Sophia Loren born 20 September 1934

Sofia Villani Scicolone (born 20 September 1934), known by her stage name Sophia Loren, Dame of the Grand Cross, O.M.R.I., is an Academy Award-winning Italian actress and singer. A striking beauty, Loren is often listed among the world's all time most attractive women. In a long career spanning six decades, the Italian actress has appeared in at least 60 movies.

Sofia Loren was born in Rome, Italy. Her father, Riccardo Scicolone spent most of his time hanging around the fringes of show business, hoping to romance young actresses. Sophia Loren's mother, Romilda Villani, was one of them. Bearing an uncanny resemblance to Greta Garbo, Villani had once been offered a trip to the United States to play Garbo's body double, but her mother refused to let her go.

After Sophia Loren's birth, her mother took her back to her hometown of Pozzuoli on the Bay of Naples, which one travel book described as "perhaps the most squalid city in Italy." Although Riccardo Scicolone fathered another child by Villani, they never married.

A quiet and reserved child, Loren grew up in extreme poverty, living with her mother and many other relatives at her grandparents' home, where she shared a bedroom with eight people. Things got worse when World War II ravaged the already struggling city of Pozzuoli. The resulting famine was so great that Loren's mother occasionally had to siphon off a cup of water from the car radiator to ration between her daughters by the spoonful. During one aerial bombardment, Loren was knocked to the ground and split open her chin, leaving a scar that has remained ever since.

Nicknamed "little stick" by her classmates for her sickly physique, at the age of 14 Loren blossomed, seemingly overnight, from a frail child into a beautiful and voluptuous woman. That same year, Loren won second place in a beauty competition, receiving as her prize a small sum of cash and free wallpaper for her grandparents' living room.

In 1950, when she was 15 years old, Loren and her mother set off for Rome to try to make their living as actresses. Loren landed her first role as an extra in the 1951 Mervyn LeRoy film Quo Vadis. She also landed work as a model for various fumetti, Italian publications that resemble comic books but with real photographs instead of illustrations.

After various bit parts and a small role in the 1952 film La Favorita, the first for which she adopted the stage name "Loren," she delivered her breakthrough performance as the title character in the 1953 film Aida. Another leading role in The Gold of Naples (1954) established Loren as one of the up-and-coming stars of Italian cinema.

In 1957, Loren starred in her first Hollywood film, The Pride and the Passion, filmed in Paris and co-starring 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, heart-warming success stories among celebrity relationships. They remained happily married until Ponti's death in 2007.

Loren was not naturally a singer or musical star, but Loren followers should recall that she began, in the hungry years, with two 1952-53 films drawn from Italian opera, Favorita and Aida. She began singing custom popster material in 1954 with "Mambo bacan" in River Girl, and over this decade she commuted between Paramount, Cinecitta, Fox and Metro where important film composers and pop songwriters customized the Sophia soundtracks.

                             

Throughout her career, Sophia Loren has recorded more than two dozen songs. A tune she made famous is Bing! Bang! Bong!, which she sang in the 1958 film “Houseboat”, co-starring Cary Grant. In the 1960 film “It Started in Naples”, she famously sings “Tu vuò fa' l’americano”, giving a hilarious performance. And who can forget the novelty songs with Peter Sellers from Millionairess such as “Goodness Gracious Me" which was a top 5 UK single in 1960

Elvis & Sophia 1959

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.

Sophia Loren moved back to her native Italy during the 1970s and spent most of the decade making highly popular Italian films. She had given birth to two sons, Carlo Hubert Leone Ponti, Jr. (born December 29, 1968) and Edoardo (born January 6, 1973), and during the 1980s she backed off her intense filming schedule to spend more time raising her teenage children.

Loren also expanded into other business ventures. In 1981 she became the first female celebrity to release her own perfume, following up with a personal eyewear line shortly thereafter. Loren published a book, Women and Beauty, in 1994. She continues to act and appear frequently in public as one of the film industry's greatest living legends. Some of her more popular and acclaimed later films include Prêt-à-Porter (1994), Grumpier Old Men (1995) and Nine (2009).

Loren retains her youthful energy and age-defying hourglass physique. Although now a resident of geneva, Switzerland, she still can be seen strutting down the red carpet into award shows, looking fabulous in high heels and low-cut dresses that women several decades her junior would be happy to pull off. However, after more than 100 films and five decades in the spotlight, Loren remains true to her humble Italian roots.

(Edited mainly from Biography.com)