1. Sophia Loren appeared in several bit parts and minor roles in the early part of the decade, until her five-picture contract with Paramount in 1956 launched her international career.
49 Facts About Sophia Loren
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Sophia Loren holds the record for having earned seven David di Donatello Awards for Best Actress: Two Women; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow ; Marriage Italian Style ; Sunflower ; The Voyage ; A Special Day and The Life Ahead.
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Sophia Loren has won five special Golden Globes, a BAFTA Award, a Laurel Award, a Grammy Award, the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival and the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival.
4.
At the start of the 1980s, Sophia Loren chose to make rarer film appearances.
5.
Sophia Loren was appointed Knight of the Legion of Honour in France in July 1991, and Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in June 1996.
6.
Sophia Loren's mother was a piano teacher and aspiring actress, her father a failed engineer who worked temporarily for the national railway Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane.
7.
Sophia Loren's father refused to marry her mother, leaving her without financial support.
8.
Sophia Loren met her father three times, at age five, age seventeen and in 1976 at his deathbed, stating that she forgave him but had never forgotten his abandonment of her mother.
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Sophia Loren's parents had another child together, her sister Maria, in 1938.
10.
When Sophia Loren became successful, she paid her father in order to have her sister Maria take the Scicolone last name.
11.
Romilda played the piano, Maria sang, and Sophia Loren waited on tables and washed dishes.
12.
Sophia Loren was selected as one of the last three finalists and won the title of Miss Elegance 1950, while Liliana Cardinale won the title of Miss Cinema and Anna Maria Bugliari won the grand title of Miss Italia.
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Sophia Loren returned in 2001 as president of the jury for the 61st edition of the pageant.
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In 2010, Sophia Loren crowned the 71st Miss Italia pageant winner.
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That same year, Sophia Loren appeared in the Italian film Era lui.
16.
Carlo Ponti changed her name and public image to appeal to a wider audience as Sophia Loren, being a twist on the name of the Swedish actress Marta Toren and suggested by Goffredo Lombardo.
17.
Sophia Loren's first starring role was in Aida, for which she received critical acclaim.
18.
Too Bad She's Bad, released in 1954, and La Bella Mugnaia became the first of many films in which Sophia Loren co-starred with Marcello Mastroianni.
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Sophia Loren became an international film star following her five-picture contract with Paramount Pictures in 1958.
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In 1960, Sophia Loren starred in Vittorio De Sica's Two Women, a stark, gritty story of a mother who is trying to protect her 12-year-old daughter in war-torn Italy.
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Originally cast as the daughter, Sophia Loren fought against type and was eventually cast as the mother.
22.
Sophia Loren's performance earned her many awards, including the Cannes Film Festival's best performance prize, and an Academy Award for Best Actress, the first major Academy Award for a non-English-language performance or to an Italian actress.
23.
Sophia Loren appeared in fewer movies after becoming a mother in 1968.
24.
Sophia Loren co-starred with Marcello Mastroianni again in Ettore Scola's A Special Day.
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Sophia Loren's performance was awarded with a David di Donatello Award, the seventh in her career.
26.
Sophia Loren acted infrequently during the 1980s, preferring to devote more time to raising her sons.
27.
Sophia Loren played the title role in the 1984 TV movie Aurora, in which she acted alongside her 11-year-old real-life son Edoardo Ponti.
28.
Sophia Loren has recorded more than two dozen songs throughout her career, including a best-selling album of comedic songs with Peter Sellers; reportedly, she had to fend off his romantic advances.
29.
Sophia Loren has made it clear to numerous biographers that Sellers's affections were reciprocated only platonically.
30.
Sophia Loren presented Federico Fellini with his honorary Oscar in April 1993.
31.
In 2009, Sophia Loren stated on Larry King Live that Fellini had planned to direct her in a film shortly before his death in 1993.
32.
Sophia Loren received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in Robert Altman's film Ready to Wear, co-starring Julia Roberts.
33.
In Grumpier Old Men, Sophia Loren played a femme fatale opposite Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, and Ann-Margret.
34.
In 2001, Sophia Loren received a Special Grand Prix of the Americas Award at the Montreal World Film Festival for her body of work.
35.
Sophia Loren filmed two projects in Canada during this time: the independent film Between Strangers, directed by her son Edoardo and co-starring Mira Sorvino, and the television miniseries Lives of the Saints.
36.
In 2009, after five years off the set and 14 years since she starred in a prominent US theatrical film, Sophia Loren starred in Rob Marshall's film version of Nine, based on the Broadway musical that tells the story of a director whose midlife crisis causes him to struggle to complete his latest film; he is forced to balance the influences of numerous formative women in his life, including his deceased mother.
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Sophia Loren was Marshall's first and only choice for the role.
38.
In 2010, Sophia Loren played her own mother in a two-part Italian television miniseries about her early life, directed by Vittorio Sindoni with Margareth Made as Sophia Loren, entitled La mia casa e piena di specchi, based on the memoir by her sister Maria.
39.
Sophia Loren returned to feature-length film, as Holocaust survivor Madame Rosa, in Ponti's 2020 feature film The Life Ahead.
40.
On 16 November 2017, Sophia Loren received a star at Almeria Walk of Fame in Spain for her work on White Sister.
41.
Sophia Loren had recently posed for the 2007 Pirelli Calendar.
42.
Sophia Loren revealed that fellow actor Richard Burton was furious with her for cheating at Scrabble.
43.
On 24 September 2023, Sophia Loren received emergency surgery following fractures to her hip and femur sustained from a fall at her home in Switzerland.
44.
Sophia Loren first met Carlo Ponti in 1950, when she was 15 and he was 37, and they soon began an affair.
45.
Since divorce was not permitted in Italian law at the time, Ponti was not legally divorced from his wife, Giuliana Fiastri, when Sophia Loren married him by proxy in Mexico on 17 September 1957.
46.
Grant hoped to resume the relationship, but Sophia Loren decided to marry Carlo Ponti instead.
47.
In 1982, while in Italy, Sophia Loren made headlines after serving 17 days in prison on tax evasion charges.
48.
Sophia Loren said her accountant had made a mistake on her tax return.
49.
In September 1999, Sophia Loren filed a lawsuit against 79 adult websites for posting altered nude photos of her on the internet.