|
|
| Birth Name(s) : Sofia Villani Scicolone |
Date of Birth: September 20, 1934 |
| Status:
Married
|
Partner:
Carlo Ponti |
| Profession:
Actor |
Official Site
Go to the Sophia Loren Official Homepage |
| << Add Sophia Loren To Your Favorites |
Sophia Loren Sponsors
|
Full Sophia Loren Biography
She is the illegitimate child of Romilda Villani and Riccardo Scicolone. Sophia grew up in the slums of Pozzuoli, just outside Naples. After insignificant parts in "Variety Lights (1950)" and "Quo Vadis (1951)" , she met movie-director Carlo Ponti, some 22 years her senior, whom she later married. Perhaps he was the father figure she never experienced as a child. In 1961 she received an Academy Award for "Ciociara, La (1961)" ('Two Women'). This beautiful lady became one of the major sex symbol of the sixties, competing with Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot and Jane Fonda. She was a very close friend of Cary Grant.
She gained wider respect with her later movies like "Cassandra Crossing (1976)" , Giornata particolare, Una (1977) and Prêt-à-Porter (1994). A lot of her movies were produced by her husband. In many of her movies she played together with Marcello Mastroianni. |
|
Sophia Loren Listing
|
Additional Sophia Loren Biography
Sophia Loren (born September 20, 1934) is a motion picture and stage, Academy Award-winning actress and former sex symbol, widely considered to be the most popular Italian actress of her time.
Sophia Loren was born Sofia Villani Scicolone in Rome. Her father Riccardo Scicolone was an engineer and her mother Romilda Villani was an aspiring Neapolitan actress and piano teacher. Loren grew up impoverished in wartime Pozzuoli, near Naples sharing a small flat with her sister Maria, her grandparents and her uncles and aunts. She has said on many occasions that being born into and living with extreme poverty for most of her childhood gave her a strength of character that allowed her to succeed and appreciate every moment she has been given as a human being. Up until Sophia Loren was about 14, she was considered an ugly duckling. Seemingly overnight, she bloomed into a beautiful woman.
Loren also supported her mother and sister by working as a model in the weekly illustrated romantic fumetti under the name Sofia Villani or Sofia Lazzaro. She also took part in regional beauty contests, where she won several prizes. Loren was discovered by her future husband, the much older and already-married film producer Carlo Ponti, and they wed on September 17, 1957, three days before her 23rd birthday. Their first marriage had to be annulled in order to keep Ponti from being charged with bigamy. The couple remarried on April 9, 1966, but only after Sophia, Ponti, and Ponti's first wife all obtained French citizenship, thus enabling Carlo to divorce his first wife and marry Sophia in France, where, at the time, Catholic doctrines regarding divorce did not prevent legal civil marriage. The couple eventually had two sons together, Carlo Ponti, Jr., and Edoardo Ponti. The couple remained together until Ponti's death on January 9, 2007.
Loren became an international film star with a five-picture contract with Paramount Studios. Among her films at this time: Desire Under the Elms with Anthony Perkins, based upon the Eugene O'Neill play; Houseboat, a romantic comedy co-starring Cary Grant; and George Cukor's Heller in Pink Tights in which she appeared with blond hair (a wig) for the first time. Loren demonstrated considerable dramatic skills and attracted respect as a dramatic and comedic actress, especially in Italian projects where she could express herself more freely, although she acquired great proficiency in English.
Belying the typical portrayal of the beautiful actress as vacuous and emptyheaded, Loren was known for her sharp wit and insight. One of her most frequently-quoted sayings is her quip about her famously-voluptuous figure: "Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti."
Among her best-known films of this period are The Millionairess (1960) with Peter Sellers, Vittorio De Sica’s triptych Ieri, oggi, domani (1963) with Marcello Mastroianni, Peter Ustinov's Lady L (1965) with Paul Newman, the 1966 classic Arabesque with Gregory Peck, and Charlie Chaplin's final film, A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) with Marlon Brando.
Despite the failure of many of her films to generate sales at the box office, she has an impressive roster of credits and work with famous co-stars. Invariably, she has turned in a charming performance and worn some of the most lavish costumes ever created for the movies. Some of her most attractive performances include A Breath of Scandal (1960), Madame Sans-Gêne (1962), Heller in Pink Tights (1960) and More Than A Miracle (1967).
Her struggle to have children was of worldwide interest. Having suffered two very physically and emotionally-painful miscarriages, she was referred to Swiss fertility specialist Dr. Huebert de Watteville. He determined that Loren was deficient in estrogen, and after he prescribed regular injections of the hormone and bed rest for her entire term, Loren became a mother twice. She has proudly stated that the births of her sons meant more to her than anything else she had accomplished in her life.
In 1980, she portrayed herself, as well as her mother, in a made-for-television biopic adaptation of her autobiography. Actresses, Ritza Brown and Chiara Ferrari played Loren at younger ages. She made headlines in 1982 when she served an 18-day prison sentence in Italy on tax evasion charges, a fact that didn't damage her career or popularity.
It is said that the song Where do you go to (My Lovely) by Peter Sarstedt was inspired by Sophia Loren.
She is a huge fan of the football club S.S.C. Napoli and in May 2007, when the team was third in Serie B, she told the Gazzetta dello Sport that she would do a striptease if they achieved promotion to Serie A for the 2007/08 season. “The fans have a total passion, the city deserves promotion.“ On June 10, 2007, they did achieve promotion to Serie A. |
|
| Add Sophia Loren Biography (SuperUSERS) + |
Sophia Loren Quote(s)
| Sex appeal is 50% what you've got and 50% what people think you've got. |
|
| Add Sophia Loren Review/Comment
|
HQ Sophia Loren Pictures (5) | Random Sophia Loren Picture
|
| << Back to the Sophia Loren Homepage |
|
