Sophia Loren

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Birth name Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone
Nationality Italie
Birth 20 september 1934 (90 years) at Rome (Italie)
Awards Academy Award for Best Actress

Sophia Loren (/soʊˈfiːə ləˈrɛn/; [soˈfiːa ˈlɔːren]; stage name of Sofia Villani Scicolone Ponti [soˈfiːa vilˈlaːni ʃʃikoˈloːne], 20 September 1934) is an Italian film actress. She began her career at age 14 after entering a beauty pageant in 1949. Encouraged to enroll in acting lessons, Loren appeared in several bit parts and minor roles until the late 1950s when Loren's five-picture contract with Paramount launched her international career. Notable film appearances around this time include Houseboat, That Kind of Woman, and It Started in Naples.

Her talents as an actress were not recognized until her performance as Cesira in Vittorio De Sica's Two Women; Loren's performance earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1962 and made her the first artist to win an Oscar for a foreign-language performance. She holds the record for having earned six David di Donatello Awards for Best Actress, the most ever received: Two Women, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Marriage Italian-Style (for which she was nominated for a second Oscar), Sunflower, The Voyage, and A Special Day. After starting her family in the early 1970s, Loren spent less time on her acting career and chose to make only occasional film appearances. In later years, she has appeared in American films such as Grumpier Old Men and Nine.

Aside from the Academy Award, she has won a Grammy Award, five special Golden Globes, a BAFTA Award, a Laurel Award, and the Honorary Academy Award in 1991. In 1995, she received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievements, one of many such awards.

Biography

Loren is a Roman Catholic.

Her primary residence has been in Geneva, Switzerland, since late 2006. She also owns homes in Naples and Rome.

Loren is a huge fan of the football club S.S.C. Napoli. In May 2007, when the team was third in Serie B, she told the Gazzetta dello Sport that she would do a striptease if the team won.

Loren posed scantily clad, at age 72, for the 2007 Pirelli Calendar, along with Penélope Cruz and Hilary Swank.

Affair with Cary Grant
Loren and Cary Grant co-starred in Houseboat (1958). Grant's wife Betsy Drake wrote the original script, and Grant originally intended that she would star with him. After he began an affair with Loren while filming The Pride and the Passion (1957), Grant arranged for Loren to take Drake's place with a rewritten script for which Drake did not receive credit. The affair ended in bitterness before The Pride and the Passion‍ 's filming ended, causing problems on the Houseboat set. Grant hoped to resume the relationship, but Loren agreed to marry Carlo Ponti, instead.

Marriage and family
Loren first met Carlo Ponti, Sr. in 1950, when she was 15 and he was 37. They married on 17 September 1957. However, Ponti was still officially married to his first wife Giuliana under Italian law, because Italy did not recognize divorce at that time. The couple had their marriage annulled in 1962 to escape bigamy charges. In 1965, Ponti obtained a divorce from Giuliana in France, allowing him to marry Loren on 9 April 1966.

The couple became French citizens after their application was approved by then French President Georges Pompidou.

They had two children:

Carlo Ponti, Jr.

Edoardo Ponti

Loren's daughters-in-law are Sasha Alexander and Andrea Meszaros. Loren has four grandchildren.

Loren remained married to Carlo Ponti until his death on 10 January 2007 of pulmonary complications.
When asked in a November 2009 interview if she were ever likely to marry again, Loren replied "No, never again. It would be impossible to love anyone else."

Sibling
In 1962, Loren's sister, Anna Maria Villani Scicolone, married the youngest son of Benito Mussolini, Romano, with whom she had a daughter, the conservative Italian politician Alessandra Mussolini.