Comprehensive information and links about Sophia Loren

Sophia Loren (born September 20, 1934Sophia Loren is an Academy Award-winning actress and is considered to be the most famous Italian actress of all time.

She was born in Rome, Italy, the illegitimate daughter of aspiring actress and piano teacher Romilda Villani and married engineer Riccardo Scicolone and grew up in poverty in wartime Pozzuoli. Her sister Anna-Maria later married Romano Mussolini.

Loren began her film career in the early 1950s playing bit parts in mostly minor Italian films, but she had an early brush with Hollywood in 1951 when she and her mother worked as extras in the blockbuster and took part in regional beauty contests, where she won several prizes and was discovered by her future husband, the much older film producer Carlo Ponti, whom she married on September 17, 1957, 3 days before her 23rd birthday. They would have 2 sons together, Carlo Ponti, Jr., and Edoardo Ponti. This first marriage had to be annulled to keep her husband from being charged with bigamy, and they remarried on April 9, 1966.

Under Ponti's management, Sofia Scicolone changed her name to Sophia Loren and, after more early film roles that emphasized her voluptuous physique (she even appeared topless in the films ), her acting career took off upon meeting Vittorio De Sica and Marcello Mastroianni in 1954.

By the second half of the 1950s, her star began to rise in Hollywood, with films such as 1957's , (in which she co-starred with Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant, the latter to whom she became romantically attracted for a time). Loren became an international film star with a five-picture contract with Paramount Studios. Among her films at this time: (in which she appeared blonde for the first time in her career).

Loren demonstrated considerable dramatic skills and gained respect as a dramatic and comedy actress, especially in Italian projects where she more freely expressed herself, although she gained profiency in the English language. In 1960, her acclaimed performance in Vittorio De Sica's earned her a multitude of awards and, along with the Cannes, Venezia and Berlin festivals' best performance prizes, the distinction of being the first actor to win a major category Academy Award (Best Actress) for a non-English language performance.

Belying the typical portrayal of the beautiful actress as vacuous and emptyheaded, Loren was known for her sharp wit and insight. One of her most frequently-quoted sayings is her quip on her diet, "Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti."

During the 1960s Loren was one of the most popular actresses in the world, and continued to make popular films in both America and in Europe, acting with all the leading male stars of the time. In 1964 her career came, to an effect, full circle when she received $1 million to join the all-star cast of with Peter Sellers, with whom she recorded a best-selling album of comedic songs and also reportedly from whom she had to fend off romantic advances.

After becoming a mother of two sons her career slowed down and Loren moved into her 40s and 50s with acclaimed roles in films such as the last De Sica movie, with Mastroianni.

In 1980, she had the rare privilege of portraying herself (as well as her own mother) in a made-for-television biopic adaptation of her autobiography bestseller . (Rita Brown and Chiara Ferrari played younger versions of the actress.)

She made headlines in 1982 when she served an 18-day prison sentence in Italy on tax evasion charges, a fact that didn't damage her career or popularity.

In her 60s, Loren was selective in her films and ventured into various areas of business (cook books, eyewear, jewelery and perfume - Loren was the first movie star to launch a personal fragrance) but made very well-received appearances in Robert Altman's playing a femme fatale opposite Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.

In 1991, Loren received an honorary Academy Award for her contribution to world cinema and was declared "one of the world cinema's treasures".

Sophia Loren was portrayed by Sonia Aquino in the 2004 biopic She became the first Oscar winner to win for playing a character that speaks predominatly in a foreign language.