Hollywood comes out to honour Sophia Loren

John Travolta called her the “most delicious” thing to come out of Italy, Roberto Benigni serenaded her with the Neapolitan song “O Sole Mio” and Billy Crystal said she was his “first great love.”

Hollywood came out on Wednesday to honor Sophia Loren, 50 years after she become the first person to win an acting Oscar for a foreign-language role with the Italian movie “Two Women”, (“La ciociara”).

Loren, now 76 and with her famous hour-glass figure intact, did not attend that 1961 Academy Award ceremony. She told an audience of some 800 actors, directors, friends and family on Wednesday she never dreamed an Italian in an Italian-language film would earn the movie industry's highest honor.

The Academy Award changed my life completely, it helped me to believe in myself and encouraged me to push my own artistic boundaries. There are no words to describe my emotions right now. It is hard to imagine that 50 years have passed since I welcomed my Oscar to my home.”

Regarded as the most famous living Italian actress with more than 80 movies, Loren received a lifetime achievement Oscar in 1991 and was declared “one of world cinema's greatest treasures.”

via Times LIVE

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.