Original subtitles

-[man] You look great. -[Nancy Kulik] Thank you.

[woman] Should she hold this? Should this be somewhere else?

If you want, I could just flare out the blouse.

-[man] No, no, you're perfect. -Okay.

[woman] You're miked up, Mommy.

-All right. Okay. -[woman] Let's do your hair check, okay?

-Ma, you look so beautiful sitting there. -[laughing]

Well, how did this all begin?

How did it all begin?

[man singing in Italian]

[Nancy] Growing up, I knew that I had a very special mother.

And we were raised

in a very wonderful, loving, Italian heritage background.

I didn't have Cheerios for breakfast. I had frittata with broccolini.

I never followed the herd. Never.

It didn't occur to me to do so.

My children were always telling me what they felt I should do.

"Mommy, you should run!

You should jump. You should do all kinds of exercises."

And I'm thinking, "Okay, I'm listening."

"And you know, Mom, don't eat all that fruit.

That's sugar.

And, you know,

Pumpkin seeds are so good for you."

And then one day, I was asked,

"Why don't I try whole wheat pasta?"

Well, that did it.

I said, "You know, I'm listening to everything you're saying.

I respect all of it.

But I ask myself,

'What would Sophia Loren do?'"

[man] You're done. Thank you.

[man 2 in Italian] Do you want to button that?

[chattering in Italian]

Too much cleavage?

[man] A bit.

[chuckles]

["Mambo Italiano" by Dean Martin playing]

♪ Mambo Italiano, go, go, go! ♪

♪ You mixed-up Siciliano ♪

♪ All you Calabrese Do the mambo like crazy ♪

♪ With the hey, mambo! Don't wanna tarantella ♪

♪ Hey, hey, mambo You mixed-up Siciliano… ♪

[Sophia Loren in English] "What would Sophia Loren do?"

But why me?

[speaks Italian]

[both shouting in Italian]

Look at that smile. [clicks tongue] Look at that smile!

So she's from Naples.

And we're from Naples on down.

Calabria, Bagnara.

That's my mom.

-[man] Nancy's parents came from Italy. -[Nancy] And my beautiful father.

In their generation in Italy,

marriages were arranged.

-That's right. -And who had a big "diary"--

-Dowry. -Dowry.

And this and that and the families

and who had a bigger area, or whatever they used to do.

And my mother said, "Oh, Padre, no, no.

I pick my own."

I was born in America

three years after my parents came from Italy.

I'm so Italian.

I don't know of any other relative in my generations

that were other than Italian, so I'm really steeped in it.

When they were gonna go see a movie,

they weren't gonna go see an American movie,

which they could hardly understand.

Not only in language, but in behavioral.

No, they went to the Italian movies.

[movie theme playing]

[Nancy] Look, look, look! Oh, my God.

-She was so on target. Look at her. -[characters speaking Italian]

[Nancy laughing]

-Did you see that? -[man yells]

Oh, come on.

[chuckles] She knows how to be very, very alluring.

I'm making pizza, but-- see? [laughing]

And look at her reaction.

Yeah. That's "emozi."

-"Emozi" in Italian means the motions. -[speaking Italian on screen]

[Nancy] And when I see that, I identify it.

I don't do it, but I remember seeing it.

With my parents and the friends and…

that was my life as a child, a little girl and then growing up.

So that's one of the things that I get a big kick out of.

And then, of course, Sophia represented beauty.

But not like a classic beauty.

Like a Grace Kelly with, you know, the little perfect features.

[speaking Italian]

[Nancy] She is her own type of classic beauty.

[clamoring on screen]

[Nancy] And that really inspired me

because we're all different, and so many people are beautiful.

Look at her walking down the street. Oh, God, she is so cute.

Now there's a lady.

I wouldn't mind looking like her.

Because I also am endowed. [laughs]

And she-- she was not twiggy.

So I couldn't relate to those other little skinny things, you know?

When I was in my 30s, I designed the first enrichment program in the state.

And I had to work with five mayors.

The one thing they had in common is that they liked the way I looked.

Because I made them look good.

Welcome to the Fort Lee Enrichment Program.

It's an after-school, all-volunteer program,

that is especially designed for the children…

And I didn't do it just for myself.

I did it 'cause I'd want them to say yes to me. [chuckles]

For the program, for the children.

Everything from advanced cooking to painting to photography,

there are 84 classes as we enter our fifth year.

Nowadays, the women would kill me for saying that.

But they shouldn't.

Because it's not about anything other than presenting your best.

