Famous Italians, italian celebrities, italian american celebrities, famous italians

Loren, Sophia

Born: September 20, 1934

Actress.
Born in Rome, Italy.

Sophia Loren (born September 20, 1934) is considered to be the most famous Italian actress of all time and, at the age of 70, continues to be a top sex symbol.

She was born Sofia Villani Scicolone in Rome, Italy, the illegitimate daughter of aspiring actress and piano teacher Romilda Villani and married engineer Riccardo Scicolone and grew up in poverty in wartime Pozzuoli near Naples.

Loren began her film career in the early 1950s playing bit parts in mostly minor Italian films, but she had an early brush with Hollywood in 1951 when she and her mother worked as extras in the blockbuster Quo Vadis, which was filmed in Rome. Around this time, she also worked as a model in the fotoromanzi (weekly ilustrated romantic stories) billed as "Sofia Villani" or "Sofia Lazzaro' and took part in regional beauty contests, were she won several prizes and was discovered by her future husband, film producer Carlo Ponti.

Under Ponti's management, Sophia Scicolone changed her name to Sophia Loren and, after more early film roles that emphasized her voluptuous physique (she even appeared topless in the films Two Nights with Cleopatra and It's Him, Yes! Yes!), her acting career took off upon meeting Vittorio De Sica and Marcello Mastroianni in 1954.

By the second half of the 1950s, her star began to rise in Hollywood, with films such as 1957's Boy on a Dolphin and The Pride and the Passion,(in which she co-starred with Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant, the latter to whom she became romantically attracted for a time). 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 again co-starring Cary Grant), and George Cukor's Heller in Pink Tights (in which she appeared blonde for the first time in her career).

In spite of her status as a love goddess and major sex symbol, Loren demonstrated considerable dramatic skills and gained respect as a dramatic and comedy actress, especially in Italian projects where she more freely expressed herself, although she gained profiency in the English language. In 1960, her acclaimed performance in Vittorio De Sica's Two Women earned her a multitude of awards and, along with the Cannes, Venezia and Berlin festivals' best performance prizes, the distinction of being the first actor to win a major category Academy Award (Best Actress) for a non-English language performance.

During the 1960s Loren was one of the most popular actresses in the world, and continued to make popular films in both America and in Europe, acting with all the leading male stars of the time. In 1964 her career came, to an effect, full circle when she received $1 million to join the all-star cast of The Fall of the Roman Empire, directed by the same man who had directed Quo Vadis early in her career. Some of her best-known films of this period are Peter Ustinov's Lady L with Paul Newman, Charles Chaplin's final film, A Countess from Hong Kong with Marlon Brando, and The Millionairess with Peter Sellers, with whom she recorded a best-selling album of comedic songs and also reportedly from whom she had to fend off romantic advances.

After becoming a mother of two sons her career slowed down and Loren moved into her 40s and 50s gracefully mantaining her status as a fine dramatic actress and a perenial sex symbol, with acclaimed roles in films such as the last De Sica movie, The Voyage, with Richard Burton and Ettore Scola's A Special Day with Mastroianni.

In 1980, she had the rare privilege of portraying herself (as well as her own mother) in a made-for-television biopic adaptation of her autobiography bestseller Sophia: Living and Loving titled Sophia Loren: Her Own Story. (Rita Brown and Chiara Ferrari played younger versions of the actress. 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.

In her 60s, Loren was selective in her films and ventured into various areas of business (cook books, eyewear, jewelery and perfume - Loren was the first movie star to launch a personal fragrance) but made very well-received appearances in Robert Altman's Ready to Wear and the 1994 comedy Grumpier Old Men playing a femme fatale opposite Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.