Italian sex goddess ROSSANA PODESTA who starred as “HELEN OF TROY” has died in Rome at age 79.
Italo news bureaus brought the sad news to her legion of worldwide fans.
Her first big break in the international film market was “Ulysses” (1954) with square jawed titan KIRK DOUGLAS as the titular Odyssean of Homeric legend.
She then attained screen immortality as “the face that launched a thousand ships” as Helen of Troy.
Reportedly, Rossana beat out such screen beauties as Lana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner but director Robert (“Sound of Music”) Wise selected Podesta while attending the Cannes Film Festival.
Rossana who didn’t speak English is said to have taken a crash course and probably learned her lines phonetically like so many other foreign stars trying to transition to Hollywood.