From Barefoot Waif To Millionaire

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31399, 19 June 1967, Page 2

From Barefoot Waif To Millionaire

In 15 years, Sophia Loren has risen from a beauty-contest entrant to one of two female stars who can demand a million dollars a film. She has a personal fortune of nearly £3 million. Yet for both Loren, the first and most volatile of the new generation of film prima donnas, and the man behind her success, the price of fame has been higher than any money she is likely to earn.

On the sloping terraces above the 50room villa they call the most beautiful house in the world the woman they call the most beautiful girl in the world, picks the roses which twine around gnarled olive trees.

Every summer morning, when work permits, Sophia Loren takes her posy of six blooms into the house on the outskirts of Rome and arranges them on the desk of the man she loves.

He is stout, bald and twice her age, and she gladly admits that he has made her the most sought-after film actress in the world, a super-star who can demand a million dollars a film, plus a percentage of the gross. “Carlo is the foundation on which everything else is built,” she will happily tell anyone who asks the secret of her success. “He found me, and showed me my potential. He has never let me do anything in films unless I was ready for it.” The rags-to-riches story of Sophia Loren and the benign Svengali influence of Carlo Pontl is a show business fairy tale. Local Beauty All that is needed now is the happy ending—an untangling of the complex legal web which has enmeshed the pair for eight years and still makes them bigamists in Italy. Press agents have painted lurid pictures of Sophia as a

tattered hungry waif begging for food from passing soldiers as the Allies moved into Italy. “Everyone was hungry” she says, “but we did not beg, nor did we steal.” But the family was desperately poor. Sophia was so skinny that school mates called her “Stuzzicadenti—toothpick.” Yet four years later she had filled out agreeably and had become such a local beauty that her mother entered her for a “Queen of the Sea” contest organised for a carnival by a Naples press club. She did not win. but she was chosen as one of the 12 “Princesses of the Sea” and received an assortment of prizes including a roll of wallpaper, a piece of cloth and £l2 in cash. The wallpaper still graces her mother’s living room in Naples. Minor Roles It was her mother who persuaded her to enter further beauty contests. She did sporadic work as a film extra and photographers* model, appearing in magazine serial strips. One day in August, 1950, Sophia entered yet another beauty contest On the judging panel was Carlo Pont!. He was not to fall in love with her for another three years, yet he realised the moment he saw her that she had outstanding potential as an actress.

He offered to direct her career. The offer was accepted and he went to work with consummate skill. The Italian film industry was still in disarray after the war and it was hard to

imagine a worse place or time for a debut. Yet Pont! got his protege in. First, she had minor parts to build up her confidence. It says much for her personal magnetism and Ponti’s influence that the roles kept coming. For those early days her Neapolitan accent was so strong that someone else’s voice had to be dubbed in, even into films she made in Italian. Yet only three years later, she was speaking fine Italian, fluent English and good enough French to make films directly in that language. No Complaints Already she was impressing the audiences by her sultry beauty, and the technicians by her professionalism. She was always on time. Her lines were always learned, she listened attentively to advice and direction, and suffered delays without complaint. Her capacity for work was to become legendary. In a three-year burst she made 18 Italian films. Now Ponti considered her apprenticeship had been served. She was ready for international roles. In 1956, he got her a small part in the Frank SinatraCary Grant picture, "The Pride and the Passion,” and the critics proudly announced that they had the find of the year: a sex goddness to rival Bardot Months later, she was elevated to star billing—the female lead in "Boy on a Dolphin” opposite Alan Ladd. Major Coups It was a masterpiece of miscastings; the sft Bin Loren spent the outdoor scenes walking a trench so as not to tower over her diminutive leading man. It was then that Ponti, in

between producing the award winning film. “La Strada,” brought off two major coups for Sophia—the leads in "Desire under the Elms” with Tony Perkins and "Houseboat” with Cary Grant Negotiations for “Houseboat” have become film folklore. Ponti, as Loren's agent, was' summoned before an over-worked Hollywood studio executive, who barked that $200,000 was his limit for Loren’s services and he did not intend to argue. Ponti accepted. The sum was more than twice what he had expected. “Houseboat” made Loren a legend. The very sight of her made normally responsible people do highly irresponsible things. One day at Nice Airport, a crowd tore down a fence of iron palings, rushed at her car, and amid wild cheers, lifted Loren—and the car—three feet from the ground.

Happy Years These were the happy years for Loren. She was unaffectedly secure in her beauty, in love with life and with Carlo Ponti. By the autumn of 1957, Ponti and his wife. Countess Guillana Fiastri, had drifted apart Loren and Ponti went through a marriage by proxy in Mexico. But the marriage was unrecognised in Italy. It still is. "I care vety much about not being legally married in my own country,” Loren says, “but we love each other and that’s the important thing.” Friends say that the eight years of legal wrangling over the marriage have taken their toll in nervous strain. Both Ponti and Loren long for children; the two miscarriages Sophia has had have left a mental scar which will take a long time to heal.

In. the most beautiful house in the world, the sixteenth century villa resplendent with fountains and marble frescoes, and a twentieth-century swimming pool, the first and most volatile of the new generation of film queens spends all her leisure time.

She waits for the happy ending that "rags to riches" fairy-stories must always have.