Poor Anita Ekberg reportedly had a rough financial time during her last few years, and now she’s passed at age 83. Kindness and respect. But honestly? If it hadn’t been for that thigh-deep wading scene at Rome’s Trevi Fountain in Federico Fellini‘s La Dolce Vita (’60) her life probably would have been a bit more difficult as almost everything else she acted in was either negligible or embarassing. Ekberg enjoyed a four or five-year buildup to this career-peak moment, landing a Hollywood contract when she was 23 or 24 and snagging parts in Blood Alley (’55), Artists and Models (’55), Hollywood or Bust (’56) and War and Peace (’56). Post-La Dolce Vita she costarred in Boccaccio ’70 (’62) and then almost got Ursula Andress‘s role in Dr. No. Next she did the dispensible Rat Pack comedy 4 for Texas, and then gradually descended into European exploitation. Her last two noteworthy films were Fellini’s I Clowns (’72), and Intervista (’87) — she and Marcello Mastroianni played themselves in the latter.