SOPHIA LOREN

Sophia Loren’s first big movie was the Biblical epic Quo Vadis in 1951 as an uncredited extra at the age of 17. By 20 however, she had already become a star in her native Italy, breaking through in Vittorio De Sica’s L’oro di Napoli and starting her long association with leading man Marcello Mastroianni in La bella mugnaia. By 1960, Loren was a major international star, renowned for her incandescent talent. In Hollywood, she starred opposite Cary Grant in Houseboat in 1958. Returning home and to De Sica, she won an Academy Award® for Best Actress as a widow and a mother in WWII Italy in Two Women, making her the first actor to win an Oscar for a performance not in the English language. Over the decades, she continued to burnish her radiance in such movies as El Cid, Boccaccio ’70, Marriage Italian Style, Arabesque, Man of La Mancha, A Special Day, Ready to Wear, and Nine. Now, still luminous at 86, she stars as a Holocaust survivor in her son Edoardo Ponti’s upcoming drama The Life Ahead. Join us as we salute this icon of the silver screen and engage her in discussion of her brilliant career.

In conversation with Pete Hammond. Special guest Edoardo Ponti.

Complimentary tickets for this special conversation are made available with the generous support of the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco.