Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: My Life by Sophia Loren

Author:Sophia Loren [Loren, Sophia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Actress, Movie Star, Nonfiction, Personal Memoir, Retail
ISBN: 9781476797427
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2014-11-04T05:00:00+00:00

FROM ROMAGNA TO BRECHT

Faith, faith . . . It almost sounds like a password. In time I learned that the real challenge in our job, and maybe not just in ours, lies in transforming other people’s faith in us into self-confidence, self-esteem, a belief in ourselves and our abilities. That’s where the experience begins, the moment you start believing in yourself, and you treasure both your successes and your mistakes.

That moment for me came in Two Women. After doing Cesira, I felt ready to handle practically any role. It was that success, a personal one before being a public one, that started a very intense decade, in which I was a recognized actress, and would ultimately become a wife and mother, too.

It was the Fabulous Sixties, which were to change the world forever. The years of the Beatles and JFK, of 81/2 and James Bond, of the popularity of nightclubs and the nonviolent protests of Martin Luther King, Jr. I was often working on several fronts, on the international scene, but, also, whenever I had the chance to, I’d go back to playing Italian characters, in whom I could be myself completely.

Before appearing with Marcello again on the set of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, I traveled in time and space, adapting to very different worlds. After playing the part of Jimena next to Charlton Heston in El Cid, a sort of “Superwestern” in costume, I played Madame Sans-Gêne, a revolutionary washerwoman who became a duchess, in Madame.

In the fall of 1961 I left my historical costumes aside and let De Sica drag me into doing “La riffa” (“The Lottery”), one of the four episodes of Boccaccio ’70. The others were directed by Visconti, Fellini, and Monicelli. The screenplay was credited to Ennio Flaiano and several others, including Italo Calvino, as well as the ever-present Cesare Zavattini, from whom it had all begun. Parading in front of the camera were great talents such as Romy Schneider and Paolo Stoppa, Peppino De Filippo and Anita Ekberg, who had just acted in La Dolce Vita with Marcello.

In my episode, De Sica used all the irony he could muster—which was always gentle and delicate even when it was just one step away from the grotesque—to stage a clandestine lottery during a rustic country fair in Romagna. I was the prize, Zoe, the queen of target shooting.

“People of Lugo, it’s time for balloon shooting . . . pistol or carbine?”

To the rhythm of an irresistible cha cha cha by Trovajoli—“Soldi soldi soldi tanti soldi, beati siano i soldi, i beneamati soldi perché / chi ha tanti soldi vive come un pascià, e a piedi caldi se ne sta . . .” (Money money money lots of money, blessed money, beloved money because / when you have money you live like a king and your feet are always toasty), I sang cheerfully and also somewhat coarsely—wearing a flaming red dress, I had found another incarnation for the Pizza Girl, giving up wealth for true love.

I had

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