Tragic last words of a Hollywood sex symbol. Gina Lollobrigida had a weakness for younger men... but at the age of 95 her last young lover stole most of her £8m. Now her son reveals her heartbreaking deathbed lament...

Humphrey Bogart once said she ‘made Marilyn Monroe look like Shirley Temple’ and she drove everyone from mogul Howard Hughes to dictator Fidel Castro crazy with lust.

But when the great Gina ‘La Lollo’ Lollobrigida reached the desperately sad end of her remarkable life, with her only child sitting by her bedside holding her hand, her reminiscences were not those you’d expect from a Hollywood icon and sex symbol but from a woman who looked back with regret.

While in later life Gina admitted to a weakness for young men, we now know that her last one robbed her blind.

In November, Andrea Piazzolla, 36, who’d moved in with Gina after coming to her house in search of a job at the age of 21, was given a three-year prison sentence after he was found guilty of stealing millions from the star before her death last year.

Piazzolla, who first did menial tasks but quickly made himself indispensable as her self-styled personal assistant, was accused of ‘brainwashing’ and ‘defrauding’ the actress in a bid to swindle her out of property, cash, cars and jewellery. And there was much to swindle.

In addition to her ten-bedroomed pink palace on the Appian Way near Rome Gina owned three further apartments in the city, a house in Monte Carlo, an artist’s studio in Tuscany, plus €5million (£4.3million) worth of jewels, paintings, sculptures and antique furniture.

Gina Lollobrigida became a Hollywood sex symbol in films such as Solomon And Sheba

But when she finally died of kidney failure at the age of 95, most of Gina’s €10million (£8.5million) estate had been frittered away.

The pink villa, which is now in a sorry state of disrepair, will have to be sold to pay off her considerable debts.

For her son Milko Skofic, who hadn’t seen his mother in five years after Piazzolla took increasing control of her life and affairs, it was the saddest of endings.

‘One of the last things she said to me was, “I did everything wrong”,’ Milko says in his first, exclusive interview about his mother’s death.

‘She was very, very emotional because she hadn’t seen me for a long time. I think, in that moment, she realised everything she’d lost and that she’d been living in a lie. She kept saying, “No, no, no”.’

Their reunion, including Milko’s son Dimitri, 29, took place in Rome. For a woman who once described herself as ‘the mother of Italy’, it was only fitting that she passed away in the city with which she’d become synonymous – even if her final days were spent in a private clinic and not her fabulous pink villa.

‘For a few weeks she was dozing in and out of consciousness,’ says Milko. ‘You’d try to make sense of what she wanted through her eyes.

‘I don’t know if she knew it was the end or not. Sometimes she was there and then her mind would wander off. Then one morning she wasn’t there at all,’ he says.

A meeting of two silver screen goddesses - Gina with Marilyn Monroe in 1954

‘I was holding her hand. She died the next day shortly before noon. There was no resolution. No peace. No defining moment of, “Suddenly I understand.” That’s Hollywood movies and life is not a Hollywood movie.’

His eyes flash. ‘And that coward – that f****** coward – wasn’t there. He took everything from her and suddenly, when he saw she wasn’t conscious the day before she died, he went away and didn’t come back.

‘I know she probably didn’t know what was going on, but surely, if you care, you stay and hold her hand? But no, that crook just left.’

Milko is visibly distressed. Much as his larger-than-life, handful of a mother drove him half-crazy at times, he loved her dearly.

Described as the Mona Lisa of the 20th century, Gina was Hollywood royalty when the likes of Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton were still in pigtails. Starring with icons such as Frank Sinatra, Errol Flynn and Rock Hudson, her extraordinary beauty and voluptuous 36-22-35 hourglass figure drove men wild with lust and women mad with envy.

When rival sex symbol Sophia Loren once declared herself the ‘bustier’ of the two, Gina hit back with the damning line: ‘We are as different as a fine racehorse and a goat ... I am the No 1.’

When in the 1970s Hollywood finished with her – or she finished with Hollywood, depending on whom you believe – Gina was never going to be the sort of woman who would go quietly.

Gina as Esmeralda on the set of The Hunchback Of Notre Dame in 1956, before she reinvented herself as an accomplished sculptress, photographer, aspiring politician and, briefly, journalist

So, she reinvented herself as an accomplished sculptress, photographer, aspiring politician and, briefly, a journalist. Lovers, many much younger than her, followed.

‘My mother had been susceptible to opportunists many times in the past, but she always woke up after a while and kicked those people in the a**e,’ says Milko. ‘This time it didn’t happen.

