"Sophia Loren was born as Sofia Scicolone at the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome, Italy, on September 20, 1934. Her father Riccardo was married to another woman and refused to marry her mother Romilda, despite the fact that she was the mother of his two children - Sophia and her younger sister Maria Scicolone." - IMDb
In 1950 Sofia Lazzaro (age 16) met Carlo Ponti, (responsible for starting Gina Lollobridgida's career) while he was judging a beauty contest in Roma that Sofia was a contestant in. . .
Carlo Ponti (1912-2007) was an Italian film producer with over 140 production credits, as well as the husband of Sophia Loren. He accepted an offer from Lux Film company in Rome in 1941, where he produced a series of commercially successful films featuring the comedian Toto. In 1950 he began producing partnership with Dino De Laurentiis. In 1954 he had his greatest artistic success with the production of Federico Fellini's La strada. In 1957 he dissolves partnership with De Laurentiis and marries Sophia Loren. He produced Visconti's Boccaccio '70 in 1962, de Sica's Marriage Italian Style in 1964, de Sicas's Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and David Lean's Doctor Zhivago in 1965 and three notable films with Michelangelo Antonioni, Blowup in 1966, Zabriskie Point in 1970 and The Passenger in 1974. In 1979 Ponti was fined by Italian court the equivalent of 25 million dollars and sentenced to a four year term in absentia for smuggling art and currency - he did not produce another film until 10 years later.
Elvis and Loren met each other once - in February of 1958 at Paramount Studios while Elvis was filming King Creole. According to Bob Willoughby, who took photos, Loren spotted 23-yr-old Presley eating lunch in the commissary and decided to go over & introduce herself - she promptly sat in his lap, gave him a kiss, & began mussing his carefully sculpted pompadour. more photos here
Elvis and Loren, Hollywood, 1958
In April 1957, Jayne Mansfield's breasts were the feature of a notorious publicity stunt intended to deflect attention from Sophia Loren during a dinner party in the Italian star's honor. Photographs of the encounter were published around the world. The most famous image showed Loren's gaze falling upon the cleavage of the American actress who, sitting between Loren and her dinner companion, Clifton Webb, had leaned over the table, allowing her breasts to spill over her low neckline and exposing one nipple. - Wikipedia
Cuori sul mare
uncredited Lebbra bianca
as Sofia Lazzaro Io sono il capata
as Sofia Scicolone Milan milliardara
as Sofia Scicolone Quo Vadis
uncredited Il mago per forza
as Sofia Scicolone
Synopsis: A high-camp bedroom farce in which Fernando, owner of a large chain store, suffers from worrying dreams: he seems to successfully court saucy women, but just as he is about to win them over, a youngster comes on the scene and steals them from under his nose. One day a young graduate, Walter, turns up in search of work, and since he is almost identical to Fernando's dream rival, the latter thinks to send him packing but after persuasion hires him. A series of comic events ensue, revealing a subconscious episode dating back to Fernando's childhood but all ends well, Fernando is cured and Walter gets his just desserts. Sophia Loren, age 17, under the name Sofia Lazzaro, had a small role in the film - playing a model wearing a bridal dress and a harem scene.
Era lui... si! si! " is the most controversial of Sophia's movies; she showed her breasts in the French version of the movie, that is impossible to find today. . . Rumors claim Carlo Ponti bought all the French copies and destroyed them. Also starring: Silvana Pampanini, Nyta Dover, Sulema - Nude Celeb Forum (adult content)
According to Sophia, "When I was 15 I posed for some semi-nude pictures. I am ashamed of them. I hid them from my mother at the time. I was offered a small part in an Italian film Era Lui, Si Si. The scene involved several girls like myself in harem costume and, for the Italian version it was all right to wear clothes. The director asked that we do one take topless for the French version. I did not want to, but I was hungry. The other girls oblige4d him and, after a monemt's hesitation I did too. After the scene thayt came and said they must do some still pictures of me with nothings on top. I thought it had to be. . . "
Anna is a 1951 Italian drama film starring the same trio as in Bitter Rice - with Silvana Mangano as Anna, the sinner who becomes a nun; Raf Vallone as Andrea, the rich man who loves her; and Vittorio Gassman as Vittorio, the wicked waiter who sets Anna on a dangerous path. Silvana Mangano's real sister, Patrizia Mangano, acts as Anna's sister on the film. Sophia Loren has a small uncredited role as a nightclub assistant. Anna became one of the greatest successes of the Cinema of Italy. Music by Nino Rota. "The Bayon" song became a classic in Italy and Spain.
