Acting legend Sophia Loren comes to The Grand 1894 Opera House in Galveston.
Hollywood legend talks about love, aging and family
Sophia Loren has been called a living goddess.
For decades, she has dazzled fans with her big-screen performances, her bold, graceful walk and her ethereal beauty. At 83, Loren is still an enigma, and questions about her choices, including marrying producer Carlo Ponti, 22 years her senior and 4 inches shorter, over the debonair actor Cary Grant, always come into play. She and Ponti, who died in 2007, were married for more than 40 years and had two sons.
The Oscar-winning actress will talk about her life and career at An Evening With Sophia Loren at 4 p.m. Sunday at The Grand 1894 Opera House in Galveston. The event was rescheduled from November because of Hurricane Irma on the East Coast. She’ll be interviewed onstage by former “Entertainment Tonight” host Bill Harris.
Born in Rome into poverty and raised by a single, unwed mother, Loren, at 5 feet 9 inches tall, entered a beauty pageant at 16. She was a finalist and ended up taking acting classes. Her first film was in 1951 as an uncredited extra. In 1960, her performance as a mother trying to protect her 12-year-old daughter in war-torn Italy in Vittorio De Sica’s “Two Women” earned her the Academy Award for best actress. “Before I made “Two Women,” I was a performer. Afterward, I was an actress,” she once said.
Loren went on to star in many more U.S. and foreign films, though she continued to fight against stereotypes in Hollywood. She told Vanity Fair in 2012 that Italians “were either waiters or gangsters. All they saw was a foreign actress. They tried to change me.”
The resilient Loren has continued to work as other actors her age have settled into retirement. An Evening With Sophia Loren is a fitting example.
Loren talked with the Houston Chronicle about her life, loves and her secret to aging so gracefully.
Q: Why did you want to do An Evening With Sophia Loren tour in the U.S. now?
A: I’ve spent my whole career behind the camera, and this is a wonderful way to meet my fans in person. I love the energy and love I feel from the stage.
Q: You’ve been called beautiful all of your life. Do you ever get tired of it, or was it ever a burden?
A: I am so blessed, but of course I never get tired of it. Was it ever a burden? Only when that is all a person sees in you.
Q: When did you know you were a star?
A: I just wanted to always act. It takes years to know that you are a star. Maybe I knew only when my mother said I was.
Q: What are your thoughts on aging in Hollywood and for actresses, in particular?
A: Life is life. Enjoy your time here, and aging is part of that time. So enjoy it, too. Take care of yourself.
Q: You have said happiness is your secret to aging. You’ve also said you owe how you look to spaghetti. Many of us eat spaghetti and don’t look like you! Any advice for aging gracefully?
A: What’s going to happen will happen, but your happiness is up to you. And that affects everything.
Q: What do you think about the #MeToo movement happening in Hollywood and around the world?
A: I am happy that women are taking themselves more seriously. No one should be taken advantage of. I never let that happen to me.
Q: Anything you wish you could do over?
A: Why? I love my life.
Q: How does it feel to have outlived so many of the Hollywood legends, such as Cary Grant, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton and Frank Sinatra?
A: I miss my friends and husband every day. And again, I’m very lucky. To have my health and family are everything.
Q: Yours is truly a rags-to-riches story. Do memories of the poverty and war of your childhood ever come up today?
A: My childhood always follows me to this day, but the memories do fade away, and I have a lot to be thankful for.
Q: What lessons do you want your sons and grandchildren to know about your life and who you are?
A: That they are what makes my life worthwhile.
Q: You were married for 40-plus years to Carlo Ponti. What was the secret?
A: No secret. It was love at first sight for both of us. We genuinely loved each other.
Q: What would your mother say about you and your life today? What would Carlo say?
A: My mother would say that I deserved everything I have. And she was proud of me. My Carlo would just smile. Q: What brings you joy? A: My family.