In 1999, the American Film Institute conducted an industrywide survey to determine Hollywood’s 25 greatest female screen legends, limiting eligibility to people whose big-screen debut came in or before 1950. Twenty-two years later, only one actress whose name appears on the list — alongside the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Judy Garland — is still alive: Sophia Loren.
Over the course of a career that began some 70 years ago, the Italy-born actress, now 86, made her name in Italian-language films shot in Italy, in English-language films shot in Europe and in Hollywood. She became, in the words of The New York Times, “a symbol of Italy to generations of moviegoers,” and was widely regarded as one of…