‘That crook understood quite quickly that, if you flattered her, you’d get what you wanted. So, he flattered her. It was incredible. When he was talking to her, he’d be almost kneeling in front of her.

‘I don’t know if their relationship was sexual. My mother always had this thing for young men, so maybe. I don’t know.’

He pauses and shoots me a baffled look. ‘Well, I haven’t met anyone of 90 who I’ve been attracted to yet.’

On the day Gina died, Milko went to the house that had been his childhood home to collect a dress for his mother to wear in her coffin. His mother’s press agent accompanied him while Piazzolla, who’d been living in the property, handed over the keys and left in his Tesla.

‘The first thing I remember opening the door was the smell of mould. The house was a mess – filthy. It hadn’t been cleaned for ages. He’d been living there, with his kid and his wife upstairs in a sort of apartment they’d made.

‘My mother had been sleeping on a sofa bed in a room downstairs. There was this gigantic TV with two big speakers and the shutters were closed so she couldn’t see out of the windows. He used to carry her upstairs to the bathroom. Can you imagine? He’d bought himself a Tesla but wouldn’t put in a stairlift for her.

‘We went into the dining room where there was a big table she kept her drawings on but there was nothing there. The agent said, “They’ve taken everything”. He was really shocked. I went upstairs to collect one of her dresses and saw one of her cameras. We both shared a passion for photography so I began looking for the rest. Only a digital one was left. I took it.

‘When we were back at the hospital I thought, “I’m going to put it in her coffin”. My mother used to love going on photographic safaris in Africa and India. I thought, “Wherever she’s going she needs this for her last trip”.’

The actress with her only child, son Milko, in 1965. He said that after her death in January last year, it seemed as if the whole of Italy turned out for her funeral

Milko is a thoughtful, generous spirited man who tries hard to contain his fury. When his mother died, he was in a sort of ‘daydream’ at first as the whole of Italy seemed to turn out for her funeral.

But then ‘it was hell on earth’. Her will was published, revealing the actress had divided her estate between her son and her ‘toyboy’ manager Piazzolla, but there was precious little money left.

‘I don’t surf but you know when you do and a gigantic wave falls on you? That’s how I felt basically. I couldn’t think of my mother – couldn’t grieve for her because I was trying to hold on. It was crazy. That monster was going on television shows every day saying, “The son left her alone. I was the only one who cared for her”. Every single day I was being insulted.

‘I should have gone into that house and thrown him out of the property right at the beginning. But when I realised she was being completely manipulated by him I said to myself, “I’m going to do it the legal way”.

‘Look at me now. Ten years of my life have gone and my mother’s dead. I don’t give a damn about the will. What I do give a damn about is the fact that he stole time I could have shared with my mother. He’s taken the time my son, who wants to be an actor, could have been with my mother. Once you’ve taken that, who cares about the rest?’

In truth, it wasn’t always easy for Milko, a computer programmer, being his mother’s son.

His father, a Slovenian doctor also called Milko, whom Gina married in 1949, went on to become his wife’s manager but few marriages could survive her relentless onslaught of suitors and the couple divorced in 1971.

Gina with Andrea Piazzolla in 2019. While in later life the actress admitted to a weakness for young men, we now know that her last one robbed her blind

More than that, Gina was a strong-willed, combative woman who liked nothing more than to get her own way. When she didn’t ... well, let’s just say La Lollo pursued legal actions with the gusto of her romantic life.

‘What gave my mother energy was fighting with someone and, when she was, that person would be in her crosshairs for months,’ says Milko.

‘You have to remember when my mother was an actress, to be a woman alone and to keep going you had to be a bulldog. You had to bite everybody. That was probably her strength and her weakness.

‘For example, when she was negotiating with a production company for a movie, they asked her what she wanted. She said, “I want the same Rolls-Royce as the Queen”. They gave it to her.

‘I was stubborn too and we clashed. I remember when she was doing Strange Bedfellows [with Rock Hudson in 1965] she was invited on a little boat and wanted me to go.

‘I wanted to stay at home and play. So she said I was going to meet James Bond to persuade me. When I got on the boat suddenly there was Rock Hudson. He wasn’t James Bond. I was sulking. I started playing with the ignition key and broke it so the boat was without a motor and they had to row back. Rock Hudson was really cross. He was telling me off, saying, “You’re a bad boy”.’

Milko’s childhood was packed with some of the most famous faces of the 20th century. Audrey Hepburn was one of them. ‘Her son was at school with me in Switzerland,’ he recalls. ‘When I went to his house, she was always gardening.’

