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In 1999, the American Film Institute named the 50 greatest screen legends of all time. Twenty-seven years later, only one of them is still alive.
Sophia Loren, who was ranked No. 21 among the 25 female legends on AFI’s “100 Years…100 Stars” list, celebrates her 92nd birthday on Sept. 20. The Italian actress is now the last surviving member of a remarkable group that included Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, James Stewart and dozens more of Hollywood’s most celebrated stars.
When AFI unveiled the list during a CBS special on June 15, 1999, eight of the 50 honorees were still alive: Loren, Brando, Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Shirley Temple, Lauren Bacall, Kirk Douglas, Gregory Peck and Sidney Poitier. Loren became the sole surviving member following Poitier’s death at 94 in January 2022.
It’s another remarkable distinction in a career that has already lasted more than 70 years.
Born Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone in Rome on Sept. 20, 1934, Loren began appearing in movies as a teenager. She was an uncredited extra in the 1951 epic Quo Vadis before emerging as a star in Italian films including Aida and The Gold of Naples.
By the late 1950s, Loren had become an international star, appearing opposite some of Hollywood’s biggest leading men. Her credits included The Pride and the Passion with Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra, Houseboat with Grant, It Started in Naples with Clark Gable and El Cid with Charlton Heston.
But the performance that made Academy Awards history came in Vittorio De Sica’s 1960 drama Two Women. Loren played Cesira, a mother trying to protect her young daughter in war-torn Italy.
The role earned Loren the Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the first performer to win an acting Oscar for a non-English-language performance. She later received a second Best Actress nomination for 1964’s Marriage Italian Style.
Her honors didn’t end there. Loren received an honorary Academy Award in 1991, when the Academy celebrated her as “one of the genuine treasures of world cinema.” Her lengthy résumé also includes a BAFTA, a Grammy, the Cecil B. DeMille Award and multiple honors from the Cannes and Venice film festivals.
Loren became more selective about acting later in her career, but she never entirely left the screen. She appeared alongside Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in 1995’s Grumpier Old Men and joined the star-studded cast of the 2009 musical Nine.
Her most recent feature film came in 2020 with The Life Ahead, directed by her son Edoardo Ponti. Loren played Holocaust survivor Madame Rosa in the Italian drama, earning another David di Donatello Award for Best Actress.
And Loren hasn’t necessarily taken her final bow. After turning 90 in 2024, the actress dismissed reports that she had retired and expressed hope that there would be more roles in her future.
For now, at 92, Loren occupies a place in Hollywood history that belongs to her alone: the last surviving star among AFI’s 50 greatest screen legends.
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