Sophia Loren

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne, and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week, I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book, and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And, for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:43

My castaway this week is Sophia Loren. An icon of the big screen and of Italy itself, she was the first woman to win a Best Actress Oscar for a foreign language film, earned another for her outstanding contribution to world cinema, and has won Italy's highest film prize six times, more than anyone in history. Her illustrious career includes some 100 films and a list of collaborators that's a who's who of cinema itself. She was directed by Charlie Chaplin. Her co-stars include Clark Gable, Gregory Peck, Carrie Grant, Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando and Richard Burton and she enjoyed a 40-year working relationship with her best-loved screen partner, Marcello Mastroiani.

Presenter1:25

She is synonymous with the very best of her home country, though growing up she endured the worst of it, facing fear and hunger during her childhood in the shadow of World War II. In the beginning, she fell in love with cinema because it provided an escape from everyday suffering. Then it fell in love with her and changed her life. Still working after 70 years in the spotlight, she says, Today I can say I am aware of having lived a very full life and lived very intensely. I don't think I could have lived with any more passion than I have. Sophia Loren, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you. Thank you. So, Sophia, living with passion is important to you. Where do you find that passion today?

Sophia Loren2:06

It's uh something that uh I think that you have it within you. If uh you have something in life that uh it really uh you want to do because it's important for you, for your life, or for your children, or for your family, if you have it strongly inside of you, I think that no matter what happens, I would do it. When it's worth it, I like to dare.

Presenter2:34

Yeah. In your new film, The Life Ahead, you play a Holocaust survivor, Madame Rosa. The film's based on a novel by Romaine Gari and is directed by your son Eduardo. What made you want to take on the part?

Sophia Loren2:46

It was very v you know, it's very difficult sometimes when you make movies to read a book and then you really think that this is the story of your o of that that you've always wanted to do.

Sophia Loren2:59

And that was my reaction when I read the book. Say a story like this, maybe I will never find another one again.

Sophia Loren3:08

And I said, Yes, Eduardo, let's try.

Sophia Loren3:11

Let's go, let's go. Like a mother, let's go, let's go. Let's go.

Presenter3:14

That's here.

Speaker 23:15

I don't think.

Presenter3:16

Yeah. The film, as you say, directed by your son Eduardo Ponte, and it explores some big themes, aging, loss, love, mortality, big subjects for any actor and director to approach. Did your relationship as mother and son help you get to the heart of the issues in the film?

Sophia Loren3:36

Absolutely. Absolutely. We work together really uh in a a very, very deep way.

Sophia Loren3:47

It was it was not a normal film.

Presenter3:51

It's an emotional film to watch. Was it emotional to make?

Sophia Loren3:55

When you feel emotions in the right way.

Sophia Loren3:58

Uh you don't even feel that you are making an effort because you feel so much inside of yourself that you become the subject that you you're doing. You don't see anything else but what you're doing.

Presenter4:14

Bing.

Presenter4:15

Sophia, it's time to make a start with your music today. What's your first disc, and why have you chosen it?

Sophia Loren4:20

My first selection is a Elephant Gerald.

Sophia Loren4:23

Seeing I've got you under my skin.

Sophia Loren4:26

It was a song that I heard for the first time in Pozzoli after the war, of course. Ella's voice represented America to me, and to me America was so far away still at that time, because I didn't even knew that there was America somewhere in the world, because it was incredible.

Sophia Loren4:50

And Lafayette Gerald really gave me a gave me a sense of life.

Speaker 14:56

I've got you

Speaker 14:59

Under my skin

Speaker 25:02

Uh

Speaker 25:03

I've got you deep in the heart of me.

Speaker 25:10

So deep in my heart, you're really a part of me.

Speaker 25:17

Uh

Speaker 15:17

I've got you under my

Sophia Loren5:22

Skill

Presenter5:24

I tried.

Sophia Loren5:26

I sank up I know it by heart singing along

Presenter5:29

Singing along with every Three.

Sophia Loren5:31

Yeah, oh yeah.

