Megastar's Birthday
On September 20, 1934, in Rome (Italy), Romilda Villani, a piano teacher, gave birth to a daughter named Sofia. The girl's father was Riccardo Scicolone, a civil engineer from a noble aristocratic family. Despite the fact that Romilda Villani had another daughter, Maria, from Riccardo Scicolone 4 years later, the parents of these two girls have never been officially married. Moreover, Riccardo Scicolone even refused to provide financial support to Romilda and her daughters. And the youngest daughter was not even allowed to take the name Scicolone. (However, this did not prevent Maria in 1962 from marrying Romano Mussolini, the youngest son of the former Italian Duce.)
But the eldest daughter was still registered at birth under the name Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone. True, Sofia, who saw her aristocrat dad only three times in her life, preferred to be called the Marchioness of Licata Scicolone Murillo. But she was able to declare openly about these preferences much later. When she gained worldwide fame under the name Sophia Loren.
It is not known what kind of school education Sofia Shikolone received, and whether she received it at all. She herself explained this by the fact that, because of the stigma of an illegitimate child, she hated going to school, where she was bullied by her classmates. However, there was another reason: from an early age she had to work as a dishwasher and waitress in a pub run by her grandmother. The pub was very popular with the soldiers of the American occupation forces. Romilda played the piano, Maria sang. That is how their family earned their living.
Sofia Shikolone's life changed dramatically at the age of 15, when she, under the name Sofia Lazzaro, took part in the beauty contest for the title "Miss Italy", in which she took second place and the title "Miss Elegance 1950". Thanks to the acquired fame, from the age of 16, she began acting in films, however, at first in episodic roles without being mentioned in the credits. Well, the experience gained in filming allowed her to enter the national film school of Italy at the age of 17.
And then the film producer Carlo Ponti, already well-known by that time in Italy, who was 22 years older than Sofia and burdened with his family, "laid eyes" on her. For several years he tried to divorce his first wife, from whom he had two children, in order to marry Sofia. But in Catholic Italy it was extremely difficult to do this. Then, after five years of fruitless attempts, Carlo and Sofia formalized a marriage in Mexico, which, however, was declared invalid in Italy, since Carlo Ponti's divorce, formalized there, was declared invalid. And then they, so that Ponti would not end up in the dock for bigamy, decided to move to the United States, where both continued their professional activities in Hollywood. Only in 1966, Ponti finally received a divorce from his first wife, and he and Sophia, who by that time had already chosen the stage name "Sophia Loren", were able to formalize their marriage. And then, for this they needed the adoption of French citizenship and the assistance of the President of France.
To date, Sophia Loren has about 90 roles in full-length feature films. However, the exact number of films with Sophia Loren's participation is unknown, since Carlo Ponti, using his considerable capabilities, made every effort to remove her early movies from free access, since most of them were explicitly erotic in nature.
Be that as it may, three films with the participation of Sophia Loren entered the Golden Thousand. Thanks to this indicator and thanks to her undoubted and generally recognized beauty and sexuality, Sophia Loren is included in the list of the 100 most beautiful and sexiest Actresses in the world cinema, compiled by FilmGourmand.
Today, in commemoration of the internationally recognized megastar, we want to remind fans of her work with shots from the best films with her participation. The reason for calling Sophia Loren a megastar is the fact that this Actress has 65 film awards, including 2 Oscars, 5 Golden Globes, British BAFTA, French Cesar, 3 Venice Film Festival, 2 Moscow Film Festival awards, one award each Berlin, Cannes, Montreal, San Sebastian international film festivals and, not surprisingly, 10 Italian David di Donatello awards. In addition to the film awards, Sophia Loren was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, the highest state award in Italy.
