She's a natural, in more ways than one. First, the acting. From her lead debut in 1952, she showed she could be both funny and tragic, sexy and maternal. She would always pick films that were right for her age and her mood. In 1961 she won the first Oscar ever given for a performance in a foreign-language film for her role in La Ciociara (Two Women). Watch her flirt with Marcello Mastroianni in Prt--Porter (1994). Sophia, then almost 60, undresses in front of him as she did in Ieri, Oggi, Domani (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, 1963). An ironic, friendly, nostalgic striptease. Only Sophia could pull that off.
To be beautiful, of course, helps. Signora Loren was lucky. She had naturally what many today seek through surgery: full lips, an imperial bosom, perfect shapely legs. You understand why Cary Grant asked her to marry him (turned down) and heads still turn when la bella Sophia is around (including mine, when I once interviewed her). She has other strengths. She picked the right husband her Pygmalion and producer Carlo Ponti and kept him. She takes good care of her two sons.
And, most important, she never forgot her roots: in Italy, more precisely Rome and Naples, the cities where she grew up and first made it. But she also is grateful to America, the country that transformed her into an icon. What she doesn't like in the U.S., she told me, are movie houses. "Popcorn is too noisy. I hate that."
is a columnist and writer. His latest book is called La Bella Figura A Field Guide to the Italian Mind