This week (April 8-14) in Hollywood history – Sophia Loren
won best actress Oscar for Two Women
(April 9, 1962); Charlie Chaplin was awarded an honorary Oscar (April 10,
1972); First 3-D movie House of Wax
premiered (April 10, 1953); Cher won best actress Oscar for Moonstruck (April 11, 1988); First
silent movie palace opened in New York City (April 12, 1914); Sidney Poitier
won best actor Oscar for Lilies of the
Field (April 13, 1964); Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand tie for best
actress Oscar (April 14, 1969).
Highlighted story of the week -
On April 9, 1962, the 34th annual Academy Awards ceremony
was held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California. In
addition to the overwhelming triumph of the musical West Side Story, which
won 10 Oscars, including Best Picture, one of the big victors of the night was
the Italian actress Sophia Loren, who took home the Best Actress statuette for Two
Women.
Born Sofia Scicolone on September 20, 1934, in Rome, the
actress landed her first role as a slave girl extra in 1951’s Quo Vadis,
directed by Mervyn LeRoy. After 15-year-old Sofia met the film producer Carlo
Ponti while competing in the Miss Rome beauty contest, he began guiding her
career. Taking the stage name Sophia Loren, she played a variety of small parts
in low-budget films before breaking out in such movies as Aida (1953)
and L’oro di Napoli (The Gold of Naples) (1954), directed by
Vittorio De Sica. Ponti helped her get exposure beyond the world of Italian
film, including a part opposite Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra in 1957’s The
Pride and the Passion; she subsequently signed a multi-picture deal with
Paramount Pictures.
Her marriage by proxy to Ponti (carried out by the couple’s
lawyers in Mexico in 1957) caused a scandal: Ponti faced bigamy charges and
threats of ex-communication due to Italy’s refusal to recognize his divorce
from his first wife, Giuliana, and Loren was seen as his concubine. The divorce
eventually went through, and Ponti and Loren married in a civil ceremony in
France in 1966. They would stay together until Ponti’s death, in 2007.
Loren gave the most acclaimed performance of her career
in De Sica’s Two Women, released in Italy in December 1960 and
internationally in 1961. For her portrayal of a mother trying to protect her
teenage daughter during World War II, Loren earned numerous accolades,
including the top acting honors at the Cannes, Berlin and Venice film
festivals. Her Oscar win made her the first performer ever to win that award
for a foreign-language.
West Side Story, the film adaptation of Leonard
Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway hit, was an updated version of
Shakespeare’s immortal Romeo and Juliet set on the gang-ridden streets
of New York City. The film swept most of the other major Oscar categories in
1962, winning Best Picture, Best Director (Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise),
Best Supporting Actress (Rita Moreno) and Best Supporting Actor (George
Chakiris), Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Sound, Best Score,
Best Film Editing and Best Costume Design. The film’s star, Natalie Wood, was
nominated in the Best Actress category for another film, Splendor in the
Grass, but lost out to Loren.
Check back every Wednesday for a new installment of “This
Week in Hollywood History.”
Michael Thomas Barry is the author of six nonfiction
books that includes Fade to Black Graveside Memories of Hollywood Greats,
1927-1950. Visit Michael’s website www.michaelthomasbarry.com
for more information. His book can be purchased from Amazon through the following
link:
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