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Timeless beauty: Sophia Loren still wows Hollywood

By April MacIntyre May 5, 2011, 15:54 GMT

01/23/2010 - Sophia Loren - 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards - Arrivals - The Shrine Auditorium - Los Angeles, CA, USA © Albert L. Ortega / PR Photos

Legendary beauty, actress Sophia Loren was celebrated on Wednesday, May 5, with a tribute from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood.

Cooking Channel's "Extra Virgin" star Gabriele Corcos Tweeted his excitement at meeting the beautiful star from his home country.   @TheTuscanGun  "Double Wow, I just met Sophia Loren! What a woman!!! http://yfrog.com/h7s7agqj"

Loren won the Best Actress Oscar 50 years ago for the Italian movie "Two Women" in 1961. She did not attend the 1961 ceremony and told the audience Wednesday her role chaged the course of her life.

"The Academy Award changed my life completely," says Loren. "It helped me to believe in myself and encouraged me to push my own artistic boundaries."

A fresh faced Loren met her future husband, Carlo Ponti on a film. Ponti died in 2007.

They met on the Federico Fellini film “La Strada,” which he co-produced, won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film..  His affair with the young ingenue Loren was the scandal of the day. Loren was only 15 when the couple first met in 1950. At the time, Ponti was married to his first wife, Giuliana.

Ponti’s lawyers went to Mexico to obtain a divorce from his first wife. Divorce was not yet legal in Italy.  Ponti worked with legendary directors Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, David Lean and Roman Polanski, but his career was tied to Loren, who had roles in 34 of the more than 151 movies he produced or co-produced.

Ponti and Loren were married in 1957 but in Italy, the news was grim for Ponti, who was charged with bigamy and Loren with being a concubine.

“I was being threatened with excommunication, with the everlasting fire, and for what reason? I had fallen in love with a man whose own marriage had ended long before,” Loren said in a past interview.

The couple remained married until Ponti's death in 2007. They had two sons, Carlo Ponti Jr. and Edoardo Ponti, who was at the gala last night. 

Italian actor Roberto Benigni, who won Best Actor in 1997 for "Life is Beautiful," serenaded her with "O Sole Mio" in a video message.