Ageless beauty
JANARDHAN ROYE
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Sophia Loren's appearance in the 2007 Pirelli calendar is a tribute to a gutsy lady.
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TO be asked to pose in the prestigious pin-up calendar brought out by the Italian tyre-maker, Pirelli, is a great honour. It is doubly so when you are told you will be placed alongside the likes of the current heartthrobs Naomi Watts, Penelope Cruz, Lou Doillon and Hilary Swank, specially when you are pushing 72!
Tricky decision
For Sophia Loren, to take that decision — to pose or not — was tricky. "When they asked me to do it, I laughed a lot at first," says the gutsy lady. "I was a bit scared and asked lots of questions — what sort of photos would they be? But then I thought, `who cares? I'm doing it'."
The company sees the "art" calendar as more than a promotional tool. It is touted as a celebration of feminine beauty. That thinking pervades the previous 40 issues of the iconic calendar. The producers claim that the calendars are the coming together of "world-class photography, creativity, fashion, style and design".
The publication was launched at a glittering ceremony in Battersea Evolution Park, London last November. It has 26 black-and-white portraits shot in California by Dutch fashion photographers Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. The present edition seems to be a departure from Pirelli's stunning pin-ups of some of the world's most sensual women. The 2006 calendar featuring Kate Moss created a sensation when it was released. For the 2007 edition, Sophia Loren fought off challengers such as Cameron Diaz, Catherine Zeta Jones and Charlotte Church. Interestingly enough, she is featured in five of the 24 pictures that comprise the 2007 calendar — more often than any of other models.
Eventful life
This is a tribute to the gutsy lady who has beaten the odds on several occasions in her eventful life — right from a difficult birth to abject poverty and to incredible success in cinema, and fame and fortune. Of her "ageless beauty", she has said, "There is a fountain of youth. It is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age."
Sophia Loren was born and raised in Pozzuoli, Naples. At 14, she won one of the 12 beauty contest titles in which she participated. A little later, her mother enrolled her in an acting school and she got a break as an extra in movies including as a slave girl in Mervyn Le Roy's "Quo Vadis" (1951).
During a Miss Rome beauty contest, one of the judges, Italian filmmaker Carlo Ponti, noticed her and gave her a film test. She flunked the test. But Ponti saw her potential and gave her the lead in the film version of Verdi's opera "Aida". Though Sophia's singing voice was really that of opera singer, Renata Tebaldi, "Aida" was a run-away success and launched the young Neapolitan.
"Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself," she wrote. That faith in herself and that inner drive led Sophia to learn English and get ahead. She studied under linguist Sarah Spain and prepared herself for Hollywood roles.
Various roles
In 1957, she acted in a number of films: Director Vittorio de Sica's "The Gold of Naples". De Sica was to recognise Sophia's love of acting, originality, and "explosive passion" and give her many film roles. Stanley Kramer cast her in the Napoleonic adventure drama, "The Pride and the Passion". Her "flamenco" dance and Ravel's "Bolero" were the saving graces of this long, dull movie, which even Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra couldn't save. During the shooting of the movie, Grant fell in love with the raven-haired beauty.
In Jean Negulesoo's "Boy on a Dolphin" (1956) with Alan Ladd, Sophia Loren played a poor sponge diver on a Grecian island. This was followed by Henry Hathaway's adventure saga "Legend of the Lost" (1957) with John Wayne and Rosanno Brazzi, a highly forgettable film except for Jack Cardiff's splendid cinematography.
Hollywood career
Under contract with Columbia, she did Melville Shavelson's smash hit "Houseboat" (1958), opposite Cary Grant, who proposed to her but she preferred to concentrate on her career: Carol Reed's "The Key" (1958) with William Holden, Melville Shavelson's "It Started in Naples" (1960) with Clark Gable, Anthony Asquith's "The Millionairess" (1961) with Peter Sellers, and Martin Ritt's "The Black Orchid" (1959) and George Cukor's "Heller in Pink Tights" (1960).
In 1960 Sophia participated in the Venice Film Festival, where she was named Best Actress for "The Black Orchid". She won an Oscar for de Sica's "Two Women" (1988). She was the first Italian actress to win the Best Actress award for a foreign film. In between her film career, Sophia has written several books, including Sophia: Living and Loving, Her Own Story, Women and Beauty, Eat with Me, and Ricordi e ricette.
Success story
Today Sophia Loren is one of the phenomenal success stories of the movies. With more than 100 films in a career spanning 50 years, she has received many accolades and honours including the Oscar for Lifetime Achievements, People Magazine award as "one of the world's most stunning and age resistant women". Recently Time magazine named her "The world's most beautiful woman". Of these awards and recognition, she says, "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."
When George Clooney was named the "sexiest man alive" by People magazine in November, the 45-year-old actor said that his celebrity dream date is Sophia Loren. "She's unbelievably beautiful, unbelievably fun." High praise for a lovely lady who continues to inspire women to relentlessly pursue their dreams and to remind them that age is only a state of mind.
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