De La Hoz Cindy - Sophia Loren: movie star Italian style

A publicity portrait for Arabesque (1966).

S ophia Loren is a movie star unique in all of cinemaperhaps the most internationally renowned of film luminaries. Few other stars have their upbringing and homeland so deeply imprinted upon their professional lives. This movie star Italianor, more specifically, Neapolitanstyle took the world by storm with her talent and stunning looks when she was barely twenty, and she continues to inspire awe more than sixty years later.

Though she is often thought of as a Hollywood screen goddess of the Golden Age (the American Film Institute even named her to its list of Greatest American Screen Legends), it was roles that embodied the Italian spirit that truly made this star shine. Hollywood could not deny her impact. It is little wonder that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded her its first Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role given to the star of a foreign film, for her heart-rending performance in Two Women. In her native Italy, Sophia holds the record for Best Actress David di Donatello Award wins (at six), and she has received major accolades from nearly every corner of the world.

The international icon grew up in a small Neapolitan town ravaged by war, with no connection to the film world whatsoever (except for the fact that her mother bore a striking resemblance to Greta Garbo). Her mother conveyed all her own ambition onto Sophia, propelling her on to a career in Italian films and, inevitably, in Hollywood and onto the world stage.

From then on Sophia had extraordinary success working in both American and European productions. She starred in some of the most epic blockbusters of the 50s, 60s, and 70s; impressed in moving dramatic roles opposite the likes of Cary Grant, Paul Newman, Peter Sellers, Anthony Quinn, John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Marlon Brando, Peter OToole, Richard Burton, and Clark Gable; and turned heads in enduring classics like Houseboat, The Millionairess, Arabesque, and Heller in Pink Tights.

Yet all roads led home for Sophia. Her best roles were indomitable women of Italyusually Neapolitan, frequently a mother fighting for her family, and always full of life, passion, and strength. In Italy she also had her finest collaborators in director Vittorio De Sica and costar Marcello Mastroianni, not to mention Carlo Ponti, her husband and the producer of many of her films, including such classics as Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow; Marriage Italian Style; and A Special Day.

Whether at home or abroad, in a career spanning close to seven decades, Sophia has had one of the most varied and interesting paths in motion picture history. A beauty with a distinct lack of vanity when it comes to her art, she has embraced age, not shying away from public events and certainly not from film cameras in her later years, instead still enjoying a creatively fulfilling career and continuing to take home awards.

Sophia Loren: Movie Star Italian Style is a tribute to the matchless actress, both exploring and illustrating the varied aspects of her life and work. Part One is biographical, recounting through text, quotes from those who knew her best, and a stunning array of photos her life story from Pozzuoli through stardom and on to life in her mideighties. Part Two covers her cinematic legacy through images, behind-the-scenes stories, trade reviews, memories from both Sophia and her collaborators, and plot summaries (particularly helpful since a great deal of her films are not readily available in the United States, and some of those spoken in Italian have not yet been made available with English dubbing or subtitles). Many of her Italian films have indeed been voiced over into English (often by Sophia), yet many of even her dearest admirers here in the United States have not seen those films due to their inaccessibility. That is unfortunate since they are among her best works. The hope is that these images and descriptions will inspire a bit of foreign exploration. In all, this book is a celebration of the rich contribution to cultural history that Sophia has given the world and an homage to the extraordinary star and the home she holds so dear.

Sofia Scicolone, age nine, on the day of her First Communion. Growing up in Pozzuoli during the war was often terrifying. Her Communion service was interrupted by a bombing, with one explosion only a few hundred yards from the church.

O ver the years Sophia has often likened the story of her life to a fairy tale. No one would have guessed that the stuzzicadente (toothpick), as she was called as a thin child growing up in a small seaport town outside of Naples, would one day be an international movie icon. But she did have the genes for it.