She will be 72 next July. And the good news is that not only is she well, but she has enough vitality to launch yet another new career - in politics. She is a candidate for European Commission President Romano Prodi's newly-founded Democratic Party in next month's European elections.
To those aged under 40, the name Gina Lollobrigida may mean little. But to those who recall the age of Movietone News and B films, it conjures up the instant Mediterranean myth of sultry Italian beauty, complete with high, high heels, cherry-red lips, expansive hairstyle and an even more expansive bosom.
For a post-war generation of moviegoers, Gina Lollobrigida was hot - never vulgar, never naked, but sexy. For the post-war generation of Italians, she was of times tellingly referred to as Gina Nazionale. Her international fame sparked national pride for an Italy struggling to come to terms with the mayhem of the second World War and hungry for international rehabilitation after the misery of the Mussolini fascist regime.
As post-war Italian cinema enjoyed an unprecedented artistic renaissance, Gina Lollo brigida's name featured alongside those of Sophia Loren, directors Roberto Rossellini and Federico Fellini, and many others besides, as a major protagonist in an Italy that suddenly seemed inventive, glamorous and energetic. The movie industry and its society seemed enthusiastically given to living out la dolce vita.
Ms Lollobrigida publishes books of photography and turns up at the occasional film festival, such as Cannes two years ago, when she received a lifetime career award.
She was born in the small Lazio town of Subiaco. She started out in "public life" aged three when she won the Most Beautiful Infant of Italy prize. Like many after her, she entered cinema through fashion. She was a model before getting her first (minor) part in a 1946 film called Aquila Nera or Black Eagle. At this same time, too, she tried beauty contests, competing in the 1947 Miss Italy competition. She came third.
Her heyday undoubtedly came in the 1950s when she starred in a host of films including Belles de Nuit (1952), Bread, Love and Dreams (1953), Trapeze (1956), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1957) and Solomon and Sheba (1957).
Her bikini-style top and see-through dress will explain all you ever need to know about how one went about being a Spice Girl in the 1950s.
Although she became established on the Hollywood fame front, she never starred in a blockbuster Hollywood success. Critics might suggest this had something to do with the fact that her career owed more to her sex-symbol status than to a rigorous apprenticeship in the New York Actors Studio.
But she was undoubtedly an expression of her time, both in Italy and in Hollywood. Indeed, her success in the United States prompted anxious soul-searching from American critics.
The cover of the May 1952 edition of People Today featured a picture of Lollobrigida with a headline: "Sex From Italy Invades USA". Four years later Redbrook magazine asked, again referring to Lollobrigida: "Are Foreign Stars More Alluring?"
In the age of Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Sandra Bullock et al, such questions seem quaint. Back in the 1950s, however, the US national inferiority complex (sexual, at least) was regarded by some as no laughing matter.
Although Ms Lollobrigida went on making films right through the 1960s and into the early 1970s, her peak had passed. Since her last film, Bad Man's River (1972), she has come out of retirement only occasionally. In 1985 she appeared in the TV series Falcon Crest.
For much of the last 20 years she has largely disappeared from public life, occasionally lending her name to charitable and United Nations fund-raising ventures. She surfaced five years ago with her second book of photography, called Wonder of Innocence. She produced her first book of photography, Italia Mia, 20 years ago.
Intent on reproducing her Italy of the early 1970s, she travelled the country dressed down and casual, something that was never her style. Legend has it that such was her fame that when she turned up at the Fiat plant in Turin and at the Monfalcone shipyards, workers immediately recognised her and equally quickly abandoned their shifts to welcome her.
Ms Lollobrigida's entry into politics is a major surprise. It may well have more to do with the Italian political class's desperate need to entice tired and alienated voters back to the ballot box than to any (so far) hidden political agenda.
A referendum last month failed to attract the necessary 50 per cent plus one quorum of the electorate for its result to be ruled valid. The second round of local elections last December produced the lowest voter turnout in post-war history at only 47.1 per cent.
In such a climate, names like 1982 World Cup winning footballer Paolo Rossi (Alleanza Nazionale), cyclist Moreno Argentin (Forza Italia) and mountaineer Reinhold Messner (Green Party) are just some of the celebrities who have been pressed into service.
Making her campaign debut at Nettuno near Rome last week, Ms Lollobrigida angrily replied to those who questioned her candidacy in the 23-seat CentreItaly constituency.
"I have conducted so many campaigns for UNESCO, UNICEF . . . I've lived through the war, I've seen people go hungry, I've seen poverty, I've been involved in social programmes for years . . . That is my political programme."
Gina Lollobrigida
Fact File
Name: Luigina Lollobrigida, Gina for short
Age: 71
Profession: Photographer, onetime film star, and now politician
In the news because: She's standing in next month's European elections in Italy