On September 20, 2026, the legendary Sophia Loren turned 92. I met her twice: in Los Angeles, at a party hosted by her son, producer Edoardo Ponti, and in the small California town of Escondido, where she was celebrating her birthday. Wise and friendly, the actress graciously agreed to answer a few of my questions.
You lived in America, in Los Angeles, for many years. You have two Oscars: one for your performance in Two Women (1962), and the other for your lifetime achievement in cinema (1991). But you didn't attend the Academy Awards ceremony when you won your first Oscar. You stayed home in Rome. Can you tell me why?
Loren: Simply because I was convinced that if I didn't win, I would burst into tears in public out of disappointment, and everyone would remember it and laugh at me afterward. It never even occurred to me that I might win. So I stayed home. Cary Grant called us in Rome early in the morning and told us that I had won the Oscar and that the Academy was planning to hold a celebratory luncheon in my honor. My husband and I flew over immediately. After that, I returned to Hollywood many times to make films.
There was another reason, besides your film career, why you spent so many years living in Hollywood, in Beverly Hills. Your marriage to Carlo Ponti, which had taken place in Mexico, was not recognized back home in Italy.
Loren: That's true. Back home in Italy, the Church would not allow him to obtain a divorce, and our marriage was considered illegal there. Under American law, however, we were officially husband and wife. We had our own home, we could entertain guests and visit friends together without fearing condemnation or even insults, as we did back in Italy. In Italy, none of that was possible because of the strict Catholic laws. The moment we returned to Rome, we were separated.
By force?
Loren: Oh, yes! Can you imagine? Although I had expected it and didn't want to go back. We knew that the Italian newspapers had been following us, that Carlo had been formally charged with bigamy, and that the Vatican had threatened us both with excommunication. But circumstances forced us to return. The police separated us right at the airport in Rome. Carlo was escorted in handcuffs to his wife's home, while I was sent to the little apartment my mother and I had bought with my first earnings, where she was still living with my sister. And that was that! We could no longer see each other openly. If anyone spotted us together, Carlo could be sent to prison for bigamy. Can you imagine? I couldn't live with the man I loved, with my husband, for six years!
I read that your marriage was annulled.
Loren: We were forced to do it. Carlo was facing imprisonment. And we weren't merely forbidden from appearing together in public. We couldn't see each other at all. Not even on a film set. We were about to begin work on Boccaccio '70. If we hadn't decided to annul the marriage and publicly ask for forgiveness, we simply wouldn't have been given permission to make the film.
You worked with many celebrated directors, including Charlie Chaplin. But your most significant performances, in my opinion, were in Vittorio De Sica's films: The Gold of Naples, Two Women, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Marriage Italian Style, Boccaccio '70, and Sunflower.
Loren: I believe that a profound relationship must develop between a director and an actor. Think about it: during filming, there are no people closer to one another. Yes, an actor embodies the director's thoughts and feelings. But somehow those thoughts and feelings must be communicated to the actor! Vittorio could reach so deeply into my soul. I saw through his eyes and heard through his ears. It was as though he carried light in the palms of his hands and showed it to me. He was very kind, modest, and wonderfully cheerful. He never raised his voice. When he wanted to tell me something on the set, he would come close and whisper in my ear so that no one else could hear. He taught me how to work with the camera. All my little tricks I learned from him, because he himself was a magnificent actor. That was my school, the best anyone could possibly imagine. Yes, my dear Vittorio… How terrible that he left us, and so early! (Director Vittorio De Sica died of lung cancer in 1975.) And you know, he was in exactly the same situation as Carlo and I were. He, too, was denied permission to divorce in Italy and was forced to marry the woman he loved in Mexico.
I also read that when the Italian television company RAI interviewed you about winning the Oscar for Two Women, neither Carlo, the film's producer, nor Vittorio De Sica, its director, was allowed to take part in the interview. The very people who brought glory to Italian cinema were effectively banned in Italy?
