Sophia Loren, born Sofia Villani Scicolone on September 20, 1934, in Rome, Italy, is an Italian film actress who rose from humble beginnings in postwar Naples to become widely regarded as one of the country’s most beautiful women and its most famous movie star. Her first film role was as an extra in the American production of “Quo Vadis?” (1951), where she was one of many slave girls. Scicolone was transformed into Sophia Loren under the tutelage of producer Carlo Ponti, who later became her husband. Her career began with a series of low-budget comedies before she gained critical and popular attention with “Aida” (1953), in which she lip-synced Renata Tebaldi’s singing in the title role.

Loren was nominated for a second Academy Award in 1965 for her performance in “Marriage, Italian Style,” opposite Marcello Mastroianni. Such exposure undoubtedly helped her win an Academy Award for best actress in “Two Woman” (1960), making her the first actor to win an Oscar for a non-English language role. Two other De Sica films featured her comedic talents and paired her with another Italian film icon, Marcello Mastroianni: “Leri, Oggi, Domani” (1963, “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”) which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Her best late-career performance, again with Mastroianni, was for director Ettore Scola in “Una Giornata particolare” (1977, “A Special Day”). Loren’s subsequent work included the television film “Courage” (1986), as well as the feature films “Prêt-à-Porter” (1994), directed by Robert Altman, and “Nine” (2009). Loren was the first female celebrity to launch her own perfume, ‘Sophia,’ in 1981, and a line of eyewear soon followed.

Loren met her husband, Carlo Ponti when she was 15 and he was 37. They wed but had to annul the marriage since Ponti was not legally divorced from his wife. They, however, continued to live together, and in 1965, they became French citizens after their application was approved. Ponti then obtained a divorce allowing him to marry Loren on 9 April 1966 and the couple remained together until Ponti died in 2007. The couple had two sons and today Loren is a grandmother of four.