Italy
1951
dvd
E arrivato l'accordatore
as Sofia Lazzaro Il sogno di Zorro
as Sofia Lazzaro La tratta delle bianche
as Sofia Lazzaro Le sei mogli di Barbablu
as Sofia Lazzaro
Nineteen year old Sophia Loren plays a dual role, as both the sultry Queen of the Nile with a "man-a-night" appetite and a beautiful slave girl who takes her place and is wooed by a bodyguard who thinks she's the real monarch. Loren swims around in the temple pool possibly giving the viewer some blurry views of her nude body. . .
Pellegrini d'amore
La domenica della buona gente
Un giorno in pretura
Africa sotto i mari
Forzano, Andrea
Majano, Anton Giulio
Steno
Roccardi, Giovanni
Italy Italy Italy Italy
1953 1953 1953 1953
La favorita
A film version of Gaetano Donizetti's celebrated opera. Sofia Lazzaro (for the 1st time is billed as Sophia Loren on the recommendation of Carlo Ponti) is dubbed by Palmira Vitali Marini.
Gardenio (Carol Dapporto), an old variety show performer who has once known some success, makes a living organizing third-rate tours in small provincial towns. During a show met with hisses and whistles of disapproval, the spectators demand that Caterina (Nilla Pizzi), the bar's lovely cashier, be allowed to sing. The show is a success and the young woman becomes part of Gardenio's small company. Directed by Mauro Bolognini. Sophia Loren as the red-haired dancer steals the show in a couple of scenes, especially when she's dressed in a simple swimsuit that hides nothing of her curves!
Mauro Bolognini's notable films of the 1950s and early 1960s include Giovani mariti ("Young Husbands"), La notte brava, La giornata balorda ("From a Roman Balcony"), and Il bell'Antonio (arguably his masterpiece starring Marcello Mastroianni & Claudia Cardinale), all written by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Parting professionally with Pasolini in 1961, Bolognini went on to direct two sensual love stories starring Cardinale, La Viaccia and Senilita.
Italy
1953
The Country of the Campanelli
(Il paese dei capanelli)
"The writer Felice (Totò) and the photographer Pasquale (Enzo Turco) live in poverty, constantly bickering as they attempt to ply their respective arts. Their friend Eugenio, son of the Marquis Ottavio, convinces the two to accompany him and pretend they are aristocrats when he goes to ask for the hand of his beloved Gemma (Sophia Loren).
All the double crosses, mixed messages and startling coincidences are handled with exquisite comic timing, presided over by Totò as a kind of manic ringmaster." - MUBI
Naples, 1950. A storyteller, living with his large family in a miserable hovel, is evicted and leaves with his family in the streets. . . A gust of wind sweeps away leaves and follow each other on the screen the episodes that form the subject of the songs
Mount Vesuvius broods over four stories set in De Sica's beloved Naples. The reluctant host (Toto') of a bullying gangster takes a stand; an earthy pizza-vending goddess (Sophia Loren) convinces her husband that she lost an emerald ring in her pizza dough, not during a lovers' tryst; a dapper count (Vittorio De Sica) in thrall to a gambling addiction is reduced to playing cards with his concierge's small son; and a beautiful prostitute (Silvana Mangano) gratefully consents to a marriage with a handsome stranger. A masterpiece by Vittorio de Sica, one of Italy's most revered filmmakers. This was the first participation of Sophia with De Sica who would become her mentor and friend and the director of her most successful films.
