For the record, let it be stated that Sophia Loren is still beautiful.
How beautiful? It is a beauty that has endured for 75 years. It is timeless.
It is also a beauty that makes you want to be a better man.
Thirty years of waiting, since my father first confessed to having a crush on her, were encapsulated into 30 minutes when I was ushered into the VIP room of the Damiani boutique, at Dubai Mall, for a meeting with Loren. The diva was here to introduce a series of one-of-a-kind masterpieces by the famed Italian jewellers.
Face-to-face encounters with movie stars can sometimes be depressing. The camera is known to exaggerate. Not so with Loren. At 75, she is every bit the icon that one can imagine.
The poise and composure that emanates from her as she holds out her hand in greeting suggests the attainment of a peace of mind. Loren is at ease with her celebrity. The Italians would explain this as lui sta vivendo una bella vita (she is living a beautiful life). Given that she possesses an opinion on almost every issue, Loren might counter it by saying la vita e'bella (life is beautiful).
‘Let yourself go'
Most journalists grapple with objectivity in her presence. It is not an unexpected phenomenon. It is best to confess that absolute detachment in her presence is impossible. To which she replies, "Tell me, is there a need to be objective? Just let yourself go... please just let yourself go."
Humans have been long trying to find a way to reverse the ageing process. They could have saved themselves the trouble, for it appears that Loren has all the answers.
"It is good to not get old," she admits, "because then you can go on with life. But for what concerns beauty I see people do things. I mean women," and with her eyebrows raised towards me she adds, "and also men, who try and change their looks completely. I don't agree with that. To be able to look well until you are old enough means that you have to take care of yourself. It is all about knowing what's good and bad for you and then putting aside what's bad."
It is sometimes difficult to imagine that Loren would one day possess the mindset of an endless achiever given her struggles early in life. Her career is littered with poignant moments and she has received universal acceptance, but the defining instance that shaped her character and laced it with steel was one of rejection. At that time she was just 15 years old.
"Let me tell you a story," she says. "Once upon a time, I was living in the countryside of Pozzuoli near the province of Naples. The wave of the war was very near to us and we had nothing to look forward to. My mother was not married to my father and she had given birth to two children — me and my younger sister.
"One day my mother told my grandmother, ‘We are going to Rome, because the father of my children is in Rome. I am going to find out about him.'
"My mother was an artist — creative and down to earth. She told me, ‘Let's go and meet your father and see what he says.' We went to meet my father, but he didn't want to see me. He had disowned us.
"That was the beginning of it all."
Deciding to stay in Rome, Loren and her mother tried to find work until they stumbled onto a movie set.
"There was a film being shot at the Cinecitta Studios in Rome. It was called Quo Vadis. My mother and me started to work for the film, in which I signed up as an extra. We were paid 35 million lira and I felt so rich. Little by little we began to find work. My life began to take shape because, fortunately for me, I met the right people who understood that I possessed a certain kind of character that enabled me to join films. This is also how I met my husband, Carlo Ponti."
Cemented position
Sixty years in the business of movies and roughly 120 films later, Loren has scaled the peaks of her profession. She is in a comfortable place today knowing that her position among her peers has been cemented forever.
"I like myself," she confesses. "I never quite cared about the judgments of the media or the people. I always liked the way I looked and I was always proud of myself just from the way people looked at me. I have the looks of a good person and have always felt secure but never in a pompous way."
For someone whose beauty will be celebrated forever, Loren is deeply grounded when discussing physical appearances. "Being beautiful doesn't bring you much if you have no soul," she states. "If you don't have a way to express yourself in an appropriate manner then people will never know what you are like inside. Beauty is a complex thing. I wouldn't like people to know me as a doll — beautiful on the outside but nothing inside."
Then leaning forward in a conspiratorial manner she says, "I have a side that I cherish very much and I seldom let people be a part of it. If people are sensitive then they know without me telling them."
Armed with such basic, but potent, principles Loren walked through the Italian film industry and then strode across Hollywood like a colossus in an era which saw the dominance of male stars. She, however, remains self-effacing about her accomplishments.
"I was around 20 years old when I went to Hollywood, but I never liked it much," she confesses.
"It was not for me. I come from a very poor country and I was raised in difficult circumstances. What I had inside me did not help me when I faced the big stars of Hollywood. I worked there, but simply to learn the language and because it was good for my curriculum vitae to work with the biggest stars in town."
Oscar success
The stint in Hollywood saw a rise in her equity and paved the way for Loren's return to Italian cinema. "There were a few good films waiting for me in Italy. They had terribly good stories and that's where I started my career," she says.
"But not before I had won two Oscars in America," she adds, a smirk playing mischievously across her lips.
Loren's experiences have built a bridge between her past and her present. It is a path she traverses back and forth on in order to map out her future but she never forgets who she is.
"I couldn't live my life any differently," she confesses. "It is impossible. I am what I am and I cannot be any other way... nobody can change me."
"But you are different," I counter. "You are Sophia Loren!"
"I am a very normal person who lives a normal life," she replies. "I always try to make from life the best thing that I can make. When I get up in the morning I feel that I am walking down a path and there is a surprise waiting for me around the corner. I still believe in fairy tales."
Having made a return to the screen with the Rob Marshall directed film titled Nine, Loren played the mother of famous film director Guido Contini (portrayed by Daniel Day Lewis), alongside a rich female star cast which included Penélope Cruz, Marion Cotillard and Nicole Kidman.Essentially categorised as a musical, Loren's role in Nine as a pampering Italian mama was short but memorable. "It is always about the role" she said when explaining her choice of a film. "You read the script and you say that you shouldn't do it because it is not you. Or there is a story that you read and a certain part of the story really touches and then you say, ‘I don't like the beginning, but I like that scene and if I do it then I am going to win it all.' Because you get good feelings... you want to go... go right away."
‘It's About the role'
Sparkling friendships
Celebrated the world over for her sophisticated tastes, especially when it comes to fashion, Sophia Loren is still capable of stopping traffic in the middle of a busy street, or sending a room full of people into hushed silence.Time and time again she has carried off the creations of some of the world's top designers with uncommon grace and composure. But some of her enduring images have been those created by legendary Italian designer Giorgio Armani, who uses clean tailored lines to accentuate Loren's form.The partnership between the designer and the diva dates back to their childhood. As Loren says, "Armani and me are good friends. I have known him since we were both ‘little' people, in every sense of the word."Today that friendship has blossomed into what Loren describes as "a marriage". She is not Armani's muse, preferring to describe their relationship as a "nice marriage that works". Loren's collaboration with Damiani is also the result of a longstanding friendship, said Giorgio Damiani, the Italian jeweller's vice-president and Loren's chaperone at the store event in Dubai on Sunday. "Sophia has always been a very good friend of the family and of the brand," he said. "The reason for the collection is very simple. Over a nice lunch, we said, ‘Why don't we create a special collection dedicated to you, the most beautiful lady in the world? An icon of Italian style.'"It was inspired by Sophia. We tried to use the pink gold, because we think it's very warm and Mediterranean, as she is. There are also diamonds, because that is part of the Damiani heritage."She's a very simple and fantastic woman — that's what makes her who she is."
