by Sophia Loren
I went to the funeral with Vittorio, which was held at the Sacro Cuore dell’Immacolata in Piazza Euclide. It was a cold winter’s day in Rome, and hundreds of coats made a dark stain on the square. Boundless sadness hung in the air. Our hearts heavy with sorrow, we entered and sat down next to Totò and Eduardo. Eduardo and Peppino, his brother, had argued twenty years before, and since then they had avoided each other at all costs, although, until the very last of her days, their sister had done everything in her power to heal their relationship.
Just like Filumena’s three secret children, Titina, Eduardo, and Peppino had been born out of wedlock. Their father was the great Eduardo Scarpetta, the unforgettable maestro of Neapolitan theater. Their mother, Luisa De Filippo, was the niece of Scarpetta’s real wife, Rosa. The Scarpetta–De Filippo family was an extended one, which they say even included an illegitimate son that Rosa had had with Italy’s king Victor Emmanuel.
Scarpetta had lived with both women at the same time, a bit here and a bit there. De Sica was doing the same thing: living with his wife Giuditta Rissone with Emi on the one hand, and María Mercader with Manuel and Christian on the other. Marriages Italian style? Perhaps. Meanwhile, for Carlo and me, our marriage seemed to be as unattainable as the moon itself.
It wasn’t easy to adapt a comedy for cinema, to transform the power of theater without watering it down. Just as with Cesira in Two Women, Filumena was much older than me. Vittorio solved the problem in his own way and, as usual, with a touch of magic. He took this beautiful story with its monologues and dialogues and set it in the street, in the alleyways, on the slopes of Vesuvius. He took Filumena to Agnano, the racetrack built in a volcanic crater, to see the horse races. He took her to church in Piazza del Gesù Nuovo, the beautiful historic center of Naples, and to the elegant Pasticceria Soriano, which was so real on film you could practically smell the delicious food there. He tinted the story with images, he gave it movement, he made it travel in time. By taking Filumena out of the theater, he could free her from the confines of her mature age and tell the story of her youth in flashbacks, first as a young girl with close-cropped hair, terrified of the furious wartime bombing outside the brothel, and then as a young Neapolitan beauty with a mirthful, bubbly personality.
My sons’ favorite scene is when Don Dommì sees me for the first time. The alarm has emptied the brothel, the girls and their clients have escaped to the shelters, while I, like a scared animal, stay in my room, hidden inside the closet, because I don’t have the courage to go outside.
“Quanti anni tieni?” (How old are you?), Marcello asks.
“Diciassset’” (Seventeen), I reply, my eyes wide from fear. Throughout the movie, there’s never a tear in those eyes, because “you can’t cry if you’ve never known goodness.”
And goodness is indeed something that Filumena has never known. Only at the end when, thanks to her tenacity, everything falls into place, can she abandon herself to tears that free her, tears filled with humanity.
It was hard to imagine a role closer to my heartstrings. At every moment I was being asked to interweave happiness and sadness, courage and despair, ugliness and beauty, placing them at the service of deeper sentiments. I was again in Naples, in my city, to give one of its women, a malafemmina (a bad woman) but only in name, a deeper identity.
I have to confess that, to make Marriage Italian Style, I got some help. And it’s a good thing I did! The idea just came to me, one night, while I was chatting with Carlo and Enrico Lucherini, my press agent, on the terrace of the Hotel Excelsior in Naples. A light breeze was rising up from the sea; it swept away any feeling of tiredness and made room for new thoughts. Looking at the streets of my city, I went back a few years and let myself be overcome by the scent, that familiar air.
“Carlo, what do you think about inviting Mammina and Zia Dora to the set?”
“Of course, if it makes you happy. But how come? What are you up to?” Even though he was a man of few words, Carlo was interested in understanding motivations.
“Who better than Mammina and Zia Dora could get into the mind of Filumena, her psychology? Who better than they could show it to me the way it was, real, right before my eyes, with all the right gestures, the words . . .”
I wasted no time in calling them. They were both about fifty by then, which in those days meant they were just entering old age.
“Zietta, I’ll have someone pick you up in Pozzuoli tomorrow morning early.”
“Mammina, make sure you’re ready, the car will be there to pick you up at seven.”
“Che staje dicenno, si’ asciuta pazza?” (What do you mean tomorrow morning? Are you crazy?), they answered almost identically, although I had made two separate phone calls. They had been living far apart for a long time, and yet they spoke the same language and had the same reactions. I was sure that my invitation had made them happy.
The crew welcomed them like two queens.
Mammina was convinced she was the right person in the right place, prancing up and down the set like a star, happy to lend us the artistic talent that life hadn’t given her a chance to express. Zia Dora was a little out of place, precisely because she had never wanted to be an actress—which made her all the more precious. The two of them would take me aside when one of my lines sounded wrong, and say: “Chest’ ’o facess’ accussì, chest’ accullì” (This is how you do this; that is how you do that). I followed the script, of course, but their spontaneity really helped me give my Filumena the naturalness she needed. Between one shoot and another, I would look at them, filled with tenderness. It was thanks to them that I was there, and that day they were my guests of honor.
