“Never more than at the threshold of 90 have I realised that age is a state of mind.”
Sophia Loren
Introduction
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, one example of that ultimate beauty comes in the human form of the Italian actress Sophia Loren—a woman who oozed sex appeal and set many a man’s heart racing. The star of Italian and Hollywood cinema was obsessively chased by Peter Sellers, believing that he had stolen her heart, only to find out that she wasn’t remotely interested. An obsession that began on the set of the ill-received film, ‘After the Fox’. Now almost 90, Sophia has no intention of slowing down despite having a nasty fall nearly a year ago and breaking her femur. However, it didn’t stop her from attending a family birthday recently, aided by the support of a glittery stick and the support of her son, Edoardo Ponti—a trip she made from Los Angeles to Switzerland.
This rare appearance coincides with a celebration of Loren’s career at the Lincoln Center in New York, entitled “Sophia Loren: La Signora di Napoli”. A festival that showcases thirteen of her films. These include Italian classics such as the 1960 film Two Women, which made her the first person to win an Oscar for a non-English language film. The series also boasts gorgeous new 4K restorations of the comedies Arabesque(1966) and Too Bad She’s Bad (1954), the latter marking not only Loren’s first significant screen role but also her first of many collaborations with actor Marcello Mastroianni.
Loren has a life philosophy of not dwelling on the past but on the Here and Now. However, she never totally rules out being retrospective. She feels that it is essential to take stock every so often. Each film she has made has been a unique adventure, and what an adventure it has been. An Italian beauty who owned wearing sultry underwear and removing it slowly on camera. A striptease that was so beautifully shot in the 1963 film Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Contrast this with the 1977 film A Special Day, which charts the rise of Mussolini’s brutal fascism in Italy. A film that wasn’t too far from the truth of Sophia’s past. A past that involved her family starving years earlier and huddling in train tunnels around Naples to escape the bombing during World War II.
Sophia is a unique actress who contributes to every part she has played. It is so rawly depicted on celluloid. Her voice and body language echo love and pain. She worked with the brilliant director Carlo Ponti on many of her films. Vittorio De Sica’s Two Women (1970) is a great example. Not bad for a woman who started her career as a model for Fotoromanzi, an Italian soap opera comic popular before the proliferation of television. A start that attracted a mountain of fan mail and made her a trailblazer in Italian fashion for decades. She created worthy work for every decade of her life. Her films act as a link for Italian immigrants to America. A reminder of the old country. A reminder that it is showcased so brilliantly in “Tu Vuo Fa L’Americano” from the 1960 comedy classic It Started in Naples.
Ultimate Beauty
Loren’s true asset was her looks. Dark and sultry, she epitomised an Italian goddess. She was, and remains, a sex symbol in her own right. Beauty runs deep in her film and fashion career. Various fashion shoots freezeframe this in time. The epic Vogue shoots date back to 1961 and posing for all the great photographers of the time, including Lord Snowdon. A parody shown in the 1994 film, Robert Altman’s Prêt-à-Porter, a satirical comedy set during Paris Fashion Week. Who would pose in a Roman hot tub with your son? A classic photograph from an edition of Vogue in 1970. Only Sophia could pull it off. An amazing woman who has had an epic career and used self-motivation to learn to walk again despite incurring multiple fractures and still managed to travel halfway across the world to spend time with her family. A woman who still believes that she has future projects.
