Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone, known professionally as Sophia Loren, is an Italian actress, active in her native country and the United States. With a career spanning over 70 years, she was named by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest stars of classical Hollywood cinema.
Two Women is a 1960 war drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica from a screenplay he co-wrote with Cesare Zavattini, based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Alberto Moravia. The film stars Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Eleonora Brown and Raf Vallone. It tells the story of a woman trying to protect her young daughter from the horrors of war. The story is fictional, but based on actual events of 1944 in Rome and rural Lazio, during the Marocchinate.
Silvana Mangano was an Italian film actress. She was one of a generation of thespians who arose from the neorealist movement, and went on to become a major female star, regarded as a sex symbol for the 1950s and '60s. She won the David di Donatello for Best Actress three times – for The Verona Trial (1963), The Witches (1967), and The Scientific Cardplayer (1973) – and the Nastro d'Argento for Best Actress twice.
Carlo Fortunato Pietro Ponti Sr.OMRI was an Italian film producer with more than 140 productions to his credit. Along with Dino De Laurentiis, he is credited with reinvigorating and popularizing Italian cinema post-World War II, producing some of the country's most acclaimed and financially-successful films of the 1950s and 1960s.
Alberto Pincherle, known by his pseudonym Alberto Moravia, was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism. Moravia is best known for his debut novel Gli indifferenti and for the anti-fascist novel Il conformista, the basis for the film The Conformist (1970) directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Other novels of his adapted for the cinema are Agostino, filmed with the same title by Mauro Bolognini in 1962; Il disprezzo, filmed by Jean-Luc Godard as Le Mépris ; La noia (Boredom), filmed with that title by Damiano Damiani in 1963 and released in the US as The Empty Canvas in 1964 and La ciociara, filmed by Vittorio De Sica as Two Women (1960). Cédric Kahn's L'Ennui (1998) is another version of La noia.
It Started in Naples is a 1960 American romantic comedy film directed by Melville Shavelson and produced by Jack Rose from a screenplay by Suso Cecchi d'Amico, based on the story by Michael Pertwee and Jack Davies. The Technicolor cinematography was directed by Robert Surtees. The film stars Clark Gable, Sophia Loren, Vittorio De Sica and an Italian cast. This was Gable's final film to be released within his lifetime and his last film in color.
Eleonora Brown is an Italian film actress. Her first, and perhaps biggest, role was at age twelve as the daughter of Sophia Loren's character in Two Women (1960).
Marco Tutino is an Italian composer. His emergence during the late 1970s was as the spearhead of an Italian Neo-Romantico group, founded with two other composers, Lorenzo Ferrero and Carlo Galante. He graduated from the Milan Conservatory, where he had studied flute and composition, in 1982.
Marocchinate is a term applied to the mass rape and killings committed during World War II after the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy. These were committed mainly by the Moroccan Goumiers, colonial troops of the French Expeditionary Corps (FEC), commanded by General Alphonse Juin, and mostly targeted civilian women and girls in the rural areas of Southern Lazio, between Naples and Rome. Mass rapes continued across all the campaign including several locations in Tuscany: Siena, ad Abbadia S. Salvatore, Radicofani, Murlo, Strove, Poggibonsi, Elsa, S. Quirico d'Orcia, Colle Val d'Elsa.
A Breath of Scandal is a 1960 American/Italian international co-production romantic comedy-drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, based on the stage play Olympia by Ferenc Molnár. It stars Sophia Loren, Maurice Chevalier, and John Gavin, with Angela Lansbury, Milly Vitale, Roberto Risso, Isabel Jeans, and Tullio Carminati. The film is set at the turn of the 20th century and features lush technicolor photography of Vienna and the countryside of Austria. The costumes and lighting were designed by George Hoyningen-Huene and executed by Ella Bei of the Knize fashion house (Austria). In part because Loren was at odds with Curtiz's direction, Italian director Vittorio De Sica was hired to reshoot certain scenes with Loren after hours without Curtiz's knowledge.
Ciociaria is the name commonly used, in modern times, for some impoverished territories southeast of Rome, without defined geographical limits. Starting from the Fascist period and the creation of the province of Frosinone, the same name was arbitrarily imposed by the local fascist organizations and then misused by the local press, by promotional associations and folkloristic events as a synonym for Frosinone and all the popular traditions of its territory. The local dialect is referred to as campanino in old literature. It is merely a local variants of Central-Italian Latian but is improperly indicated as "ciociaro dialect", although the linguistic and scientific definition is Central-Northern Latian. In more recent times, the term Campagna Romana, or Roman Campagna, a favorite subject of countless painters from all over Europe, has referred to the adjoining region to the north of Ciociaria, but part of the Province of Rome.
Aida is a 1953 Italian musical melodrama film version of the opera Aida by Giuseppe Verdi. It was directed by Clemente Fracassi and produced by Gregor Rabinovitch and Federico Teti. The screenplay was adapted by Fracassi, Carlo Castelli, Anna Gobbi, and Giorgio Salviucci from the libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. The cinematography was by Piero Portalupi, the production design by Flavio Mogherini and the costume design by Maria De Matteis. The RAI National Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Giuseppe Morelli, the ballet was choreographed by Margherita Wallmann.
In Italian literature, some folkloric words like Ciociaria and ciociari are used to denote people, film settings, and characters in Italian neorealist works.
The Sign of Venus is a 1955 Italian comedy film directed by Dino Risi and starring Sophia Loren. It was entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival.
Too Bad She's Bad is a 1955 Italian comedy directed by Alessandro Blasetti. It stars Sophia Loren and is based on Alberto Moravia's story "Fanatico", from his Racconti Romani.
Scandal in Sorrento is a 1955 Italian comedy film directed by Dino Risi. This is the third film of the trilogy, formed by Bread, Love and Dreams in 1953, Bread, Love and Jealousy in 1954. Innovations include the use of color rather than black and white, as well the location of Sorrento instead of the small village of the previous films of the series. At the 6th Berlin International Film Festival it won the Honorable Mention award.
Roman Tales is a series of sixty-one short stories written by the Italian author, Alberto Moravia. Written and published initially in the Italian newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera, they were published as a collection in 1954 by Bompiani. All of the stories are set in Rome or its surroundings after World War II and focus on 'the common people of Rome'. The characters in these stories tend to be the unemployed, ex-convicts, waiters, drivers, con artists, thieves and petty criminals, the average man and the lower classes aspiring to climb out of poverty.
A Slice of Life is a 1954 Italian comedy film directed by Alessandro Blasetti and Paul Paviot.
Sophia Loren: Her Own Story is a 1980 American television film directed by Mel Stuart and starring Sophia Loren as herself. The film was written by Joanna Crawford based on the 1979 biographical book Sophia, Living and Loving: Her Own Story by A.E. Hotchner and originally aired on NBC on October 26, 1980.
Pasquale Esposito is an Italian-born American tenor. He has released ten albums and has toured internationally.
