Italian cinema icon Sophia Loren marks her 90th birthday in Rome on Friday, just days ahead of fellow star Brigitte Bardot. Both actresses have significantly influenced 20th-century film, becoming revered cultural icons worldwide.
” Sophia Loren, the myth is 90 years old,” proclaimed the headline in Il Corriere della Sera. Born in Rome on September 20, 1934, Loren will celebrate this milestone with a private party at a luxury hotel in the historic center of the city.
A tribute organized by the Cinecittà studios and Italy’s minister of culture will precede the festivities, where Loren will join around 150 friends, family, and colleagues for a dinner on a terrace overlooking the Baths of Diocletian. She will also inaugurate a suite named in her honor, as reported by Il Corriere della Sera.
For the special occasion, Loren will be dressed by her longtime friend and designer, Giorgio Armani. Italy’s major newspapers reflected on her extraordinary career, recognizing her as one of the last surviving stars from Hollywood’s Golden Age. Throughout her illustrious career, Loren starred alongside legendary actors like Anthony Quinn, Clark Gable, and Frank Sinatra.
La Repubblica celebrated her birthday alongside Bardot’s upcoming 90th on September 28, calling them “splendid ninety-year-olds” who redefined feminine imagination in their era.
Loren’s birthday will also be celebrated with a retrospective at New York City’s Lincoln Center, and Italy’s public broadcaster Rai plans to air several of her films, including a restored version of “Marriage Italian Style,” commemorating its 60th anniversary and the centenary of her favorite co-star, Marcello Mastroianni.
After the death of her husband, producer Carlo Ponti, in 2007, Loren made a television comeback in 2010, portraying her mother in a film about her life. She published her memoir, “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow,” on her 80th birthday and last appeared on screen in 2020’s “The Life Ahead,” directed by her son, Edoardo Ponti.