Presenter5:32

Ella Fitzgerald and I've got you under my skin. So that track takes you home, Sophia Loren. You were born Sophia Schicolone in Rome in a hospital ward for unmarried mothers and you describe your mother as a restless beauty with great dreams. Tell me more about her.

Sophia Loren5:34

Yeah.

Sophia Loren5:51

My mother my mother never knew.

Sophia Loren5:55

Who she was?

Sophia Loren5:57

She was uh a lost soul with a great, great way of uh uh wanting to do things, but uh really um

Sophia Loren6:09

not enough strength, not enough flame inside to be able to overcome all this negative thinking and to join what she really wanted in her life. But she was a good person, a good person, a tender person, she was a good mother and she was a good pianist. But she never, never really took care of it and become really uh some some professional pianist uh and have uh a kind of success that she could have had.

Sophia Loren6:47

What about your father? How would you describe him?

Sophia Loren6:50

Well, I cannot because I don't know. I I mean uh I've seen him in my life maybe twice, three times. He was uh he was handsome, he was okay, but uh I don't think that he was in love with her because uh if you love somebody you take care, you are you are a widowed person, uh especially if you have children, my God, uh it's uh it's a miracle to have a child, it's wonderful to have a family.

Presenter7:20

Raising a baby alone was understandably a struggle for your mother, and she went back to the family home in Potswoli, where your grandparents were able to help out with you and your younger sister when she came along. You were very close to your grandmother, I think.

Sophia Loren7:34

Oh, she m no, no, no, no, no, no. She was my mother, she was my father, she was my grandfather, she was everything for us. She was the head of the family. Uh I mean, uh we were a family of uh nine, ten people. Cousin, uh, aunt and uh we were many, many.

Speaker 17:50

Uh

Speaker 27:50

Yeah.

Speaker 17:50

Yeah.

Sophia Loren7:56

In all in one house.

Presenter7:58

And your mother was very beautiful, wasn't she?

Sophia Loren8:01

She looked exactly like a Greta Garvov, my my mother.

Presenter8:03

I don't know.

Sophia Loren8:06

So, of course, and she knew, uh, when she she started to know this, she would get makeup like Greta Garbo, the blonde hair like Greta Garbo, everything like Greta Garba, but she was not Greta Garbo. And the people in the street would would really go around her, they wanted the autograph, they would but it was all all a joke, it was all a joke. Now I know that it was all a joke. By then I thought she was Greta Garba, I thought she sh my mother her name is was Greta Garbo, but it was not true.

Presenter8:37

But she did win a Garbo look-alike competition organised by the MGM Film Studio. What happened?

Sophia Loren8:43

They wanted to hurry in America, but my grandmother, the the nonna, the nonna, she said, What are you doing? You have two children, you cannot go because people from a little town then they were afraid of everything. You know, they just wanted to stay where they were born, in Potswaldi.

Presenter9:04

Yeah.

Sophia Loren9:04

And what do you do in Pozzole?

Sophia Loren9:06

I know, because I've been in Potsoli.

Presenter9:09

It's time for disc number two. Tell us what we're going to hear next and why you've chosen it today.

Sophia Loren9:14

The second piece is the Claire de Luna de Bussie. My mother was a a concert pianist and would play this piece whenever she could find a a piano to play on. When I think of my mother, I get this feeling inside that is uh bittersweet.

Sophia Loren9:34

Sweet because she was a wonderful woman, and loved her daughter so much, and bitter because she was uh

Sophia Loren9:44

often sad and unfulfilled.

Presenter10:47

Debussy's Claire Delune played by Tomash Vachery.

Presenter10:51

Sophia Loren, you were five when World War Two broke out, and you've said it was the major theme of my childhood understandably so. What do you remember about that time?

Sophia Loren11:01

We were always in a battle with something. I didn't know what it was, but uh bombing and drama and uh falling houses and no food at all.

Sophia Loren11:15

And you know, it's incredible because now that I'm talking to you, I'm talking about many, many years ago.