Marcello, of course, courted them gallantly, playing his part as best he could. They hung on his every word, and fought over him as though he were the rooster in the hen house.
At long last, Marcello had a role in which he played less of a nice guy than usual. He turned his Don Dummì into an unforgettable character, with a pompous moustache, elegant clothing, and a somewhat theatrical superficiality—all in perfect contrast to the female character, whose drama is that of a woman who grows old without being noticed, without being seen.
The passion that Marcello and I conveyed on the screen worked, as it always had, and touched people’s hearts. Because, once again, it told a story that was real, a story so filled with flaws that even the happy ending was profoundly human.
All of us working on the film were touched by it, too, besides having loads of fun making it. The first scene, in which Filumena pretends she’s in agony, had to be shot ten times, because, each time we heard the word “Action,” Marcello and I would burst into laughter, and simply couldn’t stop. That day Vittorio got really angry with us. He was tired, his feet were aching, and we were making his life impossible. Even when the priest came to the house for the last rites, we tried to be serious, but all it took was one look and we’d start laughing all over again, spoiling everything. Vittorio felt powerless before our laughing fit. He thundered like Zeus annoyed by the pranks of mortals: “You’re two actors, not two children! Aren’t you ashamed of making fun of all of us like this? What are you even doing here? That’s enough now, get a grip on yourselves!”
Marriage Italian Style was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film, despite the recent victory of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, and it also earned me a nomination as Best Actress. It was a huge satisfaction, a confirmation that my award for Two Women hadn’t been just a decision made on the wave of emotion.
Filumena won me many other important prizes, too, from a David di Donatello to a Golden Globe nomination, from a Moscow International Film Festival Award to a Bambi Award. And I also won an award as most popular actress in Germany, which I would continue to receive each year from 1961 to 1969, the only exception being 1966.
Carlo and Vittorio, Marcello and I had won our bet, just as Filumena had won her own by getting her marriage Italian style. But in real life, things seemed to be much harder for us.
> My sister’s very Italian wedding, two years before, had been to Romano Mussolini, in Predappio, famous for being the birthplace of Benito Mussolini. Romano devoted himself heart and soul to music and was a talented jazz pianist. His passion may have been what won Maria over, she being naturally musical herself. But back when she’d decided to marry Romano, I was concerned about her choice, and I tried telling her as much. We were, we are, sisters in the true sense of the word, and we’ve always told each other everything. Our closeness is one of the most wonderful things in my life.
“Marì, are you sure? Are you really in love with him?”
“What are you saying, Sofì? Of course I love him. Did you hear how he plays? Did you see his hands? His smile?”
But Romano lived in a world of his own, filled with trips, concerts, and women. He’d come and then disappear, and then come back, you never knew when or why. But she loved him, or at least she thought she did. And there was no convincing her otherwise.
At the wedding on March 3, 1962, the crowd of guests filled the church and spilled out into the square. There were paparazzi everywhere, cameras held above heads just to get a piece of this strange event. I couldn’t see a single thing, not even when the groom, who had been inauspiciously late arriving at the altar, fainted, and had to be resuscitated.
“What? He isn’t coming? There he is! Romano, Romano . . . Are you all right? Has he fainted? It must be the heat, the crowd, the emotion . . .”
Everyone had an opinion about what happened, based on his or her narrow point of view. In the throngs, it was almost impossible to have a complete view of what was going on.
I left as soon as the ceremony was over, my head in a daze from the chaos.
Horribly, the car that was taking me back to Rome collided with a Vespa, and killed the young man riding it. It was one of the most terrible moments in my life. There are no words to describe it.
Romano and Maria’s marriage lasted long enough to bring my goddaughter Alessandra into the world, late in 1962, and then Elisabetta, in 1967. Their troubles were different from Carlo’s and mine, however, since we were still fighting our uphill battle to have our marriage recognized legally.
MARRIAGE FRENCH STYLE
“What do I have to do with it? You know I don’t like to be photographed with you on the set, Sophia.”
“Jamme, come on, Carlo, nun te lamenta’” (don’t grumble), you know how much I want this. Tazio says that in this vanilla-scented lighting we’ll come out great!” I answered with my most cunning look, the one I would flash at him when I wanted to get something at all costs.
I trusted Tazio Secchiaroli—my invaluable photographer—with my life. He was completely free to do as he pleased because I was sure he’d do the right thing. Marcello was a friend of his and had recommended him to me, and I’d gotten along with him right from the start. Fellini adored him as well, and they often worked together. He’d been the first to immortalize the nightlife of Via Veneto, inspired not just by the character of the paparazzo in La Dolce Vita, but by the whole atmosphere of the movie.
He became like family to me, accompanying me all over the world, from set to set, and from event to event. His son David, who was the same age as Carlo Jr., often came on vacation with us. Tazio was thoughtful, an outstanding photographer, in love with life. But when his wife left him years later, he couldn’t stand the pain and let himself die.
