SUCCESS STORY
QUEEN OF HEARTS
More than six decades have passed since Sophia Loren first lent her talents to the blossoming film industry. Now, she remains a lone survivor, the last precious piece of a priceless congregation that was the Golden Age of Hollywood
Be
it on the silver screen, bedecked in the trappings of moviegoing glamour and the bright lights of cinematic history or on the red carpets of premières and industry events, there are few more wondrous sights than the Hollywood actress. They have etched themselves into the fabric of film history: Kelly, Hepburn, Monroe, Deneuve, Lake — their names forming a pantheon of poise, grace and beauty that has withstood generations. Many of these women have passed into history, but one still remains: as headstrong and unattainable as ever, like a russet-plumaged exotic bird, the mere glimpse of which sends pulses racing. With her warm and exuberant Italian mannerisms, old-school glamour and occasional devastating sensuality, Sophia Loren sweeps into places safe in the knowledge that she is destined to be the centre of attention wherever she goes. “It’s been wonderful, extraordinary in every sense,” the European darling of Hollywood’s Golden Age breathes on the subject of her rich and varied career. “I always saw things positively, and I have not stopped thinking that way,” she says. “When you have accomplished certain things and reached levels you could never even dream of, it is very difficult to judge who you have become and what you have experienced. Today, I can say that I am aware of having lived a very full life and lived very intensely. I don’t think I could have lived with any more passion than I have.” Of course, Loren — born Sofia Villani Scicolone in the Clinica Regina Margherita, Rome — has to her name a list of accomplishments that would put any modern actress in the shade (and one suspects that would be most pleasing to this joie de vivre– filled film icon).
“TODAY, I CAN SAY THAT I AM AWARE OF HAVING LIVED A VERY FULL LIFE AND LIVED VERY INTENSELY. I DON’T THINK I COULD HAVE LIVED WITH ANY MORE PASSION THAN I HAVE” But the origins of her journey into Hollywood lore were a far cry from the glamour she would come to be associated with. Life as the daughter of unmarried parents in staunchly conservative Catholic Italy, at the height of Benito Mussolini’s fascist powers, was uncompromising and often brutal. Her family was poor, though the young Loren was for the most part shielded from the harsh realities of poverty. “When I was a little girl, we used to eat la panzella, and that translates as ‘the food of the poor people,’” she reminisces. “It’s very basic: stale bread, which you soak in cold water, then you drizzle it with olive oil and top it up with
tomatoes, onions and fresh basil. No one ever made it better than my grandmother. When she made it, it meant that there was no money in the house, but as a child, I did not know that. In my innocence, I wished that the hard times would come more often, so that I could always eat it.” It wasn’t until Loren was 16 years old that the first glimpses of the undeniable star power that would have directors — not to mention a wide selection of leading men — clamouring to see her on film became apparent. “My mother entered me in a local beauty contest,” she nods. “I was only 14, and I came second. And I got the equivalent of 15 pounds, and for some reason, a roll of wallpaper. The money paid for the fare to Rome, where the film industry was just recovering after the war; I’d wanted to be an actress since I was 10 years old. I have no idea what happened to the wallpaper.” It was in Rome that the seeds of Loren’s potential on film were planted. A role as an extra in the 1951 epic Quo Vadis followed before she was first spotted by producer Carlo Ponti — a man who would go on to have a bigger influence on Loren than anyone else during her life and career. It was Ponti who arranged for her a series of small parts in low-budget Italian productions, the first rungs on a ladder that moved from Aida (1953) to The Gold of Naples (1954), and finally to America and the City of Angels, to star in The Pride and the Passion alongside Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra. It would be her compatriot, Ponti, and the established movie star Grant who would go on to spar for the young actress’s affections throughout the 1950s. Cast in a modern light, such a love triangle now seems unthinkable: Loren was in her early 20s, whereas Ponti was 20 years older, and Grant, older still. The latter had begun an affair
56 DOLCE MAGAZINE | www.dolcemag.com
SPRING 2019
PHOTOS BY TIMOTHY WHITE
WRITTEN BY JAN JANSSEN
