Lollobrigida, 79, to marry man 34 years younger

Gina Lollobrigida, the 79-year-old Italian actress, is to marry a Spanish man almost half her age.

Lollobrigida, who has been married once before and has a grandson, told Spanish Hello! magazine that she would marry Javier Rigau Rifols, 45. "I have always had a weakness for young men," she said.

The former Hollywood heartthrob said she met Mr Rigau, a property entrepreneur from Barcelona, at a party in Monte Carlo in 1984. At the time, Lollobrigida was 57 and Mr Rigau was 23.

The pair embarked on a secret 22-year relationship. "After the party, we saw each other the following day, and the one after, until today," Lollobrigida said.

Mr Rigau said: "Gina is my life. I have been in love with her divinely during all these years." Lollobrigida added: "At the beginning, what there was between me and Javier was only passion, not love. That came later."

Mr Rigau said he had not previously been a fan of Lollobrigida's films, which include Beat the Devil, Trapeze and Come September. "Mine is not the history of a fan, some fanatic that has become enamoured of a star," he said.

Lollobrigida was once described as "the most beautiful woman in the world". Her beauty allegedly prompted Howard Hughes to fly her to Hollywood in the 1950s and caused Humphrey Bogart to exclaim that she made "Marilyn Monroe look like Shirley Temple".

In Italy, she is seen as the perfect woman, and known as La Lollo. Four years ago, 500,000 Italians turned up at Iesole, near Venice, when a beach was named after her.

Anyone doubting the durability of her beauty is given short shrift. Lollobrigida has called herself "The Colosseum", saying: "I will never collapse."

Mr Rigau has reportedly given her an engagement ring which boasts a 36-carat emerald. Lollobrigida, an accomplished photographer and sculptress, has carved him a statue called "The Joy of Life" for his home on the Costa Brava. "We will marry at the end of the year in a church," she said.

I thought Audrey Hepburn

was one of the most gracious and adorable people in films and was very moved to learn of how difficult her beginnings were. From IMDb.com, "While vacationing with her mother in Arnhem, Holland, Hitler's army took over the town. It was here that she fell on hard times during the Nazi occupation. Audrey suffered from depression and malnutrition. Was fluent in English, Spanish, French, Dutch/Flemish and Italian. She confessed to eating tulip bulbs and tried to bake grass into bread during the hard days of World War II. Was trained as a dental assistant before making it big. Broke her back during filming of a horse-riding scene in The Unforgiven (1960). Henry Mancini said of her: "'Moon River' was written for her. No one else had ever understood it so completely. There have been more than a thousand versions of 'Moon River', but hers is inquestionably the greatest".

Turned down a role in the film The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) because, as a young girl in Holland during the war, she had witnessed Nazi soldiers publicly executing people in the streets and herding Jews onto railroad cars to be sent to the death camps. She said that participating in the film would bring back too many painful memories for her. During World War II, 16-year-old Audrey was a volunteer nurse in a Dutch hospital. During the battle of Arnhem, Hepburn's hospital received many wounded Allied soldiers. One of the injured soldiers young Audrey helped nurse back to health was a young British paratrooper - and future director - named Terence Young. More than 20 years later, Young directed Hepburn in Wait Until Dark (1967). In Arnhem, Holland, during the Second World War, she worked with the Dutch Underground, giving ballet performances to collect donations for the anti-Nazi effort. In 1996, the British magazine Harpers & Queen conducted a pool to find the most fascinating women of our time. She was in the number one spot. Voted #1 in TheAge.com's Top 100: Natural Beauties of all time.

""If I were to write a biography, it would start like this: I was born in Brussels, Belgium, on May 4, 1929... and I died six weeks later." (relating her severe coughing attack when she was six-weeks old, slowly turning blue and finally stopping breathing until her mother's prayers and spanking brought her back to life)."

She was born on my birthday but preceded me by quite a few years.

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