Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Today's Blind Items - Old Hollywood Blind Item

So, the format of this one differs a little bit from the norm because it came to me from an elderly man who had to translate it through his granddaughter so it is more of a narrative with me adding in the usual listing type stuff and to make it a little more vague then when he was telling it and a little less brutal.

I'm 71 y. o., and I know it for sure: This former A list actress who is foreign born and one of the best actresses ever had a very tough childhood which she never discusses. Back when she was about 11 her grandmother started turning her out for tricks and she could probably be had for about two dollars. Sometimes just for food. She had been raped so often as a child that she later she had a very difficult time carrying children. Her grandmother took naked photos of her and put them on playing cards which she sold at the brothel where our actress plied her trade and later her sister too. Once out actress had earned enough money she moved to a larger city where she met her future husband because he was a client of not only our actress but also her mother who had moved to the larger city together and left behind the younger sister with grandmother to make sure grandmother had enough money.

61 comments:

  1. I like the Sofia guess since she married the much older native Italian Carlo Ponti when she was quite young.

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  2. Joan Fontaine and Olivia D'Havilland (sp?)

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  3. also from wikipedia: Loren's parents had another child together, her sister Anna Maria Villani Scicolone, in 1938. Romilda, Loren, and Maria lived with Loren's grandmother in Pozzuoli, near Naples, to survive.

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  4. Sophia Loren for sure. (Although I hope this story is bogus.)
    @ Nimro: indeed.

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  5. Loren first met Carlo Ponti in 1950 when she was 15 and he was 37. They married on 17 September 1957. However, Ponti was still officially married to his first wife Giuliana under Italian law because Italy did not recognize divorce at that time. The couple had their marriage annulled in 1962 to escape bigamy charges.

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  6. Sophia Loren was born as Sofia Scicolone at the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome, Italy, on September 20, 1934. Her father Riccardo was married to another woman and refused to marry her mother Romilda, despite the fact that she was the mother of his two children (Sophia and her younger sister Maria Scicolone). Growing up in the slums of Pozzuoli during the second World War without any support from her father, she experienced much sadness in her childhood. Her life took an unexpected turn for the best when, at age 14, she entered into a beauty contest where she placed as one of the finalists. It was there that Sophia caught the attention of film producer Carlo Ponti, some 22 years her senior, whom she eventually married in 1966 once he finally obtained a divorce from his first wife. Perhaps he was the only father figure she ever had. Under his guidance, Sophia was put under contract and appeared as an extra in ten films beginning in 1950, before working her way up to supporting roles. In these early films, she was credited as "Sofia Lazzaro" because people joked her beauty could raise Lazzarus from the dead.

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  7. Sophia Lauren..
    .Audrey didn't have a sister and while her mom didn't have a lot of money they weren't this kind of poor.

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  8. Audrey. The war, difficulty having children, etc.

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  9. Another reason it wouldn't be Audrey...didn't she actually come from an aristocratic background? Old money hit hard by the war, or something?

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  10. Sophia, I had read years ago she had a poverty stricken life at a young age.

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  11. Whoever this is must be an incredibly strong woman to survive all that and (presumably) have made a good life for herself over the years, because no child should ever have to go through what she apparently did. If this is indeed Sophia (and, based on what I know of her childhood during the war, it wouldn't surprise me), I respect and admire her all the more for coming through it as well as she did.

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  12. I'm with the Sophia Loren guess. Makes "Marriage Italian Style" even sadder

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  13. AKM Audrey did come from an aristocratic background but she did talk about times of starving which is what made me think it was her when they said just for food.

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  14. Sophia Loren. Has younger sister. Sis, mom, & Sophia all worked in grandma's "pub". (Uh-huh) The "pub" was popular with American GI's.
    Sophia met her hubby at 15, he was 37 & married.
    Per Wiki page.

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  15. Sophia Loren was the only name that came to mind and because she was that age in post-war Europe. Though doesn't she have 2 sons? If you read her wiki, it's obvious it's her - though her bio has obviously been white-washed. Very sad. She's one of the most beautiful women ever.

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  16. Well then must be Sophia. I never really followed her that much TBH.

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  17. Sophia Loren, who still looks fabulous.

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  18. totally sophia loren. she had a terrible time with having children and her childhood was horrific. this is really almost not a BI.

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  19. Wow. Reading the Wiki page, and it's gotta be Sophia. How sad.

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  20. This is very sad & disturbing. I hope that grandmother is rotting in hell. Poor children!