She was always making the best of what she had.

It's hard to believe she's only 17 in that movie.

[man] When you were young.

Why now?

-"When you were young." -[man] As I was saying that, I knew…

[man in Italian] Action!

[speaking Italian]

[man 2 in English] Do you feel lucky?

-Lucky? -[man 2] Lucky. Yeah.

I mean, lucky to be who you are and also lucky that you got where you are.

Well, it's not like what they write about me,

about the Cinderella story, you know,

"She became a wonderful actress just with a--"

-[man 2] Magic? -Like, a fairy with a magic stick.

-[man 2] Mm-hmm. -I like when I read that.

I get very romantic and very sentimental about it.

But the truth is that, um…

I think the steps of my career have been really very hard.

It was during the war. We didn't have enough money to live.

So we didn't have anything to eat.

My father never took care of us.

Never.

My mother didn't know what to do with herself and me and my sister.

So my mother wanted me to be in a beauty contest in Naples.

And I won that contest.

And with the money I got from the contest,

I was able to go to Rome and start to look for work.

Vittorio De Sica, he was the one that really caught me.

When I was 17 years old, I did The Gold of Naples with him,

and it was a great hit.

And that put me on the map.

[in Italian] Action!

[speaking Italian]

[Edoardo Ponti] Okay, let's start again, Mom.

Be a little more fluid with, "It's always hard to raise…"

[in English] Okay? Camera!

[in Italian] Action!

[in English] Cut. Very nice. Okay. Again, straightaway.

Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!

[in Italian] I have the whole take…

but this is the only look I want to focus on.

[in English] Nominated for Best Performance by an Actress

are Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Piper Laurie in The Hustler.

Geraldine Page in Summer and Smoke.

Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass.

-Sophia Loren? -[audience laughs]

-Sophia Loren in Two Women. -[audience applauds]

I was saving it.

The winner is…

Sophia Loren.

[audience cheering, applauding]

You didn't attend that ceremony. Why didn't you?

Because it was the first time that they, uh…

gave the possibility of winning an award to a foreign film.

So I said, "Well, if I am among the five,

I'm going to be very happy, but I would never won it."

So I stayed home.

The telephone rings.

And who is on the phone?

Cary Grant.

[audience laughs]

Saying, "Sophia, you won! Sophia, you won!"

[Nancy] In Two Women, she depicts a very strong woman,

who no matter what was happening,

the bombings everywhere she went, by her feet, by her…

she was going to protect her child.

[soldiers chattering, shouting]

That no matter what you do sometimes,

you can't always… get it right.

You just can't.

In this scene right there, she sighed relief.

She believed with all her heart

that nothing would happen to her in the church.

[suspenseful music playing on screen]

[footsteps approach]

-Rose. Rosetta. -[speaks Italian]

[speaks Italian]

[men shouting, laughing]

-[gunfire] -[women screaming]

Devastating.

-[men shouting] -[Rosetta screams]

[shouting]

-[man grunting] -[wailing]

[in English] Mama!

I find that excruciatingly painful.

Actually excruciating.

Parents can't protect kids every single minute.

I mean, you try.

You live every moment to protect them.

But what does it take?

Alfred was the first born, in 1960.

Glenn, 1962.

Regina, 1963.

Dominic, 1964.

I knew I had to be strong.

I knew I had to be very strong.

With those three boys?

Regina was an angel.

I always felt that she was the gift for me…

to do what I had to do.

I was destroyed when Alfred told me he had cancer.

Fourth stage Hodgkin's disease.

He said, "I have six months to live, Mom."

But with the savage beating of chemotherapy, he did make it.

And Glenn,

he had an early experience that he didn't tell anybody.

I never had them sleep out.

I asked if they wanted their friends, they could sleep here by me.

They had overnights.

But no, no. This one time…

they asked me right at this swim meet, "Can your son sleep over?"

The uncle,

a boxing champion, they looked up to him.

And he was abusive.

He was told, "If you tell your parents anything,

we're gonna kill them."

I didn't know anything till he was 18.

When she sees them, what they're doing to her daughter,

she can't do anything about it.

And then, of course, the mother's destroyed.

And the fact that the mother actually gets up.

Gets up instead of just dying.

That's courage. That's strength.

That's a power that you pull that you don't even have.

You create that power right out of your gut.

And that's what she conveys in this scene.

No matter what, you have to go forward.

[chattering]

[speaking Italian]

Action!

[speaking Italian]

[Edoardo in English] Cut! Perfect. Moving on.

