Sophia Loren is an Italian actress who estimated net worth is $75 million. Her real name is Sofia Villani Scicolone. She was born on September 20th, 1934, in Rome (Italy).
Early life.
She is the daughter of piano teacher and actress Romilda Villani and the architect Riccardo Scicolone, Sophia Loren was born in Rome’s Queen Margaret Clinic, but grew up in Pozzuoli near Naples during World War II with her mother and sister Anna Maria.
It is said that Sophia and her family had to move to Naples to settle in their grandmother’s house and to be able to survive, because her father disregarded them (he refused to marry her mother) and living conditions in Rome were very bad because of the World War II. They set up a tavern, frequented by US military personnel, where HER mother played the piano. Due to her natural beauty, Sophia obtained the scepter of Princess of the Sea in 1949, Mermaid of the Adriatic in 1950 and Miss Elegance in Miss Italy 1950.
Professional beginnings.
Sophia Loren began her career as an actress in the early 1950s as an actress of weekly photo revels (fotoromanzi), credited as Sofia Villani or Sofia Lazzaro. Her acting training began in Naples, and later she obtained small roles in Italian films. In those times, she acted as a role model alongside her mother in the film Quo Vadis, which was filmed in Rome.
She participated in several beauty contests, in which she won several awards and met her future husband, Carlo Ponti, a film producer with whom she married on September 17th, 1957 in Mexico. The marriage was temporarily annulled to avoid a legal suit against Ponti, accused of bigamy, and the couple remarried in 1966 in Paris.
Consecration.
Sophia’s career began to take off when she met Vittorio De Sica and Marcello Mastroianni in 1954. Like Claudia Cardinale, Gina Lollobrigida and Lucía Bosé, she was included in the group of Italian beauties that combined mischief and emotions in the nicer films of Italian Neorealism. In a way, Sophia was Anna Magnani’s counterpart, considered less beautiful and more emotional. In the second half of the 1950s, Sophia was already popular in Hollywood having portrayed female lead characters in works with Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant.
The actress signed a five-feature contract with Paramount Studios. Among her works of this period are: Desire Under the Elms, With Anthony Perkins), Pride and Passion (with Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra), Houseboat (again with Cary Grant) and Heller in Pink Tights, with Anthony Quinn and directed by George Cukor. In those years, she also filmed with other prestigious directors such as Jean Negulesco, Carol Reed, Henry Hathaway, Martin Ritt, Sidney Lumet, Michael Curtiz, etc.
Sophia Loren earned the respect of the audience for her participation in dramas and comedies, especially in Italian projects, where she could speak her native language and express herself more freely. In 1960, her performance in La Ciociara, a film directed by Vittorio de Sica according to Alberto Moravia, gave a turn to her career. She won an academy award for this performance. She was the first person to win it with a performance in a language other than English.
