„Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful.“
As quoted in The Subtlety of Emotions (2001) by Aaron Ben-Ze'ev, p. 204.
Birthdate: 20. September 1934
Other names: Sophia Lorenová, Sofia Lorenová
Sofia Villani Scicolone , known by her stage name Sophia Loren , Dame of the Grand Cross, O.M.R.I., is an Italian film actress and singer. Encouraged to enroll in acting lessons after entering a beauty pageant, Loren began her film career in 1950 at age 16. She 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. Notable film appearances around this time include The Pride and the Passion, Houseboat, and It Started in Naples.
Her talents as an actress were not recognized until her performance as Cesira in Vittorio De Sica's Two Women; Loren's performance earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1962 and made her the first actress to win an Oscar for a foreign-language performance. She holds the record for having earned six David di Donatello Awards for Best Actress: Two Women; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow; Marriage Italian Style ; Sunflower; The Voyage; and A Special Day. After starting a family in the early 1970s, Loren chose to make only occasional film appearances. In later years, she has appeared in American films such as Grumpier Old Men and Nine .
Aside from the Academy Award, she has won a Grammy Award, five special Golden Globes, a BAFTA Award, a Laurel Award, the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival, the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Honorary Academy Award in 1991. In 1995, she received the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievements, one of many such awards. In 1999, Loren was acknowledged as No. 21 of the top 25 female American screen legends in the American Film Institute's survey, AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, and she is currently the only living actress on the list.
As quoted in The Subtlety of Emotions (2001) by Aaron Ben-Ze'ev, p. 204.
As quoted in Sophia, Living and Loving: Her Own Story (1979) by A. E. Hotchner, p. 63.
As quoted in Valentines & Vitriol (1977) by Rex Reed
Context: I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now.
As quoted in Sophia, Living and Loving: Her Own Story (1979) by A. E. Hotchner, p. 76.
Context: I was blessed with a sense of my own destiny. I have never sold myself short. I have never judged myself by other people’s standards. I have always expected a great deal of myself, and if I fail, I fail myself. So failure or reversal does not bring out resentment in me because I cannot blame others for any misfortune that befalls me.
Quoted by A. E. Hotchner in Sophia, Living and Loving: Her Own Story (1979), p. 9 http://books.google.com/books?id=IBBbPUCmiNUC&q=%22I+was+born+wise+Street-wise+people-wise+self-wise+This+wisdom+was+my+birthright+I+was+also+born+old+And+illegitimate+But+the+two+big+advantages+I+had+at+birth+were+to+have+been+born+wise+and+to+have+been+born+in+poverty%22&pg=PA9#v=onepage
As quoted in Bombshell (2004) by Lynda Curnyn, p. 196.