Curs Focus on communication

Memories
In the following fragment the famous actress Sophia Loren recalls her first meetings with a film director, with the world of movies and, last but not least, with glory. Translate the text, then try to write down several memories about important encounters in your life. They were golden days, the 50s. Vittorio De Sica and Carlo Ponti, my Carlo, were doing a project called The Gold of Naples. De Sica said, “I need a Neapolitan girl”. Carlo told him “I know a girl,
she’s called Sofia Scicolone”. I was given the role of the pizzaiola (pizza street vendor). It was 1952. I was 17, and I was completely drunk with happiness.

For us Rome was an enchanting place, a city of trams and palaces. I felt like this because I was very young, but there were people 40, 50 years old who felt like me, too, because of what they had gone through during the war. They felt they could afford maybe to start a new life. De Sica was a sensitive man with great instincts and a great sense of humour. We spoke the same language - almost the way as when you’re married a long time and you look at your husband and, with just a glance or a gesture, you know.

Then there was Anna Magnani. When De Sica was planning to film Moravia’s new book Two Women, he wanted Magnani to play the mother, and I could play the daughter. When De Sica went to see Magnani, she cocked that hip of hers and said, “No, I can’t play with Sophia. What are we going to do together on the set? We are going to kill each other!” As De Sica was leaving, she cocked that hip again and threw up her chin with that beautifully free-spirited air we all knew so well. “Hah! Why don’t you try to give Sophia the role of the mother?” Well, I did play that role. The mother became younger, and the daughter (played by Eleonora Brown) became a girl of 13. And I never played a role better!