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Tag: Carlo Ponti

  • Sophia Loren Book Reveals Bigamy Past

    When sex symbol Sophia Loren was only 15 years old, she fell in love with a man 22 years her senior. His name was Carlo Ponti, and they would eventually marry and stay married for 50 years. They had two children together. Since Ponti’s death in 2007, Loren has said that he is irreplaceable.

    But that is not all of the story about Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti. The rest of the story is that, when they were married, Ponti was still married to another woman. In fact, the couple had to have their storybook marriage annulled once to keep from being charged with bigamy.

    The trouble all came about because Carlo Ponti had indeed been married, but was no longer with his wife. However, at the time he married Loren, in 1957, Italy’s laws did not recognize divorce. Ponti and Loren had to go to France and become citizens for him to be able to finally get a legal divorce.

    The two then married again in France and remained so until Ponti’s death at the age of 94.

    This story and many like it are part of Sophia Loren’s new tell-all book, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: My Life as a Fairy Tale. In it, she talks about her love life, her childhood in poverty without a father, and the many stars she crossed paths with along her career.

    Loren’s publisher says, “Her long awaited memoir gives her many fans a glimpse of the woman who has left her mark on an era — from the challenges of growing up poor and hungry in wartime Italy to the flowering of her career and the joys of being a mother and grandmother.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Sophia Loren Tell-All Book Names Names

    Sophia Loren Tell-All Book Names Names

    Noel Coward once said that Sophia Loren should have been “sculpted in chocolate truffles so the world could devour her.”

    The Italian beauty has mesmerized men around the world for most of her 79 years. Born Sofia Villani Scicolone in Rome, Loren has long been established as a paragon of beauty. Many men have fawned over her, including the above-cited Noel Coward.

    Now Loren is telling her tale, including details about the men in her life, her years as a child in poverty, and the man she stayed married to for 50 years, Carlo Ponti.

    Her memoir is called Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: My Life as a Fairy Tale and it is due for release on December 2 of this year.

    In an interview with Vanity Fair, Loren talked about some of the items that will be brought to light in her book.

    Regarding her marriage to Carlo Ponti, a man 22 years older than her, she says, “What I wanted to have was a legitimate family, a legitimate husband, children, a family like anybody else. It was because of the experience I had with my father.”

    Her marriage lasted until Ponti’s death in 2007 and produced two children.

    Her life growing up was difficult. She says she had to be the bread-winner, and saw herself as the “father” in the home, since her own father left her mother with two children and no support.

    The New York Times tells how Loren uses “letters, photographs and memorabilia from her long career in film to introduce each chapter” of her book.

    Atria Publishing, who is releasing Loren’s memoir, says, “Her long awaited memoir gives her many fans a glimpse of the woman who has left her mark on an era — from the challenges of growing up poor and hungry in wartime Italy to the flowering of her career and the joys of being a mother and grandmother.”

    Image via Wikkimedia Commons

  • Sophia Loren to Publish Memoir of Her Life, Finally

    Sophia Loren is finally ready to tell the story of her life. And like any legendary Hollywood actress, she has quite a story to tell.

    The Oscar-winning Italian actress will publish the memoir, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: My Life as a Fairy Tale, in a deal with Atria Books, which announced the release date of the book for Dec. 2, 2014, on Thursday.

    Despite the title of her memoir, the 79-year-old actress told Vanity Fair in 2012, “My life is not a fairy tale, and it’s painful still to speak about it.”

    The legendary star will likely include the details of her rise from poverty during World War II to international stardom.

    “Her long awaited memoir gives her many fans a glimpse of the woman who has left her mark on an era — from the challenges of growing up poor and hungry in wartime Italy to the flowering of her career and the joys of being a mother and grandmother,” said the publishing company in a statement.

    The sex symbol will also share the details of her love life with some incredibly interesting men of their own accord, Cary Grant, Richard Burton and her husband, Carlo Ponti, among others.

    Writer John Cheever, who interviewed Loren in Naples in 1967 for The Saturday Evening Post, did a wonderful job of summing up the persona of Loren.

    “Here is the actress; the slum child; the chatelaine of a great villa; the beauty whose pictures, cut from magazine covers, lonely men carry around in their wallets; and the wife of Carlo Ponti. She brings all this into focus with a shake of her head She seems sincere, magnanimous, lucky, intelligent, and serene,” wrote Cheever.

    Journalist Pete Hamill, who visited her in Naples on the set of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, from which she bases the title of her memoir, wrote about the beauty.

    “Her nose is too large, her chin too small. Her feet are the biggest of any movie queen since Greta Garbo. But head her in the direction of a camera, set her Etruscan eyes dancing, and Sophia is one of the most magnificent women in the world,” wrote Hamill.

    Loren‘s movies include Marriage Italian Style, Houseboat and Two Women, which earned her an Academy Award in 1961.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons