It Started in Naples

The legendary Sophia Loren (September 20, 1934) truly does inspire awe: one is hard-pressed to think of another superstar who combines so wholly the attributes of beauty, talent, warmth, sensuality, elegance and glamour in one package -- and has maintained all of them as she gracefully moves through her seventh decade.



Her story reads like the plot of a bad Italian potboiler: born illegitimately in the slums of Naples, Sophia clawed her way out of poverty by entering beauty contests, which eventually led to movie work in Italian films. If such fare as I Dream of Zorro (1952), Two Nights with Cleopatra (1953) and Scandal in Sorrento (1955) are mere blips on the public consciousness radar today, they did provide a launching pad for Sophia's eventual invasion of Hollywood, engineered by her much older mentor/lover, producer Carlo Ponti. The pair were married in 1957; after that marriage was declared invalid (Ponti's Mexican divorce from his first wife wasn't recognized by the Italian government), they were remarried in a 1966 civil ceremony, and were together until Ponti's death in 2007.



Stateside, Sophia was an instant sensation, although the majority of her early Hollywood films are trivial, at best; Houseboat (1958) with Cary Grant is perhaps the best-known, and while fondly remembered by many, it falls far short of true "classic" status. Still, the public embraced this exotic new beauty, and Sophia Loren was now a major international star. A 1958 party at Romanoff's to officially "welcome" the Neapolitan bombshell to Hollywood, incidentally, led to an infamous encounter with Jayne Mansfield.



By 1960, Sophia Loren was a household name across the globe, but her roles generally allowed her little to do besides look sexy and earthy (Boy on a Dolphin, 1957) or sexy and glamorous (A Breath of Scandal, 1960). In director Vittorio de Sica's grim Italian drama, Two Women (1961), Sophia eschewed pretty costumes and makeup to portray a widowed mother trying to protect her teenage daughter from the ravages of World War II; in the film, after enduring a series of hardships, Sophia and her daughter are brutally raped by Moroccan soldiers. It was a long way from the glossy Paramount baubles Loren had been showcased in, and she gave the gut-wrenching performance of a lifetime. For it, in addition to a slew of European awards, she won the 1961 Best Actress Oscar; the first Academy Award given for a non-English language role.


THE ACADEMY'S BEST ACTOR & ACTRESS OF 1961: GREGORY PECK AND SOPHIA LOREN

Although the Oscar elevated Sophia beyond mere sexpot to superstar status, ironically, her subsequent Hollywood films were rarely box office successes, and often didn't receive particularly enthusiastic reviews. The best were probably the historical epics El Cid (1961) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964); but Sophia was unquestionably more at home in Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) and Marriage, Italian Style (1964), both acknowledged as classics of Italian cinema. But such was her appeal that it mattered little whether or not the public actually went to see Sophia Loren at the movies; they loved her, and she was consistently voted one of the most popular film actresses in the world.



Sophia Loren has continued to appear in American and Italian films, albeit at a slower pace than in her 1950's and 1960's heyday. She was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 1991, and in 1995 with the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award. In 2006, she posed partially undraped for the notoriously sexy Pirelli calendar, proving that her famous quote regarding her magnificent proportions ("Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti") still held true.


SOPHIA LOREN, 2006

Brava, diva! You are a true force of nature, and we want to say, Buon Compleanno, Sophia Loren!