Sophia Loren11:21

And I still I still think about these kind of things like it was yesterday. It it's very, very much alive, very much terrible. Yeah.

Presenter11:33

Sh

Sophia Loren11:33

So it was a fight for survival u until the war was over really.

Sophia Loren11:37

Oh yes, oh yes. When the Americans came in, my God, it was beautiful, beautiful.

Presenter11:43

So that relief was o obviously followed by picture houses reopening and you were able to go to the movies. What were you watching? Were were they American films? Yeah.

Sophia Loren11:53

Fredestaire, I think good Fredestaire, Rita Ayworth, Rita Ayworth, Ginger Rogers, uh we loved American movies because they were beautiful houses and uh dancing so it was all

Presenter12:08

About escape

Presenter12:09

And glamour. And when you were fifteen, your mother entered you in a local beauty pageant and and you were one of the winners. How did you feel about your looks at that age?

Sophia Loren12:20

Well, I was uh they called me st staccetto. You know what it means, staccetto, little stick because teeth let me say well because I was so skinny, I was uh not at all the beauty of today Italian beauty.

Presenter12:28

Toothpick, I think we say

Presenter12:33

Uh

Speaker 112:33

Uh

Sophia Loren12:38

Nice and uh, you know, round, no, not at all, not at all.

Presenter12:43

In your late teens you left home and you moved to Rome, where you found work starring in photo romance stories for popular magazines, and I think you had a bit of a flair for that kind of work.

Sophia Loren12:54

I became a kind of not not the the queen, but I was very well known. Bolero, Bolero.

Presenter13:02

Yeah.

Sophia Loren13:02

You had a following? C, see, see, see, see, see, see. And I was going there all alone. I was but, you know, but I I was like a grown-up, a grown-up, because I knew that my mother could not be there for what I really needed. I really needed needed things that she didn't think that I could. But I was okay. Because I um no, I started to have fun.

Sophia Loren13:31

So if you have fun, there is always something uh extra that uh comes out and uh i it happened.

Presenter13:40

Time for some me

Sophia Loren13:40

Music. What's your next disc today and why have you chosen it?

Sophia Loren13:44

Lara says goodbye to Yuri.

Sophia Loren13:48

from my husband's film Doctor Giovanco. This is the film that my husband Carlo was the most proud of. He fought for this music to be in the film. He had great instinct and was a great artist. I miss him every day of my life.

Presenter14:39

Lara says goodbye to Yuri, part of Lara's theme from the soundtrack to the film Doctor Giovago for your husband, Carlo Ponte, Sophia Lorraine.

Presenter14:48

So, Sophia, by the early nineteen fifties you had gone from working as an extra you're an extra in Covardis starring Robert Taylor and Deborah Carr to your first leading role in an adaptation of the Italian opera Aida. Did you feel like you were on the cusp of something great?

Sophia Loren15:07

I thought that uh

Sophia Loren15:10

It was very good for me to try.

Sophia Loren15:13

Because I knew

Sophia Loren15:15

that I had a good year.

Sophia Loren15:18

For the music.

Sophia Loren15:20

What was it like being on set? Were you nervous as the star?

Sophia Loren15:23

No no, not at all. I adored every moment of it. So that's how I started really wanting to be in that place many times.

Presenter15:35

Yeah.

Presenter15:37

So you were getting noticed, but at the same time and this is very hard to believe but it did happen, some cameramen said you were difficult to photograph.

Sophia Loren15:46

I didn't have the the most normal face to be able to look good in any kind of lighting because uh uh my my nose was too big, my mouth was too big, everything was too big for them. So really they didn't they didn't want me because maybe the cameraman had another girl that he wanted to put in my place. It was terrible, it was a war, it was a war. So, I mean uh and I I but I understood that, so I said it's okay, it's okay. And uh I don't have a big face that you change with this and then you put it something else. No, I had a little face and uh and I l I I liked my face. I I liked where I I was. I liked to look at myself in the in the mirror when I when I was growing. You know, it was uh I owned my face and I I wanted to keep

Presenter16:44

Yeah.

