Crush of the Week : Sophia Loren

Momma Mia, Sophia!!!

 

Sophia Loren is what we picture in our minds when one talks about female European film stars. Penelope Cruz, Monica Bellucci, among our current crop of  hotties, even Gina Lollobrigida and Anita Ekberg among her contemporaries, pale in comparison. Oscar winner, sex goddess, earth mother, a talented actress with a tremendous presence on screen, Sophia is the gold standard among European actresses. It was a long, hard climb to the top. Some, like Lollobrigida, got a bigger push sooner. Sophia, however, had more staying power. She may be Italy's greatest import since spaghetti.  

It Started in Naples, which co starred Clark Gable, 1959.

Her first starring role was in 1953's Aida and the critics loved her. Sophia's big breakthrough movie was 1954's The Gold of Naples directed by Vittorio DeSica. DeSica would go on to lens her in 6 more films including Two Women for which Sophia won the Oscar for Best Actress of 1961, the first time an Oscar was won for a non-English speaking performance.

In her Oscar winning role from Two Women, 1961

Preceding her Oscar win were a string of mostly forgettable Hollywood pics with some of Hollywood's biggest names at the time : Boy On A Dolphin in 1957 opposite Alan Ladd {Shane}got the ball rolling, followed by The Pride & The Passion with Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra, Houseboat a romcom opposite Grant again {who was supposedly smitten and proposed marriage. Sophia said no}, an adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under The Elms with a pre-Psycho Anthony Perkins, It Started in Naples with "The King" Clark Gable in his second to last film, Carol Reed's The Key with William Holden. With Peter Sellers, Loren would make The Millionairess based on the play by George Bernard Shaw, showing the world yet again what pasta and vino can do for one's body.

Sophia in The Millionairess, 1960.

In several of her films Sophia disrobed with regularity. Another DeSica film and co-starring her great friend Marcello Mastroianni, was Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow , a big hit on both sides of the Atlantic and an Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film of 1964. 1965's Marriage, Italian Style, also with Mastroianni,  brought Sophia raves from the critics and another Oscar nom for Best Actress {she'd lose to Julie Christie}.

The striptease from Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, 1964

From the late 50's on, Sophia regularly switched from Italian and English language films. Her best work can be found in the Italian ones but her English language movies had more popular appeal on an international level. Since the start of her career she made at least one, and sometimes more, movie per year. Then in the 80's as she reached her 50's, Loren began to slow down her work pace appearing in only 5 films from 1980 to 1989 and only 4 films in the 1990's. To date her last big screen appearance is in Nine, the 2009 adaptation of the Broadway musical of the same name in which she played Daniel Day Lewis' mother.

At the legendary party, held at  Romanoff's, to introduce Sophia to Hollywood. Loren was famously upstaged by Jayne Mansfield and her two friends.

One of the biggest benefactors in her career was the producer Carlo Ponti. The two had first met in 1950 when Sophia was just 15 and Ponti was 37. The two married in 1957, but under Italian law the marriage was not legit because Italy didn't recognize divorce and Ponti was still married to his first wife. In 1962 the couple had to have the marriage annulled in order for Ponti to escape bigamy charges. Ponti finally obtained a divorce in 1965 and in April of 1966 they married for the second {and last} time. They would have 2 sons, Carlo, Jr and Edoardo. Sophia was with Ponti until his death in 2007. Along the way their was speculation that Loren married Ponti {who was a short, portly, balding man all his life} only to further her film career. Loren however has always maintained she loved him and would never consider marrying again, saying " It would be impossible to love someone else."

Her beauty is timeless.

Some facts: Her sister Anna Maria married Benito Mussolini's youngest son in 1962.

In the made for TV biopic Sophia Loren : Her Own Story {based on her best selling biography by A.E. Hotchner} Sophia played not only herself, but her own mother. 

She is Roman Catholic.

In 2007 at age 72, she, along with other celebs, posed scantily clad for the Pirelli Calendar. 

Loren co-starred alongside Marcello Mastroianni in  10 films. Loren was voted "World Film Favorite- Female" 4 times by the Hollywood Foreign Press.

In 1995 Loren received the Golden Globe's Cecil B.DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement.

On September 20 of this year, she will turn 79.

  Oh, I almost forgot. My Dad thought she was smoking-hot. Have to agree with Dad on that one.