WTI Magazine #34    2014 June, 11
Author : Giuseppina Salzano e Giovanni Verde      Translation by:

Sofia Loren is the most award-winning Italian actress in history, and the most beloved by the American cinema. Her characters are famous, even today, known by old and new generations. Her candor, simplicity and sensuality, and her being light and dramatic at the same time, brought her to be one of the myths of cinema all over the world.

Sofia Villani Scicolone was born in Rome on September 20, 1934, daughter of Romilda Villani and Riccardo Scicolone. The father will never marry Romilda who, with serious economic problems, decides to take the child in Pozzuoli, near Naples, in the family she came from.

Sophia will spend her childhood and adolescence in the city of Naples, in poor economic condition. In 1950 she goes back to Rome, and at 15 years old she will participate to Miss Italia, winning the "Elegance award", expressly created just for her.

The meeting with the producer Carlo Ponti, who later she will marry, will change her life. A long career of extraordinary performances will begin in 1951. During the 50s Sofia will be the star of famous comedies: among many we will mention "L'oro di Napoli" (The gold of Naples), where her character will be the pizza maker Sofia. Vittorio De Sica will give her the role after meeting and briefly interviewing her, impressed by her expressive potential.

Directed by Dino Risi, in 1955 she will star in "Pane, amore e ..." (Bread, Love and Dreams), a comedy set in Sorrento where she tries to seduce Marshal Carotenuto, played by De Sica, with a famous scene with her dancing a sensual mambo to the marshal.

The '60s definitively saw her international success. Hollywood celebrates her and the Americans love her just like the great overseas actresses. Over the years, Sofia will work with Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, John Wayne, Anthony Quinn, Peter Sellers. Divided between Italy and America, she will be directed by the greatest: Vittorio De Sica, Mario Monicelli, Ettore Scola, Dino Risi, Charlie Chaplin, Sidney Lumet, Anthony Mann.

The final consecration comes with her iconic film, the masterpiece that definitively brings her in the Olympus of the international actresses: in 1960, directed by De Sica, she stars in "La Ciociara" (Two Women), a film produced by her husband Carlo Ponti. Sofia is Cesira, a stubborn and complex mother, a character of a working-class woman, but full of extraordinary dramatic aspects. The intensity of her interpretation, the emotion that she gives to the public, the most important and symbolic scene of the movie, where Cesira unloads her anger about the rape occurred to her daughter, will be worth the Academy Award for Best Actress, the Golden Palm in Cannes, the BAFTA, the David di Donatello, the Silver Ribbon, and a commemorative cover of TIME.

The '60s will also be the years of the association with Marcello Mastroianni. Sofia will be starring with the Italian actor in many movies: we olike to mention two of them. The first is "Ieri, oggi e domani", Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, with the famous scene of Sofia's striptease, and "Matrimonio all'Italiana" (Marriage Italian style), where Sofia is once again a mother who loves her children before anything else. Her interpretation will be worth an Academy Award nomination.

The Oscar, as an Academy Honorary Award to celebrate her career, will be back in her life in 1990: Gregory Peck will present her the award, the same Gregory Peck who received an Oscar from Sofia's hands in 1963.

On the stage of the Academy Awards, the American cinema thanked Sophia for her history, her interpretations, her elegance soaked with simplicity, her being beyond the appearance.

One day, interviewed about the beauty secrets behind her charm, Sofia Loren replied: "Every woman will look at her best if she feels good in her own skin. It is not a matter of clothes and makeup, the only important thing is the way she shines".