One day, on the set for Marriage Italian Style, Tazio took some beautiful pictures of me and Carlo in the back room of the Pasticceria Soriano, where Don Dummì—behind Filumena’s back—plots his marriage to the young and respectable Diana, the pastry shop cashier. The pictures were great, but none of the newspapers wanted to publish them. Matteo Spinola, who, along with Lucherini, was my press agent, couldn’t figure it out, and neither could I. “Have we gone out of style?” I kidded around, to sugar-coat the disappointment. But we soon understood what the problem was and found a way to get around it. The first shots had been posed, and so no one had been interested in them, but when Tazio reprinted them to make them look out of focus, Matteo could sell them as “the secret photos of Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti!” That was it! The fake scoop rekindled people’s morbid curiosity about our adulterous and sinful love. And to think that we’d been together for years, that Carlo’s first marriage had ended a long time ago, and that only the law—and the Church—refused to admit it.
We were legal abroad but still not in Italy. The whole thing would have blown over if a housewife from Milan, a prisoner of her own prejudices, hadn’t interfered by deciding to report us in order to defend the sanctity of marriage soiled by Carlo’s and my love for each other. I still wonder what the real reasons for her actions were. We asked ourselves the same question back then.
We were charged with bigamy. Then, in 1959, the mayor of a small town in Abruzzo, filed another complaint against us. Now, Carlo risked a five-year prison sentence, and I a sentence for complicity—and for being a concubine.
During the early years, until 1959, we’d stayed abroad because we were really afraid we might be arrested. But you can’t live in limbo, far from home, forever. And so, tired of our exile, after our Hollywood years, we decided to go back to Italy at our own risk.
It wasn’t easy. We always felt that we had to be careful. We tried not to be seen in public together. Whenever we went out to dinner we’d go and come back separately. We’d avoid people’s gazes like two lovers caught in the act, like two students who’d escaped from boarding school, like prisoners on parole.
The real irony was that Giuliana, Carlo’s ex-wife, also wanted her freedom, and as a lawyer she had been examining the situation carefully in search of a way out. Three times the Pontis applied to the Sacra Rota, the highest appeals court in the Catholic Church, to have their marriage annulled, and all three times their request was denied. It seemed that the only way to get around the bigamy charge was to annul our Mexican marriage, something that in any case represented a step backward more than a step forward.
I suffered terribly, but I knew in my heart that I had done nothing wrong. However much I had been upset by all the public and private accusations that rained down on us, I knew I was in the right. I felt married, and that should have been enough, but it was painful to be pilloried and branded with infamy. Notices that banned my movies and invited the faithful to pray for our sinful souls were put up on the church doors. We were inundated by letters that were often ferocious, the worst of which came from a group of women in Pozzuoli. Being attacked by my own town, by the very heart of my childhood, my native land, hurt me deeply, and it took me a long time to get over it.
Italy was divided between those who were for us, and those who were against us. It was the Italy of famous love affairs, including that of Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman. But this bigoted Italy wasn’t going to last much longer. In about ten more years everything would be taken care of thanks to the 1974 referendum on the divorce law. But it was still a long way off, and all we could do was put up with it.
In late August 1960, Carlo and I were called before the judge. We got there right on time, and Carlo stopped at a café for a cup of coffee, as if everything were normal and it was all just a formality.
“Sophia, do you want something?
I couldn’t speak at all, I shook my head, turning it slightly to one side. My eyes were too tearful to be able to look him in the face.
We walked up the court steps briskly, short of breath because of all the emotion we were feeling. For the first time since I’d become an adult I was afraid. I felt naked and helpless, the world seemed to be turning in the opposite direction, any rules there might have been had been thrown out. Not even having Carlo by my side reassured me. As he knocked on the door to the judge’s chambers to let him know we’d arrived, I sat down on the edge of an old leather armchair in the waiting room. Luckily it was August, and there was no else around, just the dust, the long corridors, and the filthy windows. I was as tense as a bowstring.
I looked out the window at the summer sky, which was as clear and as blue as a children’s drawing of it. The sun, the small white clouds, the birds chirping.
“How can a morning like this possibly change my life? How can a person go to jail for love?” The Middle Ages seemed dangerously close.
“Come, Sophia, the judge is waiting,” said Carlo softly, encouraging me with his eyes.
I went in alone and in my hazy memory the whole thing lasted just a few seconds.
“Are you married to Carlo Ponti?”
“No, I am not.”
“Thank you, Signorina, you can go now.”
Then it was Carlo’s turn. He was inside for five minutes, but it seemed like forever to me. When he finally did come out, his face dark and strained, I got up to meet him. He brushed my back gently and pointed to the way out. We walked back down the stairs without saying a word, the only sound the clicking of my heels on the cold marble floor, which seemed to mimic the beating of my broken heart. Once we were back in the car, he told me that the judge had again asked him if we were married. That he had answered no, that the marriage celebrated in Mexico by proxy was actually illegal for several reasons, including the fact that the two witnesses required by law had not been present.
But for the judge to be able to reconsider the case, he needed the certificate from Ciudad Juárez, which we couldn’t find anywhere. It was as if another obstacle between us and our happiness had been written into some lousy script. While he drove us home, Carlo took his hand off the stick shift and laid it over mine: “It will all work out, I’m sure of it. We just need to bide our time.”