Roundup: Italy loses 2 top connections to cinema Golden Age in two-day span

In a two-day span this weekend, Rome lost two of its strongest living connections to its Golden Age of film - Swedish born starlet and pin up girl Anita Ekberg and groundbreaking director Francesco Rosi.

Ekberg, who died Sunday at the age of 83, was the more visible of the two, who never worked together.

Ekberg became symbol of sensuality and flirtation in the famous fountain scene of Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita," when just a few flirting words managed to cajole co-star Marcello Mastroianni to join her in the Trevi Fountain. The scene became so iconic that the city of Rome had to pass an ordinance to prevent romantic copycats.

Sociologists say Ekberg's persona in "La Dolce Vita" and several subsequent Italian films (including two more by Fellini) helped change the male-female dating rituals in future generations and also helped spark Italian men's interest in foreign blonds that continues to this day.

The former Miss Sweden never acted in a Swedish film, and in her heyday she moved to Rome permanently. She died in a hospital just outside the capital.

Rosi, in contrast, was at home behind the camera. He was part of the second wave of great Italian post-World War II writers and directors who brought a kind of gritty realism that examined many of the defects of Italian society. Rosi's penchant was for exposing corruption in Italy.

Rosi, along with Pier Paolo Passolini, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Ettore Scola, Mario Monicelli, Franco Zeffirelli, and Gillo Pontecorvo, built on the earlier work of Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica, Michelangelo Antonioni, and others to create what is considered the Golden Age of Italian film - starting after World War II and stretching until the 1970s.

During that period, Italian films set trends for the film industry world wide, taking home more Oscars than productions from any other foreign country. Rosi earned one Oscar nomination, but, more importantly, was recognized by Europe's most prestigious film festivals, Cannes, Venice, and Berlin, along with critical accolades spread over four decades.

Rosi, aged 92, died on Saturday, one day before Ekberg.

The back-to-back deaths sparked tributes from figures as wide ranging as from Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Rome mayor Ignazio Marino to leading cultural figures in Sweden (in the case of Ekberg) to fellow Golden Age icons including Sophia Loren.

But it was the tribute to Rosi from the 91-year-old Zeffirelli that was perhaps the most touching. Rossi and Zeffirelli both started out as assistants to Visconti, and upon learning of Rosi's death Zeffirelli called him "a friend, a lifelong companion, and a brother" and said losing him was "like experiencing a bodily mutilation." Endit