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Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg (born September 29, 1931 in Malmö, Skåne) is a Swedish model, actress and cult sex symbol.

 

While at Universal, Ekberg caught the attention of legendary director and photographer Russ Meyer, who went on record numerous times to say she was the most beautiful woman he ever photographed and that her 40D bustline was the most ample in A list Hollywood history, dwarfing rivals Jayne Mansfield and the British actress Sabrina. Ekberg also delighted gossip columnists with her social life. She was linked to many famous men, and was given the nickname "The Iceberg" because of her mysterious demeanor.

The combination of a colourful private life and physique gave her appeal to gossip magazines such as Confidential and to the new type of men's magazine that proliferated in the 1950s. She soon became a major 1950s pin-up. In addition, Ekberg participated in publicity stunts. Famously, she admitted that an incident where her dress burst open in the lobby of London's Berkeley Hotel was pre-arranged with a photographer.

Film career

By the mid-50s, other studios offered Ekberg work. Paramount Pictures and Frank Tashlin cast her in Hollywood or Bust (1956) and Artists and Models (1955) both starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Both films showed off her stunning body but also used her as a foil for many of the director's clever sight gags.Ekberg also played an Amazonian extraterrestrial in 1953's Abbott and Costello Go to Mars.

Bob Hope joked that her parents had received the Nobel Prize for architecture as she was touring with him and William Holden to entertain U.S. troops in 1954. The tour led her to a contract with John Wayne's Batjac Productions. Wayne cast her in Blood Alley, a small role (1955), where Ekberg's features and appearance were Orientalized to play a Chinese woman, a role that earned her a Golden Globe award.

RKO gave Ekberg the female lead in Back from Eternity. Co-starring Robert Ryan and Rod Steiger. Ekberg was perfectly adequate in her cardboard role, and suggested that with a good director and a worthwhile part, she might have something to offer.

In 1956, Ekberg went to Rome to make War and Peace, directed by distinguished Hollywood veteran King Vidor and co-starring Audrey Hepburn.