We conclude our series of stories celebrating Sophia Loren, on the occasion of her 80th birthday, with a few clips from famous and less famous movies she starred in. In the last – moving – video below, Sophia accepts the Honorary Academy Award she received in 1991 in Los Angeles.
[You can watch a gallery of Sophia’s vintage shots here. You can see some of Sophia’s music performances here.]
The rare clip below is from the 1953 movie “Africa sotto i mari”, featuring a very young Sophia – 19 years old. Here, she is dubbed.
The video below is from the anthology film, “The Gold of Naples” (1954), directed by Vittorio De Sica. It was a tribute to Naples and was entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival.
Below is Sophia in “Two Women” (1960), the film directed by Vittorio De Sica that earned her an Oscar for Best Actress. This was the first time an acting Oscar was given for a non-English-speaking performance. Loren also won the award for Best Actress at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival and went on to win 22 international awards for this movie.
Below is the famous striptease performed for Marcello Mastroianni in “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” (1963). Directed by Vittorio De Sica, the comedy anthology film – three short stories about couples in different parts of Italy – won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Below is a clip from “Marriage Italian Style” (1964), again directed by Vittorio De Sica and co-starring Marcello Mastroianni. The film earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
Below is a clip from the comedy “The Priest’s Wife” (1971), directed by Dino Risi. Another film where Loren stars alongside Mastroianni.
Finally, here’s the moving speech Sophia gave upon accepting the Honorary Oscar in 1991. Her husband Carlo Ponti and her sons Carlo Jr. and Edoardo were in the audience.
