Loren, Sophia

Loren, Sophia (sōfē`ə lôrĕn`), 1934–, Italian film actress, b. as Sophia Scicoloni. She grew up in the slums of Naples. With the help of Italian producer Carlo Ponti (later her husband) she gained international fame as a beautiful and accomplished film actress in both tragic dramas and boisterous comedies. She won the first Academy Award for a foreign-language performance for her role in Two Women (1961), and she received a special Academy Award in 1991 for her body of work. Her movies include The Gold of Naples (1954), The Pride and the Passion (1957), Houseboat (1958), Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963), Marriage Italian Style (1964), and A Special Day (1977). In the autobiographical television movie Sophia Loren: Her Own Story (1980), she played herself and her mother.

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Loren, Sophia

 orig. Sofia Villani Scicolone

Sophia Loren in Boccaccio '70 (1962).

(credit: Brown Brothers)

(born Sept. 20, 1934, Rome, Italy) Italian film actress. After a poverty-stricken childhood in war-torn Naples, she became a model and movie extra in Rome. Coached by the producer Carlo Ponti (later her husband), she acted in Italian movies from 1950, including The Gold of Naples (1954). Her later films, in which she became noted for her statuesque beauty and earthy femininity, include The Black Orchid (1959), El Cid (1961), Two Women (1961, Academy Award), Boccaccio '70 (1962), Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (1964), Marriage Italian Style (1964), and A Special Day (1977).

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Loren, Sophia 

(stage name of Sophia Scicolone). Born Sept. 20, 1934, in Rome. Italian motion-picture actress.

In 1949, Loren entered a number of beauty contests and played several minor film roles. The part of a street vendor in The Gold of Naples, directed by V. de Sica, brought her fame. Thereafter, she repeated this role of the temperamental Italian beauty in several motion pictures that retained some external attributes of neorealism (Woman of the River, 1954, for example). Loren became a Hollywood star and made many films from 1956 to 1959, including The Pride and the Passion (1958), Desire Under the Elms (1958), and The Key (1959).

Upon her return to Italy, Loren played a number of important roles in films directed by de Sica—for example, Cesira (Two Women, 1961), Johanna (The Condemned of Altona, 1963), Adelina, Anna, and Mara ( Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, 1964), Filumena Marturano (Marriage Italian Style, 1965), and Giovanna (The Sunflowers, 1970). In films by other directors and in foreign commercial films, Loren is often called upon to play exotic femmes fatales or society women, roles that are inconsistent with the folk nature of her talent (The Countess From Hong Kong, 1967, for example).

REFERENCE

Muratova, L. “Sofi Loren.” In Aktery zarubezhnogo kino, fasc. 6. Leningrad, 1971.

G. D. BOGEMSKII