by Sandra Tornberg

Host Bill Harris introduced himself and joked that he doesn't bother with make-up because when Sophia Loren steps on the stage, no one looks at him anyway. Once she made her entrance, I never took my eyes off of her again! Even when movie clips were shown, I watched her reaction rather than the screen. She was gracious, articulate, entertaining, and absolutely stunning. Though she joked about her English, she spoke very well, frequently interjecting Italian words and phrases as necessary for emphasis or clarity.

Ms. Loren reminisced about her childhood in Pozzuoli and her family. Her mother Romilda Villani was a beauty who resembled Greta Garbo, winning a look-alike contest held by MGM. However, her parents would not let her go to Hollywood for a screen test. When she was able to, she went to Rome instead where she met the man who would be Sophia's father, Riccardo Scicolone Murillo. He neither wanted to marry Romilda nor be a father to Sophia, who said that she always hated him.

In 1949 Romilda and Sophia took the train to Naples, where Sophia entered a beauty pageant to elect the Queen of the Sea and her Twelve Princesses. She was elected a princess and one of the prizes was a train ticket to Rome. She and Romilda went to Rome and Cinecittà to try their luck, and in 1950, Sophia was given a part in the film Quo Vadis.

She reminisced about how she met Carlo Ponti at a Roman restaurant in 1951 when she was just seventeen years old. He invited her to come for a screen test, which didn't go so well at first. In her book Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Ms. Loren wrote that the camera operator said, "Her face is too short, her mouth is too big, and her nose is too long." But then a makeup artist suggested that they change the lighting so that the shadow cast by her nose would be shorter. And, as they say, the rest is history.

Ms. Loren talked about her twenty-four year association with director Vittorio DeSica, and her collaboration and friendship with Marcello Mastroianni, her favorite co-star. She told the story of how she decided not to attend the Academy Award ceremony in 1962 when she was nominated as Best Actress for Two Women because "If I lost I'd faint. If I won, I'd faint anyway." So she and Carlo stayed in Rome, waiting up all night for news. They finally went to sleep and were awakened by the phone at 6:39 a.m. It was her friend Cary Grant calling to deliver the news that she had won.

When asked what was the best moment of her life, Ms. Loren said it was the birth of her sons. When she spoke lovingly about her grandchildren, she was just like any proud nonna, and you forgot for a moment that she is an icon and one of the greatest actresses of all time.

Thank you to Andiamo's, the Detroit Opera House, and WJR for bringing this legend to our community. It was a most unforgettable evening.