Sophia Loren is an Academy Award-winning Italian actress. A striking beauty, Loren is often listed among the world’s all time most attractive women.
Italian actress Sophia Loren was born in Rome on September 20, 1934. Raised in poverty, she began her film career in 1951 and came to be regarded as one of the worlds most beautiful women. Loren won the Best Actress Academy Award for the film Two Women in 1961 and an Academy Honorary Award in 1991. Married to producer Carlo Ponti for 50 years until his death in 2007, Loren lives in Geneva, Switzerland.
In 1957, Loren starred in her first Hollywood film, The Pride and the Passion, filmed in Paris and costarring Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra. At the same time, she became enmeshed in a love triangle when both Grant and an Italian film producer named Carlo Ponti declared their love for her. Although she had a schoolgirl’s crush on Grant, Loren ultimately chose Ponti, a man the media joked was twice her age and half her height.
Even though they married in 1957, complications regarding the annulment of Ponti’s first marriage prevented their union from being officially legally recognized in Italy for another decade. Loren and Ponti’s marriage nevertheless remains one of the rare, heartwarming success stories among celebrity relationships. They remained happily married for 50 years until Ponti’s death in 2007. According to Loren, the secret to their relationship was maintaining a low profile despite their celebrity status. “Show business is what we do, not what we are,” she said.
In 1960, Sophia Loren turned in the most acclaimed performance of her career in the Italian World War II film Two Women. In a film with parallels to her own childhood, Loren played a mother desperately trying to provide for her daughter in war-ravaged Rome. The film transformed Loren into an international celebrity, winning her the 1961 Academy Award for Best Lead Actress. She was the first actress ever to win the award for a non-English-language film.
Throughout the 1960s, Loren continued to star in Italian, American and French films, cementing her status as one of the great international movie stars of her generation. Her most notable 1960s performances include Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (1963), which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, Marriage, Italian Style (1964), for which she earned another Oscar nomination for Best Actress, and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), costarring Marlon Brando.