Loren: Yes, it was all very serious… The things we had to endure…
But eventually everything worked out and the situation was resolved?
Loren: Yes. After Two Women received so much attention around the world, Carlo was personally invited to Paris by Prime Minister Georges Pompidou. After all, my co-star in the film was their beloved Belmondo. Carlo took advantage of the opportunity and asked Pompidou to grant French citizenship to all of us: Vittorio, his wife, Carlo, and me. Pompidou couldn't refuse him. In April 1966, I arrived in Paris, and there, at last, I could embrace Carlo without hiding from anyone. We were married, this time forever.
If the marriage problem had been resolved, why didn't you return to Italy?
Loren: Well, why do you say we didn't return? We were filming in Italy all the time. We had a home in Rome. But the thing is, I had suffered two miscarriages, and I desperately wanted to have a child. I sought help from doctors everywhere we went. I had already lost hope when someone told me about a doctor in Geneva who worked miracles. So when I became pregnant for the third time, I immediately went to see this doctor in Geneva and stayed at a hotel near his clinic. He ordered me to remain in bed for all nine months, and that's exactly what I did. I lay in my hotel room until the baby was born. Once our son arrived, naturally, we couldn't go on living in a hotel, so we bought a house. We set up a household and hired a nanny for the baby. Little by little, we adjusted to life in a foreign country. I wanted another child, and I knew that I would only be able to carry a pregnancy to term here in Geneva, with the help of my wonderful doctor. So I stayed in Geneva for several more years. And that was how, year after year, I gradually made a home for myself in this new place. I only traveled when I had to work on a film.
Newspapers at the time reported that the police in Rome raided your home and confiscated the art collection Carlo Ponti had spent his entire life assembling.
Loren: Oh, how I hate remembering that difficult time… The whole story of Carlo's trial… He had so many enemies because he was so successful. Someone in the government decided that the art collection should remain in Italy. Legal proceedings were initiated against Carlo while he was filming in Paris. The police broke into our house and took away all the paintings. Carlo was devastated. He loved his country so much. He couldn't imagine living anywhere outside Rome.
What utter nonsense! Why on earth should paintings by the Spaniard Picasso belong to Italy? And anyway, the Italians should have erected a monument to your husband, Carlo Ponti. After all, he was the one who brought Italian cinema onto the international stage, who introduced Hollywood to Italian filmmaking and made Italian directors and actors famous around the world…
Loren: Exactly. But instead of erecting a monument to him, they wanted to put him behind bars. After all that, Carlo could no longer work. He couldn't concentrate on filmmaking. He fell into a depression.
So while his latest film, A Special Day, shot in Rome and anti-fascist in its subject matter, was enjoying a triumphant run around the world and winning numerous international film awards for Italy, the authorities in Italy wanted to put him in prison?
Loren: Ah… There is a reason the Bible says that a prophet is not without honor except in his own country… Eventually, of course, all the charges against him were dropped, but only after many years! Too late!
And you weren't spared either! Your own court case dragged on for many years, although it, too, ended in your complete rehabilitation…
Loren: I spent two weeks in prison for nothing. Apparently, my business manager had made a mistake and underpaid my taxes. I didn't understand those things then, and I still don't. But I went to prison voluntarily. I believe that if a court decides I am guilty, I must abide by its decision. Because the court represents the will of the people. My people.
But surely you were terrified at the thought of going to prison?
Loren: Of course I was! My sons were already teenagers when it happened. What were they supposed to think of their mother? And what about my audiences? But nobody turned away from me. On the contrary, I think people came to love me even more.
Ten years later, you were awarded Italy's highest honor, the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. Was that Italy's way of asking your forgiveness?
Loren: It was simply good triumphing over evil. And that was probably the best thing that ever happened in my life, apart from Carlo and the children.
You visited the Soviet Union several times. In 1965, Marriage Italian Style was entered in the Fourth Moscow International Film Festival, and you and Carlo flew to the USSR to present the film. What memories do you have of that trip?