"The twenty-minute episode (Pizze a credito) is memorable for a scene of Sophia strutting through the neighborhood during a rainstorm, with her drenched dress clinging to her body, her bosoms bouncing and her eyes flashing at every man she passes. And as it happens, Sophia catches bronchial pneumonia from the artificial downpours during a cold February month in Naples. . ." - Sophia Loren Archives
This off-the-wall "commedia all'italiana" pairs Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni for the first time. It's a minor yet breezy and uncomplicated Italian farce in black and white. Young and attractive Lina Stroppiani (Loren), a thief like the rest of her family, tries to steal the taxi of Paolo (Mastroiammi), together with two accomplices. He thwarts them and sees her home, only to find out soon enough she's also a pickpocket, and her wily papa (de Sica) works a luggage-stealing scheme down at the train station.
Italy
1954
Woman of the River
aka The River Girl
(La donna del fiume)
When peasant girl Nives (Sophia Loren) is deserted by smuggler Gino Lodi (Rik Battaglia), she betrays him to the police. Police officer Enzo Cinti (Gérare Oury), who loves Nives, traces her to the Po River cane fields, where she is working as a cutter to support herself and an infant son, and warns her that Gino has escaped from prison and is seeking revenge. She rejects his offer to protect her. Gino finds Nives, mourning the drowning death of their son. He surrenders himself to the police and then walks at Nives' side in the funeral procession.
Carlo Ponti cajoled Mario Soldati into directing Loren in La Donna del Fiume, which he had hoped would do for Loren what Bitter Rice had done for Dino's future wife, Silvana Mangano. All it did, in fact, was to provide some sexy pin-ups of Loren, and give Pier Paolo Pasolini one of his first scriptwriting credits. (The Guardian
"La donna del fiume, a post-neorealist melodrama set among the exploited poorest of the poor in northern Italy, casts Sophia as a girl in an eel cannery who ultimately ends up cutting cane at the mouth of the Po River. She sports ill-fitting shorts, rustic sweaters, and sun hats - and she owns the screen." - Deirdre Donohue, Sophia Style
This is Sophia's first film to get American producers' attention and convinced Stanley Kramer and MGM to sign her in The Pride and the Passion two years later. Splendid Technicolor photography heightens Sophia's voluptuousness who is billed in the USA as "Sophia the Sizzler" and "the most luscious female on the screen today". On the last day of shooting, Ponti visited the set and offered Sophia a ring - it was the first significant gift he offered Sophia - they were married two years later.
Black and white film starring Vittoria de Sica, Sophia Loren, Raf Vallone, and Franca Valeri- A comedy about a woman called Cesira (Valeri), that tries to get a husband any way she can. We watch her struggle, while her cousin (Loren) gets all the attention of men she could possibly want without any trouble at all. Vittorio de Sica plays a hilarious role, as an old, poor poet, that uses every known trick to get some money causing amazingly funny scenes. The end is quite sad, not suiting the tone of the movie.
An earthy comedy shot in CinemaScope/Technicolor and starring Vittorio de Sica, Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. Vittorio De Sica stars as a lecherous governor of Naples in 1680 who lusts after the wives of several peasants, particularly the miller's wife Carmela, played by a ravishing Sophia Loren. The miller himself, played by a youngish Marcello Mastroianni, plans to avenge his honor by seducing the wife of the governor. Wonderful fun!
Italy
1955
Scandal in Sorrento Pane, amore e. . .
starring Sophia Loren & Vittorio de Sica
Risi, Dino
In Eastmancolor. Marshall Antonio Carotenuto (de Sica) comes back to native Sorrento to take care of the local fire brigade. But since Sofia (Loren), a very nice fishmonger, occupies his native house, Antonio shares another home with Donna Violante (Lea Padovani), who secretly falls in love with him. Sofia accepts to marry Antonio almost as a joke to make Nicolino (Antonio Cifariello), a traffic policeman, jealous. . .
