One of famous actress Sophia Loren's most iconic roles is that of Cesira in the 1960 Italian film "Two Women," for which Loren won an Academy Award. The Oscar was the first given for a foreign feature film, and the part established Loren's reputation as a serious actress.
The movie, originally called La Ciociara, told the story of Loren as a mother who tried to give her daughter a good life in World War II-ridden Europe. Here are six quotes describing Loren in this famous role:
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1. "Before 'Two Women,' I was a performer. Afterward, I was an actress."
Sophia Loren during an interview with a Vanity Fair reporter.
2. "The beauty of Miss Loren's performance is in her illumination of a passionate mother role. She is happy, expansive, lusty in the early phases of the film, in tune with the gusto of the peasants, gentle with her child. But when disaster strikes, she is grave and profound," wrote Bosley Crowther in a
New York Times movie review.
3. "For me, the central appeal of Sophia Loren is that she is one of the few actresses who was believable both as a sex bomb of the highest order and as an ordinary person. In "Two Women," she came across like a real person and not just a slumming screen idol," wrote Peter Sobczynski
on Roger Ebert's blog.
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4. "This part was single-handedly responsible for changing Sophia Loren's image as a sex symbol, establishing her as a dramatic and comedic actress of the first rank," wrote
Emanuel Levy, a film critic.
5. "With my own memories to draw upon, you would think I would have had an easy time of it. But it was very hard for me to relive my girlhood terror and at the same time to transform the reality of my feelings into the role I was acting. In memory, I still looked at my experiences with the eyes and emotions of a girl, but the role demanded that I see them with the eyes of a tortured woman." – Loren tells biographer Warren G. Harris,
according to Turner Classic Movies.
6. "Loren's performance in Two Women earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination yet she did not attend the ceremony as she was terrified that she would lose. As she stayed at home that evening making sauce for pasta, she would receive a telephone call later from Cary Grant telling her 'Darling, you won," wrote Linsey Satterthwaite
in New Empress Magazine.
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