Sophia Loren16:44

Yeah.

Presenter16:45

In nineteen fifty one you met the film producer Carlo Ponty, who was the great love of your life, but you weren't able to marry until nineteen sixty six. Why not?

Presenter16:56

He was married.

Presenter16:58

Uh

Sophia Loren16:59

Signora, signora, what are you saying?

Presenter16:59

Signora, signora, what are you saying?

Sophia Loren17:02

Yeah.

Presenter17:03

But eventually, luckily, you got married to the satisfaction of all the parties involved. Marriage clearly meant a lot to you and you were prepared to wait.

Presenter17:12

Oh, yeah, always. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

Sophia Loren17:14

Yeah.

Presenter17:14

Absolutely.

Sophia Loren17:14

Absolutely. Yeah.

Sophia Loren17:17

When you love somebody, I think you have to wait also all your life.

Presenter17:22

Time for disc number four, Sophia Loren. What have you chosen for us, and why are you taking it with you today?

Sophia Loren17:28

Fly Me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra.

Sophia Loren17:31

This piece reminds me of my arrival in Hollywood in my twenties.

Presenter17:37

And Frank Sinatra was your co-star in The Pride and the Passion. What was You like to work with?

Sophia Loren17:42

He loved this uh Comic C D, Combi C D.

Sophia Loren17:46

Trailer, trailer. Okay, yeah. He was just staying in the trailer very often. He never sang on the set.

Presenter17:47

Okay.

Presenter17:51

Um

Sophia Loren17:53

Because many people and even me say me can't you reconcil them.

Speaker 117:58

You're right, and so on every

Sophia Loren17:59

Not even for you. No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. We are shooting. We are shooting. Okay. Okay. Ciao.

Speaker 118:01

Yeah.

Speaker 118:02

Die.

Speaker 218:03

Okay.

Speaker 118:06

Uh

Speaker 218:06

Response.

Sophia Loren18:08

Uh

Speaker 218:08

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars, And let me see what spring is like on a Jupiter and Mars. In other words,

Speaker 218:27

Hold my hand.

Speaker 218:32

In other words

Speaker 218:35

BA

Presenter18:35

Baby kiss me Fly Me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra. So by nineteen fifty three you had a new name, Sophia Loren, and the following year you were cast in Vittorio De Sica's The Gold of Naples. How much did that film change things for you?

Sophia Loren18:52

Everything.

Sophia Loren18:54

Everything because the role was perfect for me. It was a role of a girl of sixteen years old, Neapolitan, no money, no food, the street was uh her home, and this was the character of the film. And the director was Vittorio De Sica.

Speaker 119:11

M.

Sophia Loren19:14

But I didn't know what it was acting. I didn't know what it was. Nothing, nothing, nothing. So for me, De Sika

Sophia Loren19:24

I I really have him in my heart because uh with this simplicity I really owe to him a lot of what I I got from um lines, from uh what I had to do. Um it was really it was really incredible because he did this like a teacher, but with a lot of uh simplicity. Wonderful person.

Presenter19:51

No.

Sophia Loren19:52

Uh You said

Presenter19:52

But you said uh he taught you to believe in yourself.

Sophia Loren19:57

When I was working with him I didn't have to believe in myself. I was myself.

Presenter20:02

In nineteen fifty seven you starred in your first English language film, The Pride and the Passion. Your co stars were Frank Sinatra, who we've just heard, and Carrie Grant, who later proposed to you. You turned him down, though. Why?

Sophia Loren20:15

Well, because I was uh already engaged with uh with Carlo, I think. Well, yes.

Sophia Loren20:22

And also, you know.

Sophia Loren20:26

when this kind of things happen on the on a on a set, uh I think that I was I've always been very careful about it because uh uh a set is something, the world is something else.

Sophia Loren20:42

You know, you don't want to wake up and say, I made really something that I shouldn't have never done. It's terrible. No, no. No, no. I never I never went into that.

Presenter20:48

Um

Presenter20:55

Sophia, I know that you were also an incredible Scrabble player and would often play on set with your co stars. I think you beat everyone that I heard about.