A breezy, inconsequential, but likable comedy (in black and white) about a photographer, Corrado (Mastroianni) who snaps a picture of a Rome beauty, Antonietta (Loren). The photo, much to Antonietta's surprise, winds up on the front page of a magazine. She wants to sue! At the instigation of Corrado the girl allows herself to be courted by the Count Senetti (Boyer), whose specialty is launching cinema careers of potential female stars and sleeping with them. The lewd count takes a sexual interest in Antonietta. It is dashed by the sudden appearance on the scene of the count's legitimate wife (Elisa Cegani).
"Phaedra (Loren) is a poor sponge diver on the lovely Greek isle of Hydra. While diving, she discovers an ancient brass and gold stature of a boy riding a dolphin, which is said to have the magical power to grant wishes. Her shiftless boyfriend wants to sell it to an unscrupulous art collector (Clifton Webb), but Phaedra wants to give it to anthropologist Jim Calder (Alan Ladd), who would return it to the Greek government." - IMDb
Italy
1957
Pride and the Passion
with Cary Grant & Frank Sinatra
Two Women / La ciociara
with Eleonora Brown & Jean-Paul Belmondo
de Sica, Vittorio
"Cesira (Sophia Loren) and her 13-year-old daughter, Rosetta (Eleonora Brown), flee from the allied bombs in Rome during the second world war. They travel to the village where Cesira was born. During their journey and in the village, the mother does everything to protect Rosetta. However, on one occasion they both get raped by soldiers hiding in a church. This cruel event is too much for the always powerful fighting Cesira and she suffers from a breakdown. During their stay in the village, a young intellectual, Michele (Jean-Paul Belmondo) falls in love with Cesira who does not know how to reply to the advances of such a gentleman" - IMDb
In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance. Loren has won 50 international awards, including two Oscars, seven Golden Globe Awards, a Grammy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Laurel Award. In 1999, she was listed by the American Film Institute as #21 of 25 American female screen legends of all time. . .
"Catherine (Loren), an out-spoken Parisian laundress follows Napoleon's army to the battlefront to be near her Sergeant Lefevre. . . later she squabbles with Napoleon's haughty sisters, scandalizes the nobility with her lack of courtly manners, flirts with the men - and consistently creates havoc as she remains true to her earthy background" - IMDb
• La riffa
(with Sophia Loren)
• Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio
(with Anita Ekberg)
• Li lavoro
(with Romy Schneider)
• Rennzo e Luciana
(with Marisa Solinas)
de Sica, Vittorio
Fellini, Federico
Visconti, Luchino
Monicelli, Mario
Italy
1962
2 dvds
The Condemned of Altona
(I sequestrati di Altona )
with Maximillan Schell, Fredric March
and Robert Wagner.
de Sica, Vittorio
Based on Jean-Paul Sartre's play about WW2 and the New Germany. This is a darkly disturbing film of a Nazi war criminal, Franz Gerlach (Schell), still wearing his German army uniform, who is hidden in the attic of his father's house, and led to believe that World War II is still going on. His sister lets him think the war is still going on, twenty years later. She reads him made-up news bulletins about the Allies' destruction of Germany, feeding his madness. When Franz is finally "released" and goes out into the city to see what Germany has become. People stare and laugh at him, as he walks around the modern city in his old Nazi uniform. He is bewildered by all the modern buildings and signs of prosperity in a Germany he had believed utterly destroyed forever. The last scene has Franz and his father (March) standing above the industrial complex that's been created. Although this film was not entirely successful, there are scenes that will stay with you.
Italy France
1962
Sirens of the Silver Screen:
• Two Woman
• Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
de Sica, Vittorio
Italy
1960 1963
video
Five Miles to Midnight with Anthony Perkins
Litvak, Anatole
France/Italy
1962
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
with Marcello Mastroianni
de Sica, Vittorio
Italy
1963
video
dvd
The Fall of the Roman Empire
with Stephen Boyd, Alec Alec Guinness, James Mason, Christopher Plummer, John Ireland, Omar Sharif, Mel Ferrer, etc.
