The epitome of beauty and a glitzy lifestyle, Sophia Loren is the ideal Hollywood movie star. She was raised in poverty and had difficulty rising to popularity; even when she did, people questioned her appearance. She is still attractive at 88 years old, making her the most beautiful woman ever to grace our screens.

It’s amazing to think that someone with the start she did could go on to inspire music, decline a marriage proposal from Cary Grant, and become the first actor to win an Oscar for a foreign-language picture.

Sophia’s lovely mother once won a Greta Garbi impersonator competition, but her conservative family forbade her from pursuing a career in film.

Instead, the mother would instruct her child and support Sophia in her destiny as a movie star.

Sophia’s father, the father of her younger sister Maria, did not support her as she grew up because he would not wed her and did not participate in family affairs.

In her life, she stated to People Magazine, “I saw my father only six times.” My mother, whom he seduced and left, my younger sister, Maria, suffered greatly because he would not reveal his name, and I all suffered greatly because of him.

Being raised by a single mom was financially challenging.

According to Direct Expose, she was raised in extreme poverty, residing with other family members and sharing her grandparents’ bedroom with eight other people. Conditions gradually deteriorated to the point where Loren’s mother occasionally gave her girls water straight from the automobile’s radiator.

Sophia experienced World War II; she was hit by shrapnel and knocked to the ground during one aerial raid, leaving her with a scar on her chin.

She once commented, “I was a young girl, but the war’s sound and sensations never leave you.

She had mites and lice, and because she was so thin, she experienced bullying at school.

But she eventually developed into the popular beauty we know today. She attended the National Film School in Italy after placing in the Miss Italia 1950 contest finals.

She was still made fun of for her appearance, told she needed to lose weight, and that her nose was crooked.

“I still haven’t changed my nose since it was unusual. When you are extremely young, you occasionally have to wait for nature to mold your face or your physique. She told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the nose was far finer than people initially realized.

Full-length portrait of Sophia Loren, an Italian actress, wearing a sheer black gown over black underwear, circa 1955. (Photo by Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)

When she was 19 years old, she got her big break by portraying an enslaved Ethiopian in the movie Aida, which brought her critical praise.

She co-starred in The Pride and the Passion with Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra four years later, and in 1960, she won an Oscar for her performance in Two Women as a mother who is desperately trying to provide for her daughter in a war-torn Rome.

Sophia Loren poses for a photo on May 30, 2001, in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Joe McNally/Getty Images)

The honors didn’t end there; Loren also received five additional Golden Globes for extraordinary performances, a Grammy Award, an Honorary Academy Award, and the Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Golden Globes for lifetime accomplishment, to name a few.

Despite rumors of relationships and bigamy in her personal life, she managed to maintain a 50-year marriage to Italian film producer Carlo Ponti until his passing in 2007.

When Sophia was just 16 years old, they first dated. Carlo gave her a job offer, took on her mentor role, and saw that Sophia became a household name in Italy before she turned 25.

Sophia Loren in 2021 / Getty Images for Fashion Media

“For both of us, it was love at first sight. When I was sixteen, we met in a Rome beauty pageant where he was on the jury. She claimed he sent me a message urging me to enter the competition after spotting me at a table with friends.

Sophia and Carlo were married in 1957, but because Carlo’s divorce from a previous marriage was not recognized in Italy, they were accused of bigamy. Carlo was 21 years older than her, and when they were first married, he was already a husband.