Sophia Loren21:05

No, because I was uh no, because I was uh

Sophia Loren21:11

Cheating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like to cheat because I have fun.

Presenter21:12

Yeah, yeah.

Sophia Loren21:18

So you beat everyone, but you were cheating. Okay. It's funny. It's funny.

Presenter21:18

So you beat everyone but you would ch

Presenter21:22

Yeah.

Sophia Loren21:23

Who who did you play? Who gave you the most trouble?

Sophia Loren21:27

Richard Burton, yes. And you beat him. I was cheating him a lot and then when he when he found out he said, I'm not going to play with you again.

Presenter21:36

Let's see your next piece of music. It's disc number five. What can you tell us about it?

Sophia Loren21:41

The fifth piece is Ogi Sonnoio by Mina. She represents so many chapters of my life. She also connects me to my love of Italy. I've traveled all over the world, but Italy is my home.

Speaker 221:54

Dead.

Sophia Loren22:00

Sele parole fosser una musica, co tré sonari ore dori, ancore ore, dir tir tutime.

Sophia Loren22:14

My cuando poiti bedo cheque alcoza que mi block, no ri esco tirtimien que come está, come está bene conque pantaloni neri, com está bene hoggi come nombo raca der en que di.

Presenter22:30

Mamma Mia.

Presenter22:33

Oh geezono Eo, today it's me by Mina

Sophia Loren22:35

Mina Madonna

Presenter22:37

On the

Sophia Loren22:37

Me um

Presenter22:37

Mia, mamma, mea.

Sophia Loren22:41

Qui brava, que brava

Presenter22:43

Yeah.

Presenter22:44

Sophia Ren, we've talked about some of your co stars, but I would love to know a little bit more about some of your directors, especially Charlie Chaplin, who directed you in A Countess from Hong Kong. What are your memories of working with him?

Sophia Loren22:56

I was always with him and trying to f to to have always the answer to what I had to do and if I was wrong in something, I I wanted a lesson from him because you know you don't do a picture with this person every day. I mean this is was his last film, you know, it was incredible.

Speaker 123:19

Yeah.

Presenter23:19

Yeah.

Sophia Loren23:21

One of the greatest moments of my my my working life is the thing with Charlie Chaplin.

Presenter23:28

And when he was directing you, did you get the chance to kind of see him act, you know, when he was talking about scenes?

Sophia Loren23:35

I don't think that he

Sophia Loren23:43

because he has his own acting. So if you if you couldn't do or you didn't think of doing the scene as he was he was the actor he would do, he would say, No, no, no, that's not true. Then he he will do it himself and then you have to repeat what he did.

Sophia Loren24:04

And it was nice, because then there was no no no no quarrel, no nothing. He he did the scene for you.

Sophia Loren24:13

Just look carefully and just do what I did. It was very difficult to to do the scene like like like him, because uh another another physique, another kind of uh acting, m much more modern our acting, but but he was always very convincing when he was doing it and you had to repeat it and if when you did, then he was happy. And he was right, he was right.

Presenter24:41

Time for desk number six, Sophia. What have you chosen?

Sophia Loren24:45

The sixth piece of music is the market place at Limoge by Bursorski, which is conducted by my son Carlo.

Presenter25:55

The Marketplace at Lemoges, from Mosorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition orchestrated by Ravel, performed by the Russian National Orchestra, conducted, Sofia Lorenz, by your son, Carlo Ponty.

Presenter26:08

In nineteen sixty you were back in Italy, where you starred in Two Women. It was again directed by Vittorio De Sico, and it's about a mother and daughter who are trying to survive the brutal fall out of the war. You once said of that film, Before Two Women I was a performer, afterwards I was an actress. What did you mean by that?

Sophia Loren26:27

Because you grow. Because you grow and by being directed always three or four times by the same director that you know by heart, then you realize how much you you learned and when you realize that then you're really happy because it means that you have reached something that you could have never reached before by yourself.