[in Italian] Bravo, Mama!

[in English] Perfect. Perfect. That's it. That's it.

[in Italian] That look was just right.

Absolutely.

[Loren in English] You're always trying to find an answer.

Sometimes there is no answer.

What really counts is your truth, your belief in life.

In people.

In children, in your son, in everybody, you know.

[Edoardo] Mama, you're beautiful.

I'm seeing you right here. Stunning.

[men and women chattering]

[Nancy] She wanted, more than anything in the world, to be a mother.

My journey was a tough one.

But I think her journey was a tough one too,

because even though-- look, she got an Oscar and this and that,

when she wanted to have the babies, she had to stay in bed.

[man] What was the point of the actual staying in bed for eight months?

Well, because, uh…

if I didn't, I was going to lose my babies.

[Nancy] She wanted those kids, and she made it happen.

She never gave up.

[Sophia] I worked very hard to have two children.

I worked very hard to have a husband.

I worked very hard for whatever I had.

[Nancy] So this is Marriage Italian Style.

[speaking Italian on screen]

[Nancy in English] Well, here she is.

Absolutely delighted that she persevered

and reached exactly what she wanted to do.

Making herself very legitimate.

[Sophia] I thought I had a great complex because my father never married my mother.

And that's why I needed legality.

I needed children. I needed a family of my own.

[Nancy] Carlo Ponti was already a very successful producer

when he met Sophia.

He helped her become a movie star, and then, of course, later on,

it became a romance.

When a guy helps you be who you wanna be and who you are,

they become very sexy.

And do you know, she could have married Cary Grant.

Now, when they made their second film together, Houseboat,

he said, "Let's get married."

[Sophia] He was truly very much in love with me.

But when the moment came,

that I had to decide, that I had to choose,

I chose for Carlo because I thought,

he belonged to my world, to my people.

And to marry somebody that was not Italian,

that was not of my hometown,

I would have felt completely lost.

[Nancy] And so she made the decision.

"I'm gonna marry the person who knows me and adores me.

And we will make a life together through thick and thin."

[laughing]

-Okay. -One type of drops or more than one?

You're getting several.

-[man] Oh. Drop away. -[Nancy] I have to shake it.

Now, just lean back a little now.

Okay. Okay.

Alan and I…

went to high school together.

Alan was voted best-looking and best athlete.

I was voted most popular girl.

He said he knew exactly who I was

and that he thought, "One day, she'll be my girl."

I said, "How could you think that?"

He said, "Easy.

I knew that if I married you, I would never have a bad day."

And I said, "Are you serious?" He said, "Oh, yeah.

And it's true.

I've never had a bad day married to you."

Alan.

[laughing]

-Yeah. -You really are cute, Alan.

I'll tell you something, and this is hilarious.

I was married with two children,

and we were fortunate enough to have a babysitter one of the nights.

And-- and-- and that's when I saw

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

[upbeat music playing on screen]

[man singing in Italian]

[Nancy laughs]

[man on screen] Mmm, yeah!

I was a little-waisted girl, like this.

Not wasted, as in drunk. I mean my waist, my shape.

[laughs] And I wanted to imitate Sophia Loren.

I thought, "We have to keep fun in this marriage.

We can't be too serious.

When he comes home,

I am gonna have this garter belt on,

à la Sophia Loren."

So I put a bathrobe on and nothing else on.

And Alan came home. [chuckles]

He said, "Okay, hon. The kids are asleep. Are we gonna go to bed?"

I said, "Al!"

[howls]

Goes fast. I can't believe 60 years have passed so fast.

-[Nancy] I know. It's hard to believe. -It is.

I know you always told me you loved my brains.

[Alan] I thought you were gonna say something else.

-I heard that "B." -[laughs]

Well, I knew that you loved my brains,

-and I know that you loved my figure. -Mm-hmm.

[Nancy] What else did you really always--

-Really. No, really. What did you really-- -No.

[Nancy] 'Cause there were so many girls that really were crazy about you.

What I really liked

is how you could handle every little situation that came up.

How you address every challenge. It's very intense.

You don't ease up on anything. Very intense.

And yes, you do show passion and emotions on a lot of things.

[man] Did anyone like Cary Grant ever sweep you off your feet?

That's a really good question.

Once.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I had to hold myself in definite demeanor

because I was already married.

I was the one at the pool with the kids.

I knew it would go nowhere.

Nowhere at all.

My husband knew enough that

his wife was very often liked very much.

And-- but he also knew I always knew my place.

