Carlo Ponti helped launch the career of his wife, international film star Sophia Loren.
28 Facts About Carlo Ponti
2.
Carlo Ponti won the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film for La Strada and was nominated for Best Picture for producing Doctor Zhivago.
3.
Carlo Ponti joined his father's law firm in Milan and became involved in the film business through negotiating contracts.
4.
Carlo Ponti attempted to establish a film industry in Milan in 1940 and produced Mario Soldati's Piccolo mondo antico there, starring Alida Valli, in her first notable role.
5.
Carlo Ponti accepted an offer from Riccardo Gualino's Lux Film in Rome in 1941.
6.
Carlo Ponti made Giacomo the Idealist, A Yank in Rome, To Live in Peace, The White Primrose, Prelude to Madness andHey Boy.
7.
Carlo Ponti produced some films starring Gina Lollobrigida: Alarm Bells, The White Line, A Dog's Life.
8.
Carlo Ponti's Favourite Husband was a British-Italian co production with Jean Kent.
9.
Carlo Ponti alternated this with more serious material such as Europe '51 from Roberto Rossellini, Brothers of Italy, Lieutenant Giorgio, and Easy Years.
10.
In 1954 Carlo Ponti had his greatest artistic success with the production of Federico Fellini's La strada.
11.
Carlo Ponti continued to produce smaller movies for the Italian market such as The Railroad Man, and Guendalina, but his focus was increasingly on bigger budgeted films aimed at the international Market starring Loren: The Black Orchid with Anthony Quinn, That Kind of Woman with Tab Hunter, Heller in Pink Tights with Quinn again, A Breath of Scandal with John Gavin.
12.
Carlo Ponti produced a series of movies in France: Lola starred Anouk Aimee, A Woman Is a Woman directed by Jean-Luc Goddard, Leon Morin, Priest from Jean Paul Melville starring Jean Paul Belmondo, Cleo from 5 to 7 from Agnes Varda, Le Doulos with Belmondo, Landru, plus The Carabineers and Contempt from Goddard.
13.
Carlo Ponti continued to make movies in Italy, notably Boccaccio '70, Redhead, The Empty Canvas, Break Up and two with Loren, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and Marriage Italian Style.
14.
Carlo Ponti made The 10th Victim, and some films for Paramount, Smashing Time Diamonds for Breakfast.
15.
Carlo Ponti subsequently cast her in films such as Anna.
16.
Five years later, Carlo Ponti obtained a Mexican divorce from his first wife and married Sophia Loren by proxy.
17.
Carlo Ponti co-produced several films in Hollywood starring Loren, establishing her fame.
18.
In 1962, they had the marriage annulled, after which Carlo Ponti arranged with his first wife, Giuliana, that the three of them move to France and become French citizens.
19.
In 1965, Giuliana Carlo Ponti divorced her husband, allowing Carlo Ponti to marry Loren in 1966 in a civil wedding in Sevres.
20.
Carlo Ponti was tried in absentia in 1979 for smuggling money and works of art abroad, fined 22 billion lire, and sentenced to four years in prison.
21.
Carlo Ponti did not attend the hearing, as his French nationality made him immune from extradition.
22.
Carlo Ponti was finally cleared of the charges in 1990.
23.
Carlo Ponti owned works by, among others, Picasso, Georges Braque, Renoir, Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Giorgio de Chirico and Canaletto.
24.
Carlo Ponti's collection was renowned for containing ten works by Francis Bacon.
25.
When Carlo Ponti reached a deal with the Italian government and was cleared of the charges brought against him in 1990, he regained possession of 230 confiscated paintings.
26.
In 2006 two Bacon paintings that had previously been in the Carlo Ponti collection were exhibited in an exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in London.
27.
Carlo Ponti died in Geneva, Switzerland, from pulmonary complications on 10 January 2007.
28.
Carlo Ponti's body rests in the family tomb in Magenta, Lombardy.