Sophia at 43

She wants to live on talent, despite her timeless beauty

By Judy Klemesrud

• New York Times

NEW YORK Sophia Loren turned 43 last month. The big smile on her face as she sat on a brocade sofa in her Pierre Hotel suite indicated she didn't really mind, and she said several times she didn't mind, because she realizes one can't be a symbol forever, that there will come a time in her life when she has to get by on her talent alone.

Fortunately, that time has not yet come: With her exotic brownish-yellow cat's eyes, and her pouty lips, and her spectacular 5-foot-8-inch figure that is actually much slimmer than it appears on the screen, Miss Loren is still one of the oomphiest women ever to come out of the slums of Naples.

But consider this: In her new film, "A Special Day," Miss Loren goes entirely against type and plays a sad-eyed, frumpy Roman housewife with six children, and the make-up men have almost, almost, succeeded in making her look old and unattractive. That she let them might indicate she really means it when she says she wants to get by on her talent.

"The role was a great challenge for me," she says, in her excellent English. "Really, for me it represents a great switch in my career. A second career may be starting for me. I've done so many glamorous roles in my career, but what I really prefer are the kinds of pictures about the problems of a woman, about the problems of life. This is a film about feelings, and in films nowadays you don't see that so much anymore."

And speaking about casting against

type, Miss Loren's co-star, Marcello Mastroianni, plays a homosexual. Their two characters live in the same apartment building in 1938 in Rome, and they meet accidentally on the day that Hitler comes to town to visit Mussolini.

"My nerves were really naked on that set," Miss Loren says, rather dramatically, "and my heart was always here (she touches her throat). The character is so close to me, as I am myself inside. I feel much closer to Antonietta than any role I play in films.

"I, too, have a tendency to be resigned when there is nothing I can do about a situation. I can be very submissive if I have to. Of course it has nothing to do with my relationship with my husband (Carlo Ponti, who produced the film). If I feel people have no faith in me, I just feel demoralized."

Miss Loren, who looked very stylish in a blue-and-white striped silk blouse, a blue pleated skirt, black pumps with tiny gold chains around the ankles, diamond-button earrings and a tiny diamond on a gold chain around her neck, said her dowdy look in "A Special Day" was achieved through "a matter of lighting. They also drew my eyebrows much thicker, like I didn't pull them out. And I wore, a wig. And, of course, no make-up."

"But I prefer myself in roles like that," she insisted. "I really am like that. Yes, in my private life, I get made up, but on the screen I prefer to look like I do in this film. You don't have a mask on; everything you have inside shows on your. face. It's like a mirror.”

Miss Loren said the radio broadcast of Hitler's visit to Rome that plays as background throughout the film was an authentic recording of his 1938 visit. She was only four years old at the time, and living in Naples, "but I certainly remember the war when it came.

"There were no joyful moments then, just a lot of bombing, illness, misery and hunger. Most of the bombing was in Naples. Everybody. was bombarding us, everybody. The Germans running away bombarded us, everybody bombarded Naples. See, I have a scar, on my chin (she points to a barely visible scar) I got when I was running to a shelter with my mother. Fragments hit me there."

Does the film make any political statements about war? She pauses. "Ettore Scola, the director, is a very engaged man, politically," she said. "I think he wanted to show how that period really was and let people judge. He showed the people with their scrapbooks about Mussolini and all those people going to the rallies, and how ridiculous and terrible Faeism was, and how so many people believed in it. We had 30 years of Fascism in Italy. Thirty years!"

One scene that is bound to be talked about occurs when Miss Loren seduces Mastroianni shortly after he tells her he is a homosexual. "This kind of scene is not easy for me, because I'm a shy person," she said, picking up a gold-velvet pillow and cradling it across her stomach.

"It was a very difficult scene to make, and there were just Marcello and me and the cameraman and the director on the set. You know, I don't think she really wanted to make love

Sophia Loren ... "still one of the oomphiest women. to come

out of the slums of Naples."

with him. This is a picture about two lonely people, looking for human contact.

"It just happened. This is a woman whose husband treats her like a mop. She thought just by being close and embracing, maybe she could be happy. And she was, she found joy for the first time in her life."

Her new friendship with the homosexual is nipped in the bud, however, when he is taken away by Fascist agents. "Things like that really happened," Miss Loren said softly. It was forbidden to be a homosexual. The people who belonged to the party had to be what they called real men. The more children you had, you got prizes from the government. Homosexuals were sent to concentration camps in the south of Italy."

Miss Loren said she thought her performance in "A Special Day" was

probably her best since. "Two Women," the 1960 Vittorio De Sica film that won her an Academy Award as best actress. "A Special Day' was more difficult for me," she said, "because there were more things going on in "Two Women,' like the rape scene. But in this film, you had to create a mosaic every day, little patches, details every day, because nothing big happens.

She admitted she wasn't especially proud of her other films, with the exceptions of "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow," in 1963, and "Marriage Italian Style," in 1964, both directed by the late De Sica. None of her Hollywood efforts caught fire.

"I made a lot of other films," she said, "but I wasn't enchanted with them. You know, I'll consider myself lucky if I make six or seven valid films in my career, artistically. Not many actresses will, you know."