Mann, Anthony
USA
1964
Marriage Italian Style
with Marcello Mastroianni
de Sica, Vittorio
Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
Italy
1964
Operation Crossbow
with George Peppard & Trevor Howard
Anderson, Michael
UK
1964
Lady L with Paul Newman & David Niven
Sophia Loren on set of "Lady L"
Ustinov, Peter
Fr/Italy/UK
1965
Judith with Peter Finch
Mann, Daniel
Isreal/UK/US
1966
Arabesque with Gregory Peck
Donen, Stanley
USA
1966
A Countess from Hong Kong with Marlon Brando
Chaplin, Charles
UK/USA
1967
More than a Miracle/C'era una volta. .
starring Sophia Loren & Omar Sharif
Rosi, Sharif & Loren on set
•
Rosi, Francesco
In Metrocolor. "A wonderful fairy tale of the misadventures of a beautiful but temperamental Neapolitan peasant, Isabella (Loren, when she meets the ill- tempered Spanish Prince Rodrigo Ferrante y Davalos (Sharif). . . With the help of both witches and saints, Isabella conquers the heart of her Prince after many amusing events . . ." - IMDb
"Shot in convincing storybook fashion at several suitably picturesque historical locations, this delightful film has been described by Rosi as a "realistic, credible" fairy tale "not so very far from my usual world.'. . . 'A much underrated film, made with style, charm and warmth . . . ' (Richard Roud). - Pacific Cinematheque
Sister Hermana Germana (Loren) falls in love with her patient (Annibale Pezzi), who happens to be a communist. Fernando Rey plays the hospital's doctor.
"This is a peculiar old mess of a movie. Part 'nunsploitation' (although lacking nudity and violence), part star vehicle for Loren, and part political film - the result is not entirely successful.
A merc (James Coburn is hired by the FBI to track down a powerful recluse criminal. A woman (Loren) is also trying to track him down for her own personal vendetta. Co-staring O.J.Simpson, Eli Wallach, etc. Lots of shootings and explosions within a very confusing plot - not a very good movie.
UK
1979
Sabato, domenica e lunedi
Saturday, Sunday and Monday
Wertmuller, Lina
Italy
1990
Pret-a-Porter
Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni
Altman, Robert
USA
1994
Grumpier Old Men
with Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ann-Margret
Deutch, Howard
USA
1995
Soleil
Hanin, Roger
1997
Between Strangers
Ponti, Edoardo
2002
Too Much Romance . . .
It's Time for Stuffed Peppers
Wertmuller, Lina
2004
Nine
Marshall, Rob
"In 2009, after five years off the set and fourteen years since she starred in a prominent US theatrical film, Loren starred in Rob Marshall's film version of "Nine," based on the Broadway musical. . .
Loren was Marshall's first and only choice for the role. The film also stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Kate Hudson, Marion Cotillard, and Nicole Kidman" - Wikipedia
USA
2009
TV MOVIES:
• My House Is Full of Mirrors
• Lives of the Saints
• Francesca and Nunziata
• Runnning Away
• The Fortunate Pilgrim
• Courage
• Qualxosa di blondo
• Sophia Loren: Hew Own Story
• Hallmark Hall of Fame
• Brief Encounter with Richard Burton
2010 2004 2001 1989 1988 1986 1984 1980 1974 1974
Loren (age 76) at Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences, Hollywood, May 4, 2011
Carlo Ponti and Sophia Loren at
the wedding of Carlo Ponti Jr. 2007
05-4-11
Italian actress Sophia Loren is a remarkable beauty. Although she turned 77 years old today, she hasn't lost much of her inner glow. To celebrate her birthday, take a gander back at some of her most glamorous looks from the past six decades here
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