Sophia Loren – 79

(September 20, 1934)

The most beautiful woman in the world! – Kat’s opinion.  Her grace, her charm, her style, her disarming honesty, her outspoken views on mature beauty, and her oft declared most cherished role – that of the mother of her children – all of these mold this timeless teacher of true beauty into a classic role model.

Sophia Loren personifies our Love Your Life Now, Step 5: ADORN – the wisdom and commitment to drape ourselves with pleasing attire and attitude that makes us ooze with contentment and confidence.

This is her conviction: “Mature beauty is very different than youthful beauty.  It demands a different approach.  Youthful beauty is ‘dewy cheeked and made up to disguise an imperfect nose.’  Mature beauty is knowing and sophisticated.  It admits to effort.  It is also much richer and more complex. … I’m convinced that nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is so” (Women & Beauty, 1986).

Does she love her life NOW?  In her own words: “I always wake up early and jump out of bed—sometimes not wanting to, because one can always find an alibi not to exercise—and then I take a walk for an hour.  And as I walk round the park I always think, ‘Maybe round the corner I am going to find something beautiful.’  I always think positively.  It is very rare that you find me in a mood that is sad or melancholic.”

Little Sophia learned the harsh rules of poverty as a child, living with her mother and her grandparents.  She shared a bedroom with eight people.  World War II bombs ravaged her struggling village of Pozzuoli.  She lived in famine – her mother resorted to capturing water from the car radiator and rationed it by the spoonful.  Bomb shrapnel flattened little Sophia and split open her chin with a scar she bears today.  Her sickly physique earned her the nickname “little stick.”

At 14, everything blossomed, and the beauty we know today emerged.  The war was over, and the family opened a pub in their living room, popular with American GIs.  Sophia waited tables and washed dishes.  Fate changed at age 17 when she landed her first acting job, an extra in Quo Vadis (1951), then Hollywood, and over 100 movies.

Through it all, she has kept her style, poise, savoir-faire, and incandescence.

Good news: Sophia Loren has a film comeback due out soon, in an Italian adaptation of Jean Cocteau’s 1930 play The Human Voice (La Voce Umana) which charts the breakdown of a woman who is left by her lover – with her youngest son, Edoardo Ponti, as director.  Filming purportedly took under a month during July 2013 in various locations in Italy including Rome and Naples.  It will be Loren’s first significant feature film since the 2009 film – Nine.

We welcome our stunning Sophia Loren back to the silver screen!

Please leave us your comments about Sophia Loren, and please give us suggestions of names of women in their 50’s who exemplify loving life now.