Although she appeared in dozens of films — including as the Gypsy Esmeralda in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1956), with Anthony Quinn, and as the queen of Sheba in “Solomon and Sheba” (1959), with Yul Brynner — Ms. Lollobrigida has always been more a star than an actor.  With a full-figured beauty that communicated innocence and experience, La Lollo was the incarnation of an Italy that leapt after the Second World War from dire poverty to the glamour of the Dolce Vita years.  “La Lollo was a personality that outshone her work in the cinema; she was simply one of the most beautiful women in the world,” said Peter Bondanella, the author of “Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present.” She represents “something iconic, more important than the actual talent she often displayed in her work as an actress.  “What that is,” he added, “is what being a star really means, doesn’t it? Something we can’t quite put our finger on but jumps out at us on the silver screen.”  Her best-known role remains her first, when she played “La Bersagliera,” a sassy peasant girl in Luigi Comencini’s neorealist comedy “Bread, Love and Dreams.” It’s also her favorite. “I create La Bersagliera, oh, Dio,” Ms. Lollobrigida said, adding the Italian reference to God for emphasis. “It fits me like a glove, the character,” she added. “It’s very full of fire. Was like me.”  Ms. Lollobrigida still appears to be full of fire. Last year she almost married a Spaniard 34 years her junior. The decision to call it off was hers, she said. “Obviously.”  “I like younger men because they are generous,” she said. “They don’t have complex. Especially with me, my God.”  In recent years Ms. Lollobrigida has turned to philanthropy, photography and sculpture. In the 1970s she took photographs around the world, including Cuba and the Philippines. Her home is filled with her work. A sculpture of herself as Pauline Bonaparte in the 1963 film “Imperial Venus” dominates her central hall, while others of herself as La Bersagliera and as Esmeralda sit in an atrium.  Her sculptures, reminiscent of Jeff Koons’s only lacking irony, also include painted bronzes of Marilyn Monroe naked in bed, her friend Liza Minnelli performing in “Cabaret” and a bust of the blind opera singer Andrea Bocelli. Ms. Lollobrigida is intensely proud of her work. Her voice filled with emotion when she recalled the crowds at the opening of an exhibition she had in the summer in Pietrasanta, the Tuscan artists’ village where she has her studio. The day, she said, was one of the happiest of her life.  And what a life. An entire wall of Ms. Lollobrigida’s house is filled with photos of her meeting major figures of the second half of the 20th century: Gary Cooper, Salvador Dalí, Ella Fitzgerald, Indira Gandhi, Mick Jagger, Vladimir Putin, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, Mother Teresa, John Wayne. “I was so popular, my God,” she said, looking up at the wall.  Ms. Lollobrigida came a long way from her childhood in Subiaco, outside Rome. The war had been hard. “We lost everything,” she said. “We lived in one room, six people.” She had wanted to be a sculptor but while still in high school was spotted by a film director and lured into movies.  During her career, she worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. John Huston directed Ms. Lollobrigida in “Beat the Devil” (1953), with Humphrey Bogart. Truman Capote wrote the screenplay. “He fell in love with me,” she said. “He wrote a lot of funny lines for me, but afterward they were cut.” Burt Lancaster was a producer of “Trapeze” (1956), a high-wire act set in Paris, and kept coaching his co-stars. “I stopped him,” Ms. Lollobrigida said. “I said: ‘I’m sorry. I’m here to be directed by Carol Reed.’ ”  “I was never afraid of anyone!” Ms. Lollobrigida continued. Raising a fist, she said, “I had guts like that!”  Ms. Lollobrigida flipped through a catalog of her recent sculpture, admiring her creations. She hopes to exhibit her work in the United States. “In the film, it’s the director that moves everything,” she said. “In the sculpture, I am my own boss.”  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page AR16 of the New York edition with the headline: Lifetime Honors Arrive as Life Goes On. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
The National Italian American Foundation and the Rome International Film Festival are honoring the work of Gina Lollobrigida this month.