Presenter26:52

The film features some powerful scenes. I'm of course thinking of one in particular in which your character and her daughter are assaulted by a group of soldiers in a church. What was it like shooting that?

Sophia Loren27:03

Yeah.

Sophia Loren27:03

No, no, it's a t it's a terrible sin to to to cope with from uh from the mother and from the daughter. And then also when on the street she she realizes that uh that the the soldiers have um

Sophia Loren27:22

have done uh with this girl something that uh you know very bad and she starts to scream after after the car and then uh kneeling down she said terrible things to these soldiers uh that that is the most uh incredible scene uh very very very difficult to do but I did it once, the one kneeling down, I did it once. The seeker, he just stood up and he was going away. And I said, Vittorio, let's do it again. Why? Why? Because I thought that I did a bad thing. I did a bad scene. I did and I said, no, no, no, let's do it again. Please, let's do it again. She said, no, because you did it so well that you will never do it as well as you did it.

Sophia Loren28:13

was incredible. I will never forget Vittorio Di Sica telling me that with the one scene, the most incredible and difficult scene of the script,

Sophia Loren28:24

What?

Presenter28:27

And he made the right call. I mean, that role changed history. Nineteen sixty two you won the Best Actress Oscar for that part. The very first time that the award had gone to a non English speaking performance, you beat Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood, who were also nominated.

Presenter28:43

But you didn't go to the ceremony. Why not?

Sophia Loren28:46

No, because the Oscar for us in Italy was far away. It's for an Italian film. I I don't know. You did not feel that it was possible. The yes, you are going to win. And no.

Presenter29:00

How did you spend that night?

Sophia Loren29:02

I was with a friend because we were doing a little party just, you know, just to be together, pretending that we were not thinking that there was uh in Hollywood the Oscars.

Presenter29:12

Yeah.

Sophia Loren29:13

Pretending.

Sophia Loren29:15

And then the the Sika was there with me and uh the phone rang and said, Sh hi, hi, it's Carrie I said, Yeah, yeah, you won

Sophia Loren29:27

I almost fainted. I almost faded it.

Sophia Loren29:35

Wonderful moments. I mean, really I mean, really, I mean, this kind of uh prices, uh it's uh you cannot say in words how you feel. It's impossible because it's unique, it's wonderful, it's great, it's uh it's great, it's great.

Presenter29:49

Yeah.

Presenter29:50

Yeah.

Presenter29:51

It's time for your next disc, Sophia Loren. What are we going to hear, and why?

Sophia Loren29:55

The seventh piece of music is EOC, performed by Laura Pausini, and composed by the great Dian Warren from my latest film, The Life Ahead.

Sophia Loren30:09

Finish le parole.

Sophia Loren30:12

Stock Queen.

Sophia Loren30:15

Stall Queen

Sophia Loren30:18

Forciate.

Sophia Loren30:20

Ne servo no due sole.

Sophia Loren30:23

Stoke queen.

Sophia Loren30:25

Star Queen.

Sophia Loren30:29

Cuandu imparía sopra fivere.

Sophia Loren30:34

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Presenter30:37

EOC I do, performed by Lara Pozzini from the soundtrack to the film The Life Ahead. Sophia Loren, I'm about to send you off to our island. Do you like spending time by yourself?

Sophia Loren30:49

Ah, no no no, because I want company, I want to be with people, I like people. I would feel uh bad because I would feel like a like a prison, like uh something that uh I don't deserve. No, no.

Presenter31:06

And I'm sure, Sophia, that you'd be thinking of home. As we've heard, you were born in Rome, but you've said that it's very important to you, that you are a Neapolitan first and foremost. What does that mean to you?

Sophia Loren31:17

What does that mean?

Sophia Loren31:19

It's because I I I was born in Rome by chance, but uh my heart and myself and my physique it's I am from Naples, I am from this uh people that uh that I've always uh I've always been with them.

Sophia Loren31:37

Rome, yes, beautiful, but my my life is uh was in in Pozzuoli, in Naples, uh all my childhood, which I think that uh if you if you are in a place during your childhood, it's a place that you will remember forever.

