perfectly adequate in her cardboard role, and suggested that with a good director and a worthwhile part, she might have something to offer.
Federico Fellini gave Ekberg her greatest role in La dolce vita (1960), in which she played the unattainable "dream woman" opposite Marcello Mastroianni; then Boccaccio '70 in 1960, a movie that also featured Sophia Loren. Fellini would call her back for two other films: I clowns (1972), and Intervista (1987), where she played herself in a reunion scene with Mastroianni.
La Dolce Vita was a sensational success, and Anita Ekberg's uninhibited cavorting in Rome's Trevi Fountain remains one of the most celebrated images in film history.