Loren: Oh, it was a wonderful trip. We spent almost all our time in the Kremlin, and everything there was incredibly beautiful, glittering with gold. But the real gold was in the hearts of the people. Nowhere else was I welcomed so warmly! One day, I asked to be taken to pay my respects at the grave of the great writer Chekhov. I brought flowers to his grave and stood there for a long time, lost in thought. I was moved to tears.
And in 1970, you came to Moscow to film Sunflower.
Loren: Oh, that trip was an enormous event for me. According to the screenplay, I was supposed to walk through the streets of Moscow looking sad, because I had come to search for my husband's grave. But I simply couldn't manage to look sad! There was so much beauty and so much to see, and the people were so friendly. I felt completely at home. I remember filming in the Moscow Metro and being amazed by its architecture. And I also remember walking for a long time across Red Square, alongside the long queue of people waiting to visit Lenin's Mausoleum.
After that visit, the Soviet press wrote extensively about you. The release of Sunflower was a major event in the USSR. Soviet women rushed to copy your makeup and sew themselves short, warm cardigans like the one your character wore. I also remember my mother telling me a story about your mother. She wanted you to become an actress so badly that she kept taking you to beauty contests. Each time, you were rejected, and people told you that your lips looked like a frog's. But she refused to give up. Eventually, everyone recognized your beauty, and you were allowed to enter a beauty contest in Naples. For us little Soviet girls, it was such an inspiring story. Something like The Ugly Duckling. Later, however, I read that it was actually Carlo who fell in love with you at first sight and persuaded the organizers to let you enter the competition. Which version is true?
Loren: Both stories are true. My mother really did dream of making me an actress. She herself had never been able to become one. My father abandoned us and left us without any means of support, so she had no chance to pursue a film career. That is why she did everything she could to help me. She considered me an absolute beauty, even though, as a child, I was so skinny and unattractive that the children at school teased me and called me "Toothpick." And yes, I really was refused entry to the beauty contest in Naples. By their standards, I wasn't pretty enough. As for the frog lips, yes, I heard that sort of thing all my life. People kept telling me there was something wrong with my face: my nose, my lips, my neck, my eyes. They insisted that I needed plastic surgery. And in Naples… yes… after they turned us away, my mother and I sat down at a table in a café. We were terribly upset, and we were crying. Carlo happened to be there. He asked why we were crying. My mother explained that I hadn't been accepted into the contest. He laughed and said, "Don't cry, signora. Your daughter will be in the competition." And he walked away. A few minutes later, some people came running to find us. They rushed me into the dressing room and then took me to try on dresses. Well, you know the rest.
Your son Carlo Jr., a symphony conductor, has visited Russia many times and worked with Russian orchestras, including the Russian National Orchestra, with which you also collaborated when you narrated Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.
Loren: Yes. Although I didn't travel to Moscow on that occasion. They recorded me in my home studio in Geneva. But it was a wonderful project!
You're often asked about your leading men, too. The list is certainly impressive: Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Richard Burton, Paul Newman, Maurice Chevalier, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, Omar Sharif. All irresistible leading men, the sex symbols of their era. But I get the impression that the only actor with whom you were truly close in spirit was Marcello Mastroianni.
Loren: That's true. We were like brother and sister. You could say we went through life hand in hand. Forty years, can you imagine? Forty years of working together. He was an angel who visited this earth. Sadly, not for long.
People are constantly asking whether you had romances with your co-stars. Supposedly Cary Grant divorced his wife to be with you. Then there was Peter Sellers… I'm sure these are typical Hollywood rumors!
Loren: I never had a romance with any of my colleagues, neither actors nor directors. All these stories make me laugh. Yes, there were occasions when my leading men fell in love with me, when they lost their heads over me. But that wasn't my fault. I never gave anyone the slightest encouragement. No one could ever have taken me away from my Carlo. He was my one and only love. My conscience is clear before everyone.