Fidel Castro was another. ‘She always said he was a boyfriend but I don’t know if she was playing,’ he says. ‘For my mother, reality was just like a Hollywood script. If she wanted to edit the truth, she did.’

He shrugs. Milko is not a man who easily condemns people, preferring to appreciate the shades of grey in us all – even, he admits, Piazzolla at first.

‘In the beginning, I thought, “Am I making a fool of myself being suspicious of him? He seems to adore my mother and is helping her with things. Perhaps he’s just a good Samaritan”.’

Milko’s concerns grew when, in 2011, Gina and Piazzolla returned from a trip to New York.

Milko, who had a house on his mother’s estate where he lived with his wife and son, recalls the day he was chatting to his mother in her kitchen and Piazzolla walked in.

‘This idiot comes in and says, “I finally managed to make peace between you and your mother”. I was looking at him thinking, “What are you talking about? My mother and I are fine”.

Gina's leading roles included with Rock Hudson in the 1961 movie Come September...

... playing opposite Errol Flynn in the 1954 historical swashbuckler Crossed Swords...

... and with Frank Sinatra in the 1959 movie Never So Few set during the Second World War

‘He’d done really weird things in New York like putting up a sign on a bridge saying, “I love you”.’

Milko shakes his head. ‘That really worked on my mother. She believed whatever he said.’

When Milko challenged Gina, she defended Piazzolla. Soon, a lock was installed on the gate separating his garden from hers.

‘I was living close to my mother in case she needed me. My son used to go over there every day and I saw her whenever I wasn’t away for work, but suddenly we couldn’t,’ he says.

‘When I called her to ask what the hell was going on she invented all sorts of excuses or, when I called, he’d pick up the phone and tell me to call later.

‘Now I know he was isolating her from us. My mother had always been so independent and determined, I saw her as the driving force and you didn’t really cross her if you could help it. Now I wish I’d been more present.’

Matters eventually came to a head in 2013 when Milko discovered an exorbitant bill of more than €100,000 (£85,000) for a car. By this time, his mother’s housekeeper, gardener and driver had all been dismissed, while some of her dearest friends complained they couldn’t reach her. He challenged her again.

‘She said, “This guy’s a genius. He buys cars and then sells them. He makes a lot of money”. It was b*******. I told her he was taking advantage of her but I didn’t know how bad it was. He bought a €300,000 (£256,000) Ferrari with my mother’s money, sold it for €200,000 (£171,000) and put the money in his parents’ account. It sounds incredible doesn’t it?’

Milko felt he was left with little choice but apply to the courts for an independent legal guardian to run his mother’s affairs.

He withdrew his application when his mother offered him a place on the board of her company so he could keep an eye on her spending. The following week she changed her mind. ‘Suddenly I was the devil,’ he says.

In 2016 Milko’s wife, from whom he was separated, and son were evicted from the cottage on her estate. The following year, when his mother was in hospital, he received a letter from her lawyer saying, ‘in good conscience I feel obliged to tell you your mother is very, very sick. You have to come to see her’.

Milko applied a second time for legal guardianship in 2017, which was granted two years later, and alerted the authorities to Piazzolla’s manipulation of his mother. A psychiatric assessment concluded there was ‘a weakening in her correct perception of reality’ and that she was in a state of ‘vulnerability’.

La Lollo was furious. She drew up her 2017 will, little knowing pretty much all of her fortune had disappeared.

‘It wasn’t until we saw her bank books from her account in Monte Carlo as part of the investigation that I realised this guy had just ripped her off completely. Seven days a week for a year he’d take her company credit card at 3am or some crazy hour like that and take out €1,500 euros.

‘The day after she put a cheque in the bank from the sale of her jewellery, €4.5million (£3.8million) went to an offshore account. I realised this crook was the devil.

‘My way of surviving this is to try to live day by day. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? We’ll see.’

For now, Piazzolla remains free as he appeals his conviction. He also faces two further charges of money laundering and fraud which will be heard in court later this year.

Milko has not yet decided whether he will contest his mother’s will. Although he is furious that Piazzolla has been left the rights to his mother’s photographs, paintings, sculptures and films, he longs for peace.

‘I only feel fury when I’m at the villa trying to clean it up. Do you know, every tree in the garden has my initial carved in the top branch from when I climbed them as a child.’ He falls silent for a moment.

‘Right now I’m establishing a foundation in her name to support young talent in the various artistic fields she loved. The saddest thing would be if a person like my mother – someone who has given so much to Italy in terms of our image to the world – dies and in the end all people remember is this. My mother was so much more than that.’