A Hollywood Sex Symbol Who Cared Little About Stardom

‘Hollywood or Bust: The Life and Career of Anita Ekberg’By Richard KoperBearManor Media, 308 pages“I like this city,” William Faulkner wrote about Rome in 1954. “It is full of the sound of water, fountains everywhere, amazing and beautiful — big things full of marble figures —God and animal, naked girls wrestling with horses and swans with tons of water cascading over them.” Five years later, Federico Fellini would film the famous Trevi Fountain scene that made Anita Ekberg an international star.On YouTube, you can watch that scene from “La Dolce Vita,” with Marcelo Mastroianni, dressed in a suit, wading in the fountain toward Ekberg, who performs like one of those marble figures come alive, anointing him with drops of water as he is born anew and succumbs to her spell.The camera work does full justice to her famous bust and figure that she liked to flaunt even as she bitterly denounced those who refused to acknowledge her as a good actress. Richard Koper makes several references to Ekberg’s talent, yet he never comes to terms with what made her distinctive.Ekberg never fawned over men and could, in fact, punch them out when they got out of line. In effect, she took command of her life as she did on the screen, never resorting to the simpering sex goddess roles that other women of her era had to endure.At a very early age Ekberg stood out, not only physically, but with a will of her own that surprised and disturbed her conservative Swedish family and later the Swedish press that seldom asked her about her acting ambitions, dwelling instead on her stormy love life and hostility to their questions in encounters that sometimes led to her striking out at those who invaded her space, public and private.Few directors knew what to do with Ekberg other than showing off her body. Fellini was an exception. He is able to integrate her physical presence into the life of Rome, and she was eternally grateful to him, and to Italy, which she much preferred to Hollywood, where she reciprocated the disrespect of producers with her own refusal to appear on time or to go through the ordeal of publicity events that were the requisite tasks of becoming a star.Ekberg cared very little about stardom per se and was outspoken, providing good copy for the press she despised. She was known as a difficult actress, but in her view that meant her candor offended those who wanted her to be subservient to the studio system. She got along best, actually, with older actors like Dana Andrews in “The Cobra,” listening to him talk about the old days in Hollywood. Mr. Koper cannot explain why Ekberg remained so recalcitrant and independent. Perhaps Ekberg herself could not have said why. No one else in her family was like her, and they resented her for it. Nothing she did to make peace at home seemed to work, and eventually she simply rejected her family and rarely revisited Sweden.BearManor MediaOne aspect of Ekberg intrigues me, and Mr. Koper is of no help in this regard: At sixteen she was raped. “I was so ashamed,” she later said: “I felt dirty. I walked home . . . I snuck into the house; I tried to wash everything off. I cried myself to sleep.” Mr. Koper’s next sentence is: “Those who knew Anita in her teenage years remember that she had a twinkle in her eyes. The gleam that wanted adventure and to explore new things.” What? The rape had no lasting impact?Or did that constant need for Ekberg to strike out, to never back down from a fight, to refuse any sort of subservience to powerful men stem from her wish never again to be a victim? Mr. Koper notes: “Looking back on her youth, Anita recalled: ‘I have always dreamed of being someone.’” Being someone perhaps meant not merely praise and fame but control of her own destiny, even if she alienated the powerful.Ekberg reached a low point late in her career and attempted suicide, but in spite of failed marriages and poor parts in films, and a disastrous nightclub act, she remained as other YouTube clips disclose, a woman with a very strong sense of herself that Mr. Koper’s biography admirably conveys.Mr. Rollyson is the author of “Hollywood Enigma: Dana Andrews.”

A Hollywood Sex Symbol Who Cared Little About Stardom

More from the New York Sun

Israel Approves Death Penalty for Palestinians Convicted of Deadly Attacks

Despite Complicated Legacy, Tiger Woods’s Brand Continues To Survive Personal Drama

Anger at Senate GOP Reaches Fever Pitch With No DHS Deal in Sight, SAVE America Act Debate Stalled

More from the New York Sun

Israel Approves Death Penalty for Palestinians Convicted of Deadly Attacks

Despite Complicated Legacy, Tiger Woods’s Brand Continues To Survive Personal Drama

Anger at Senate GOP Reaches Fever Pitch With No DHS Deal in Sight, SAVE America Act Debate Stalled

Massie Raises More Than $300,000 During Marathon Livestream Fundraiser Featuring Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ron Paul

Amid March Madness Betting Surge, Fed Study Warns of Rising Loan Delinquency Rates

As Midterms Loom, Gladiatorial Politics Substitutes for Governing

AI-Generated Crooner Accounts for Three of Top Five Songs on iTunes

Contender Backed by My Pillow Founder Faces Establishment Candidate in Arkansas Republican Runoff