page_title: Anita Ekberg
section_title: Batjac and Paramount
hierarchical_section_title: Anita Ekberg / Career / Batjac and Paramount
caption_attribution_description: English: Cropped screenshot of Anita Ekberg from the trailer for the film War and Peace.
context_page_description: Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg was a Swedish actress active in American and European films. She is best known for her role as Sylvia in the Federico Fellini film La Dolce Vita. Ekberg worked primarily in Italy, where she became a permanent resident in 1964.
context_section_description: The combination of Ekberg's voluptuous physique and colorful private life (such as her well-publicized romances with Hollywood's leading men like Frank Sinatra, Tyrone Power, Yul Brynner, Rod Taylor, and Errol Flynn) appealed to the gossip magazines, like Confidential and she soon became a major 1950s pin-up, appearing in men's magazines like Playboy. Additionally, Ekberg participated in publicity stunts. She once admitted that an incident in which her dress burst open in the lobby of London's Berkeley Hotel was prearranged with a photographer.
  Ekberg toured Greenland with Bob Hope entertaining American servicemen. Hope spoke of her beauty and John Wayne signed her to a contract with his Batjac Productions at $75 a week.
  By the mid-1950s, after several modeling jobs, Ekberg finally broke into the film industry. She guest-starred in the short-lived TV series Casablanca (1955) and Private Secretary.
  She had a small part in the film Blood Alley (1955) starring John Wayne and Lauren Bacall, made for Wayne's Batjac Productions. It was her first real speaking role in a feature.
  She appeared alongside the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy act in Artists and Models (1955), directed by Frank Tashlin for Paramount, playing "Anita".
  Ekberg greatest opportunity was when Paramount cast her in War and Peace (1956) which was shot in Rome, alongside Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn, directed by King Vidor. For a time, she was even publicized as "Paramount's Marilyn Monroe".
  Ekberg was third billed in a thriller for Batjac, Man in the Vault (1956). It was distributed by RKO Pictures who gave Ekberg an excellent part in Back from Eternity (1956), directed by John Farrow.
  Ekberg signed a deal with Warwick Pictures, the company of producers Albert Broccoli and Irwin Allen, who made films in England. She did Zarak (1956) with Victor Mature.
  Ekberg returned to Hollywood to make a second film with Martin and Lewis (and Tashlin), Hollywood or Bust (1956). Ekberg made a second film for Warwick with Mature, Interpol (1957). In 1956 Hedda Hopper said her fee was $75,000 per picture.
  She was announced for Glare directed by Budd Boetticher, but it was not made.
  When John Wayne split up with his producing partner Robert Fellows, Fellows took over Ekberg's contract.
caption: Ekberg in War and Peace (1956)
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