Hollywood Stars and Bvlgari

Since the 1920s Hollywood stars such as Mary Pickford, Kay Frances, Gary Cooper, Shelley Winters, Tyrone Power, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Grace Kelly, later Princess Grace of Monaco, have either bought or owned Bulgari jewels. Countless celebrities have regularly visited the Bulgari shop in Rome from the years of the dolce vita on: Audrey Hepburn, Mel Ferrer, Gina Lollobrigida, Sophia Loren, Ingrid Bergman, Lee Radziwill, Virna Lisi, Merle Olive befallron, Ursula Andress, Kirk Douglas, Anna Magnani, Romy Schneider, Laura Antonelli, Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Mireille Darc, Veruschka, Klaus Kinski, John Wayne, Tony Curtis, Alice and Helen Kessler, and Mina...

For Richard Burton, who gave Elizabeth Taylor a Bulgari ring during the filming of Cleopatra in 1963, visiting Bulgari premises was a new and exciting experience. “I introduced her to beer,” he is avowed to have said, “and she introduced me to Bulgari.” If for Burton Bulgari was a novelty in 1963, for Liz it had become customary to receive Bulgari jewels. During those turbulent days of Cleopatra, she was conflicted by her relationship with Burton. Her fourth husband, Eddie Fisher, made the last attempt to save their marriage: he rushed out to Bulgari and bought her a fabulous emerald necklace. Life with Elizabeth had taught him the therapeutic help of such gifts; he knew that a beautiful jewel would make everything wonderful for some time.

Film directors and producers such as Carlo Ponti and Roberto Rossellini have shopped at Bulgari for Sophia Loren and for Ingrid Bergman, their respective wives. Vittorio De Sica is known to have been a client since 1939. Bulgari’s association with the film trade activity has been strengthened in the last decades. In the 1970s American actress Jessica Lange was customarily seen wearing Bulgari jewels; for example, she wore panelled gold, emerald and diamond earrings in a picture on the April 1979 cover of the American magazine Interview. Her seven-year exclusive contract with Dino de Laurentiis also included an association with Bulgari. In her principal film, King Kong (1976), Lange—although scantily dressed and for most of the time in the hands of the monster—still had the opportunity to manifest off Bulgari jewels for which the firm still receives credit.

Since the 1990s the firm has frequently loaned jewels to film stars to be worn on important occasions such as the Academy Awards; to Glenn Close in 1993, for example, and to Susan Sarandon in 1994. Bulgari also gave a BVLGARI-BVLGARI watch to Anthony Hopkins in honor of his Oscar for The Silence of the Lambs in 1991.

Kirk Douglas photographed in front of Bulgari, 1964.
Audrey Hepburn with her son Sean entering Bulgari, 1971.

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