Born September 20, 1934 in Rome, Italy, Sophia Scicolone and her younger sister, Maria, were raised by their maternal grandmother in the slums of Pozzuoli, their construction engineer father having refused to divorce his wife and marry the girls’ piano teacher mother.

Encouraged to enter a beauty contest at 14, the young would-be actress was discovered by producer Carlo Ponti who became her mentor and started putting her in films in small roles at the age of 16 where she was alternately billed as Sophia Lazzaro and Scicolone. In 1953, Ponti changed her name to Sophia Loren to broaden her appeal. Loren and Ponti were married by proxy in Mexico in 1957 with lawyers standing in for them as Ponti was not legally divorced from his first wife. The marriage was annulled in 1962 to avoid bigamy charges in Italy. They were remarried in France in 1966 after Ponti obtained a divorce there. They had two sons, Carlo Jr., born in 1968, and Edoardo, born in 1973.

International stardom came for Loren in 1957 with the release of three Hollywood films, Boy on a Dolphin opposite Alan Ladd and Clifton Webb, The Pride and the Passion opposite Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra, and Legend of the Lost opposite John Wayne and Rossano Brazzi. In 1958, she starred opposite Anthony Perkins and Burl Ives in Desire Under the Elms, William Holden and Trevor Howard in The Key, Cary Grant in Houseboat and Anthony Quinn in The Black Orchid.

In 1960, Loren made That Kind of Woman opposite Tab Hunter, and in 1960 Heller in Pink Tights opposite Anthony Quinn, It Started in Naples opposite Clark Gable, The Millionairess opposite Peter Sellers and, A Breath of Scandal opposite John Gavin and Maurice Chevalier. She then returned to Italy to make Two Women for which she won numerous awards including an Oscar.

Loren remained in high demand throughout the 1960s in such films as El Cid opposite Charlton Heston, both Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and Marriage Italian Style opposite Marcello Mastroianni, Operation Crossbow opposite George Peppard, and A Countess from Hong Kong opposite Marlon Brando. Her highest profile films of the 1970s were the disappointing Man of La Mancha opposite Peter O’Toole and the critically acclaimed A Special Day, once again opposite Marcello Mastroianni.

Loren stayed pretty much out of the limelight during the 1980s, but renewed interest in her surfaced with her 1990 honorary Oscar. She was nominated for a 1994 Golden Globe for Ready to Wear, yet again opposite Marcello Mastroainni, and was Walter Matthau’s love interest in the 1995 hit, Grumpier Old Men. She was again in the spotlight as Daniel Day-Lewis’ mother in the 2009 film version of Nine.

The actress was recently in the news as the presenter of director Lina Wertmuller’s 2019 honorary Oscar. Wertmuller will reciprocate as presenter of an honorary award to Loren in Capri, Italy on December 30, 2019.

Sophia Loren remains a force of nature at 85.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

THE BLACK ORCHID (1959), directed by Martin Ritt

Made before Houseboat, the hugely successful comedy Loren made opposite Cary Grant, with whom she later admitted to an affair, but released later, this slice-of-life drama won Loren her first acting award – Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. The story revolves around the relationship between grieving widow Loren and slightly older widower Anthony Quinn, Loren’s husband having been a small-time mobster who was murdered by the mob. The couple must overcome the objections of her young son (Jimmy Baird) and his grown daughter (Ina Balin) with a pending marriage of her own.

TWO WOMEN (1961), directed by Vittorio De Sica

De Sica’s classic about a World War II widow and her lonely daughter was originally meant to be a Hollywood production directed by George Cukor with Anna Magnani as the mother and Loren as the daughter, but when Magnani objected to Loren’s casting, Cukor refused to make the film. It was all set to be made in Italy with De Sica directing Magnani, but when Magnani became ill and unable to make the film, it was she who suggested then 25-year-old Loren for the part of the mother if she wouldn’t mind playing older. Loren leaped at the chance and won a slew of awards including an Oscar for her riveting performance.

A SPECIAL DAY (1977), directed by Ettore Scola

Loren had won a second Oscar nomination for 1964’s Marriage Italian Style opposite Marcello Mastroianni, the fourth of their eventual eleven films together. This time it was Mastroianni’s turn to receive an Oscar nomination, his second, for his portrayal of a persecuted gay journalist during Hitler’s visit to Italy in 1938. Loren plays the tired housewife he meets in their apartment complex while a parade honoring Hitler and Mussolini is passing by.
Both Loren and Mastroianni won Golden Globes, Italy for their performances and Loren also won a David di Donatello Award, Italy’s equivalent of an Oscar.

READY TO WEAR (1994), directed by Robert Altman

Loren and Mastroianni were reunited for the final time in this critically lambasted film about the fashion industry, the nadir of Altman’s career as well as that of just about everyone else connected with it except Loren and Mastroianni, who were the only reasons to see this literal updating of The Emperor Has No Clothes. Loren’s slow strip tease to entice Mastroianni was a parody of their more famous one from Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Mastroianni would die within two years of the making of the film. Loren, who amazingly received a Golden Globe nomination for this, is still going strong a quarter of a century later.

NINE (2009), directed by Rob Marshall

This long-awaited screen version of the 1982 Broadway musical, which had already been successfully revived in 2003, was based on Federico Fellini’s 1963 film, 8 1/2, which had starred Loren’s frequent co-star, Marcello Mastroianni. It was only fitting that she should appear as star Daniel Day-Lewis’ mother in a cast that also included Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Fergie, Kate Hudson and Nicole Kidman. Day-Lewis, Cotillard and Cruz were nominated for Golden Globes, but only Cruz went on to receive an Oscar nomination for her performance.

SOPHIA LOREN AND OSCAR