It was with great sadness that I learned of the death of “La Lollo,” as she was known, last month at the age of 95. She packed a lot of living into that near-century of walking among us, as we will see.

She was born in the hilltop town of Subiaco not too far from Rome in the Lazio region. Subiaco today is a little bit of a tourist destination because of its Benedictine monastery, which comes complete with its own sacred grotto. But in the 1920s it was poor and working class, as was Gina’s family.

Somewhat counterintuitively, and I don’t know why, during World War II the family left Subiaco and fled into Rome, rather than vice versa. I know that Rome, like Paris, was spared the bombings that devastated other European cities, so maybe that had something to do with it. In Rome right after the war she modeled and took singing lessons, and appeared in a few small Italian movies after coming in third in the 1947 Miss Italia beauty contest (the winner was Lucia Bose, who also had a film career.) 

In 1949 she married (for the only time) and almost simultaneously Howard Hughes, who had a history of obsessively pursuing actresses, became aware of her and flew her out to Hollywood, set her up, took her to Las Vegas, and said he’d put her under contract at RKO, which he then owned and ran into the ground, but only if she’d divorce her new husband. She refused and went back to Europe. 

In 1954 she appeared in John Huston’s Beat the Devil alongside Humphrey Bogart, who said of her “she makes Marilyn Monroe look like Shirley Temple.” Just in time, in 1955, she made The World’s Most Beautiful Woman, with Robert Alda, Alan’s Dad. Yes, Alan Alda is a nepo-baby.

Now she enters her most productive period, doing both American and European projects. She appeared with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis in Trapeze (1956), which is fabulous; Anthony Quinn (in Jean Delannoy’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1956), Yul Brynner (in Solomon and Sheba, 1959, which is just breathtaking, as it was meant to be,) and Sean Connery (in Woman of Straw, 1964). Back in the Old World she was in Venere Imperiale (Imperial Venus, 1963), in which she played Napoleon’s sister Paolina, and if you enjoy on-screen opulence as much as I do, this flick is for you. In Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (1968), she plays an Italian woman who convinces each of three former American GIs (Phil Silvers, Peter Lawford and Telly Savalas) that he is the father of her daughter. The three have been paying her child support for years (unknown to each other) and then the trio have a reunion in Italy and wacky hi-jinks ensue.

In the 1970s Gina transitioned out of film and went into photojournalism. She showed up at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival and checked into the famous Carleton Hotel on the Croisette (Cannes’s beachfront) with four huge dobermans. I would have done the same. She scored an exclusive interview with Fidel Castro, who became quite smitten with her. Oh, also, back in the 1960s she starred in two romantic farces with Rock Hudson, and when asked later in life about working working with Hudson she said something cryptic like, “he acted like a normal man with me.” Such were her mesmerizing charms, I guess.

So now Gina’s long-divorced and at the age of 79 attempted to marry or did marry a much younger man. She says she never went through with it and that he took an imposter to a bogus wedding ceremony at a church in Barcelona (he was Spanish) so the paperwork was fraudulent. The Vatican (!) got involved  (the guy had designs on her fortune) and after a two-year investigation granted her an annulment.

There’s other stuff too. She studied sculpting when she was young and returned to that. In 2008 she did a one-woman show dedicated to her dear friend Maria Callas. She lived in a palazzo just off the Appian Way in Rome, which has lots of estates hidden behind gates and shrubbery; it’s like the Beverly Hills of The Eternal City. The life-long feud with Sophia Loren, whether real or media-fabricated. But now you’re getting hungry so let’s get to the panettone.

This is Gina’s original recipe as updated by an Italian whose grasp of English was a little shaky. I have Italian cookbooks and this is pretty much how Italian recipes read, although they’re getting more and more American-style as fewer and fewer Italians grow up learning from their relatives and now need more than hints, guesstimates, and reminders. This author/translator has helpfully provided measurements, and I’m pretty sure Gina wouldn’t have.

Pannetone alla Gina

Ingredients for a giant panettone: 300 ml milk, 50 g butter, 450 ml flour, 80 g sugar, salt, 3 egg yolks, two ounces of yeast, orange, raisins, pistachios, dried fruits

For a normal sized panettone: 250 g flour, 100 ml milk, 80 g butter, 60 g sugar, ¼ cube of yeast (12 g, or 1 teaspoon dried), 3 egg yolks, 1 lemon zest, a pinch of salt, 50 g of raisins, 30 g of candied orange peel, candied lemon peel 30 g, 30 g figs

Topping: 1 tablespoon butter, 1 tablespoon milk, ½ egg, 10 g almonds or pistachios

First prepare the dough. If you use fresh yeast, stir yeast in the 3 tablespoon of lukewarm sweetened milk. Add the flour in a large mixing bowl, pour the yeast with milk, melted butter, add sugar, egg yolks, lemon rind, salt and almost all of the milk to it. 

Knead dough until it is loose, then cover the bowl, place it in the oven for 50 degrees for 5 minutes then turn off the heat and let the dough to rise (1-2 hours).

When the dough rose, knead it for 5 minutes, then rotate gently into the dried fruit (cut everything into small pieces). Butter the baking tin thoroughly with a paper towels, place the dough on it and let it rise in room-temperature like the first time, but does not cover it.

If the dough has risen make a cut on the top of it with a sharp knife, smear it with butter, sprinkled on a little milk, brush with egg, toss over almond chips and pistachios. Turn the oven to 170 degrees and let dough bake for approx. 45 minutes. If the panettone is baked, let it rest about 15 minutes in the baking tin.

And with that, all I can do is wish you buona fortuna (good luck).