Speaker 131:47

But

Presenter31:56

Forever.

Sophia Loren31:56

Uh

Presenter31:56

You can have one more disc before I send you away today, Sevilla Wren. It's your final choice. What's it going to be?

Sophia Loren32:04

The eighth piece of music is caruso.

Sophia Loren32:08

Sung by Lucio Dalla.

Sophia Loren32:10

This song reminds me of what it means to be Neapolitan.

Speaker 232:15

Guido velmar luchika.

Speaker 232:23

Suna Veketera.

Sophia Loren32:23

I

Speaker 232:32

I'm not sure if I can do it.

Presenter32:45

Caruso by Lucho Dala. Sophia Loren, it's time to cast you away. I can give you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, to take with you, and you can take another book of your choice as well. What would you like?

Sophia Loren32:59

Letters from her young father?

Sophia Loren33:02

BY MY SON EDOAARDO. It is a poetry book that he wrote for his daughter before she was born. It's beautiful when you see your son.

Sophia Loren33:13

Turn into a father.

Presenter33:15

I'll also give you a luxury item to take with you to the island, what would you like to take?

Sophia Loren33:20

I would bring on the island um a pizza oven. I cannot live with other pizza. I I'm a Neapolitan, invented pizza, so if there was a pizza oven on the island, I would turn it uh into a little corner of Naples and it would make me feel at home and I would eat very well.

Presenter33:47

And what is the secret to great pizza dough? I mean, in in your breakthrough role, we watched you make pizza. You played pizza.

Sophia Loren33:47

The s

Sophia Loren33:53

Peter Girl

Presenter33:54

Yeah.

Sophia Loren33:55

You have to really have the right moment for it. It's like uh writing a poem, uh, cooking a pizza.

Sophia Loren34:03

Let's face it. So if you don't feel like it, don't do it. But if you feel like it, then you have the time of your life.

Presenter34:10

Now, Sophia, within the rules, I'm not supposed to give you a luxury that has a practical application technically, but because these pizzas are poetic, I'm going to allow it on the basis that you are going to use them to create works of art.

Sophia Loren34:16

Bink

Speaker 134:17

Uh

Presenter34:24

We're going to do a Sophia Loren playing Scrabble bend of the rules for you at this point. Okay.

Presenter34:31

I've got one more question for you, Sophia, which is perhaps the hardest question of all. If you had to save just one of these disks that you've shared with us today, which would it be and why?

Sophia Loren34:44

The last one, because I I cried my heart out. It's uh it's a ni wonderful singer and the beauti most beautiful words for a song.

Presenter34:53

So it's Caruso, Lucho Dalla. Sophia Loren, thank you so much for sharing your Desert Island discs with us.

Sophia Loren35:01

Why? Because it just finished.

Sophia Loren35:04

Oh my god, shock

Sophia Loren35:07

Bachy, bachi, bachi. Child is not a child.

Presenter35:24

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sophia. I'm sure her little corner of Naples will allow her to stay connected with home and family while she's on the island. She can also conjure up some delicious pizza toppings while she's there. Over the years, we've cast many actors away, including Dame Judy Dench, Dame Helen Mirren, Tom Hanks, Whoopi Goldberg, Rupert Everett, and Helen McCrory. You can hear their programmes on the Desert Island Disc's website and on BBC Sounds. Next time, my guest will be Claire Horton, former Chief Executive at Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. I do hope you'll join us.

Presenter36:04

Any podcast

Sophia Loren36:04

Series from BBC Radio 4.

Sophia Loren36:07

In the first stage of a poltergeist haunting, the entity will confine itself to making noise, as if it's testing its victims.

Sophia Loren36:18

The Battersea Poltergeist.

Speaker 136:20

My name's Shirley Hitchens. I'm fifteen years old. I live with my mum, dad, brother, Gran.

Speaker 136:28

And Donald.

Presenter36:32

Subscribe to the Battersea Poltergeist.

Presenter36:34

On BBC Sounds.