Anita Ekberg, 83, Swedish bombshell of 'La Dolce Vita'

Anita Ekberg, 83, the Swedish-born actress best remembered for her overflowing decolletage, sultry ice-blond looks and her sensual dip in the Trevi Fountain in Federico Fellini's 1960 masterpiece of hedonistic Rome, La Dolce Vita, died Sunday in Rome.

The actress had been in failing health for years, reportedly after breaking a hip when one of her pet Great Danes knocked her down.

A former Miss Sweden at 20, Ms. Ekberg lost the Miss Universe contest but won a screen contract at Universal Pictures in Hollywood. She was used as cantilevered decoration in a series of comedies such as Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) and Hollywood or Bust (1956), a Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin comedy where she may well have been the "bust" of the title.

Her whispery voice and phonetic acting style did not help her advance far beyond sex-goddess roles, but there were rare exceptions. She played Henry Fonda's adulterous wife in a 1956 adaptation of War and Peace. She also appeared - if rather unconvincingly - as a Chinese woman in Blood Alley (1955), a John Wayne adventure film.

Then it was back to fare like Screaming Mimi (1958) and Sheba and the Gladiator (1959) before Fellini rescued her from almost certain obscurity when he cast her in La Dolce Vita.

In that film, she played an actress described as the "most wonderful woman created since the beginning of time." She becomes a fantasy figure - so voluptuous, so elusive - to a pleasure-seeking tabloid journalist played by Marcello Mastroianni.

One of the movie's most enduring scenes showed her swanning through Rome's darkened streets, then wading in a strapless dress into the Trevi Fountain as if it were a private bath. New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther said Ms. Ekberg played the role "with surprising personality and punch."

As one of the most revered films in Fellini's canon, La Dolce Vita cemented Ms. Ekberg as one of the screen's reigning sex goddesses, even if she did not do much of note afterward. She was known mostly for her cheesecake pinups and for well-publicized romances. Her conquests were said to have included Frank Sinatra, Tyrone Power, Yul Brynner, and Rod Taylor.

Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg was born in Malmo, Sweden, on Sept. 29, 1931. She was the sixth of eight children. Her upbringing was strict, she recalled, and she left home as soon as she could, finding work in modeling.

Her marriages to actors Anthony Steel and Rik Van Nutter, the latter known for playing CIA agent Felix Leiter in the James Bond film Thunderball (1965), ended in divorce. Ms. Ekberg was a candidate to play Honey Rider in the first Bond film, Dr. No (1962), but she lost out to Ursula Andress.

Ms. Ekberg's career quickly wound down, a victim of her tempestuous reputation and her limited range.

In her later years, Ms. Ekberg was in dire financial straits and crumbling health - a far cry from the eternal party girl who had once declared: "I don't know if paradise or hell exist, but I'm sure hell is more groovy."