And I'm not sorry.

You know, you make these decisions.

But I would like to think that every woman has had more than one experience where,

you know, someone made them feel very special.

You know.

The difference is, what do you do about it?

-[men and women clamoring] -[bell tolling]

[Sophia] It's very…

…uh, very difficult.

You try to forget about it,

but then the torment that you have inside comes back again.

What can I do? And then I start to think positively.

I tell the story of my life to myself.

Say, "You were born in a very poor neighborhood

during the war,

and you made it.

And you didn't know that you were going to make it."

And then I see my children, my family.

And then I feel a little better.

Life is not easy. It's hard.

Think about it. Yeah.

[Nancy] How many things have we all had in our lifetime…

that happened beyond our control?

And what do we do with that?

My son Dominic, he loved the ocean.

Waves. Surfing.

His friends said, "Dom, come with us to Puerto Rico,

and let's surf."

He broke his ribs.

What no one picked up is that his artery was severed.

It took him three days before his heart gave out.

I still…

I don't think it's real yet.

My God, I miss his hugs, his kisses, his light.

He could light up a room. You didn't need electricity.

His love…

And yet…

I spent a lot of my time thinking

that I could fix anything.

And that backfired. Because how can you fix everything?

I thought I did.

Well, had four kids.

It's like, you study for an exam, you're gonna get an A.

[smacks lips]

You know, you take care of your family, devote yourself.

Well, it doesn't always turn out the way one expects.

Alan couldn't handle it.

It was hard for me, but I swallowed a lot

because I had a job, a serious job to do.

To show Dominic's boys an example of how you deal

with death of a loved one.

They had not seen that before.

So, I spent the next three years

concentrating on them.

-[woman] Happy birthday! -Hi, Dolly!

My favorite people. [kisses]

-There's my girl! -How you doing?

I'm doing all right…

-Everyone has their own life journey. -[chattering]

-[woman] Aww, life is good. -[Nancy] Yes.

-Happy birthday, all of us. -[man] Whoo!

-[Nancy] I'm 82 and a half already. -[all laughing]

[Nancy] I just lived my journey the best I could do each day.

We know about the pitfalls,

but one of the joys in life

is about who we meet along the way.

[woman] We're going to 6067 Wilshire Boulevard.

We're on our way.

Oh, this is the sweetest thing.

Where is our girl?

[in Italian] Oh, dear! How much I love you!

How are you?

Good.

It feels like we know each other.

We know each other very well.

I really think so.

All the things that you've done, you represent us.

One hundred percent.

I'm so happy to meet you. I'm really happy, truly.

[woman in English] Thank you for coming here too. I have grown up…

[Sophia] To find this family…

it was, for me, a kind of, uh… wonderful miracle.

-[chattering] -[laughing]

[Sophia] She said that their family loved me a lot.

That each time the daughter was doing something,

the mother was always say,

"Sophia is there. She's going to help you."

Like I was an image, which at that time,

maybe it was something that she was looking for,

-and she couldn't find. -[chattering]

-[Sophia] It means something to people. -[glasses clink]

I think it's wonderful.

["That's Amore" by Rocco Granata playing]

[Nancy] No one gets everything they want in life.

No one does.

But we all get enough to feel

that our lives are important.

-I get good advice from Sophia. -[Sophia] I'm a good teacher.

[all laughing]

You're a very good teacher.

-I come in whenever it's necessary. -That's right.

[laughing continues]

Don't you love it?

♪ …Signore ♪

♪ Scusa mi, but you see Back in old Napoli ♪

♪ That's amore ♪

♪ When the moon hits your eye Like a big pizza pie ♪

♪ That's amore ♪

♪ That's amore ♪

♪ When the world seems to shine Like you've had too much wine ♪

♪ That's amore ♪

♪ That's amore ♪

♪ Bells will ring ting-a-ling-a-ling Ting-a-ling-a-ling ♪

♪ And you'll sing "vita bella" ♪

♪ Hearts will play tippy-tippy-tay Tippy-tippy-tay ♪

♪ Like a gay tarantella ♪

♪ When the stars make you drool Just like a pasta e fasule ♪

♪ That's amore ♪

♪ That's amore ♪

♪ When you dance down the street With a cloud at your feet ♪

♪ You're in love ♪

♪ When you walk in a dream ♪

♪ But you know You're not dreaming, Signore ♪

♪ Scusa mi, but you see ♪

♪ Back in old Napoli, that's amore ♪

♪ Amore ♪

♪ That's amore ♪