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  21. Sophia Loren, but barring a stint on "Dancing with the Stars," she is forever A-list.

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  22. Joan Crawford. That woman was awful and this would explain her mental problems. And wasn't her daughter adopted?

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  23. NM, Crawford was born in the US.

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  24. Joan wasn't foreign-born.

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  25. Anonymous10:38 AM

    The first name that came to mind was Sophia Loren. Whoever it is, she must be very strong to survive such horrific abuse.

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  26. I had no idea Sophia had such a hard, young life. So sad!

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  27. I, too, thought of Sophia Loren. Such a beauty and such a wonderful spirit to come through this, though I'm sure she has her scars. You can't go through that kind of trauma and not be scarred. Some just hide it better.

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  28. Sofia's sister wrote "My House if Full of Mirrors" which says her mother took Sofia with her to Rome in search of a better life, but leaves her sister with her grandmother. Her mother was a Greta Garbo look-alike and always wanted to be an actress. From the Editorial Reviews on Amazon.

    I read somewhere else that her grandmother had a pub in their house and Sofia and her sister were waitresses.

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  29. "is" not "if" sorry.

    Also, I wouldn't be surprised if this "elderly gentleman was Italian.

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  30. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  31. I also think it's Sophia, many kudos to her for living through this and making a triumph of her life.
    Still one of the most beautiful women in the world.

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  32. This is absolutely sick.

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  33. The blind reads as the person is still alive, so couldn't be Audrey H.
    Very sad story.

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  34. Sadly I agree with the Sophia guess. How heartbreaking.

    But if this Olivia and Joan, that would be a true dishy reason for the hate they have for each other.

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  35. Sophia Loren was bedridden for the entire duration of both her pregnancies.

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  36. How sad. Taken note, Lindsay - someone with a terrible childhood who managed to rise above it.

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  37. Aparently it's old news.

    Here's one link.

    http://www.lipstickalley.com/f15/what-actresses-were-former-prostitutes-171111/

    Others are out there too.

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  38. Apparently I can't spell today. :(

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  39. After the war, Loren and her family returned to Pozzuoli. Grandmother Luisa opened a pub in their living room, selling homemade cherry liquor. Villani played the piano, Maria sang and Loren waited on tables and washed dishes. The place was very popular with the American GIs stationed nearby.

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  40. Anonymous1:40 PM

    Sophia had to go on 9 months of bedrest with each of her two boys to carry them to term. This was after several miscarriages This was a big deal at that time.

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  41. If this is Sophia Loren then she is one strong woman. She is still incredibly hot for her age btw.

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  42. Its easy to forget how devastated parts of Europe were after WW2, and how incredibly hard it would have been for a family like Sophia Loren's to survive. Sophia's looks would have literally been one of the only ways they could feed their family, let alone what kind of abuse a vulnerable young girl (with THAT face and body) would have been subjected to. It's truly amazing what she made of herself, though it also makes it less surprising that she would be so amazing in Two Women.

    As an aside, Audrey Hepburn's story growing up in the Netherlands during WW2 is really interesting, though not as hardscrabble as Sophia's. While Audrey was born to a fancy, titled family it didn't spare them from starving with everyone else while the Netherlands was blockaded by the Germans. She even helped raise money for the resistance by doing secret recitals.

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  43. Well this one is SOLVED. yes the days of the wrs were horrible

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  44. I read a biography on Audrey Hepburn and it said she survived the war by digging up tulip bulbs and eating them
    :(
    Her thin frame and other health conditions were a result of being malnourished in her teenaged years.

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  45. This is totally Sophia Loren! Every single detail fits, from foreign-born, to her having a sister, living with her grandmother, moving to a larger city and meeting her husband, who the blind implies is older than she was (also fits), and having very difficult pregnancies.

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  46. Yes, I have also read this about Audrey...that the reason she was so thin was because of her starvation during the war years.

    It's good to read these stories so people can quit making the past into some golden wonderful time. Child prostitution was MUCH more common than it is today. So was sexual abuse-probably all kinds of abuse-no one ever mentioned it.

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  47. ITA, lakeuniongirl.

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  48. I swear that BI sounded like it was lifted from the summary to this book: The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and her Souless Grandmother is a 1972 novella by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez. I almost didn't believe it was real.

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  49. I swear that BI sounded like it was lifted from the summary to this book: The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and her Souless Grandmother is a 1972 novella by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez. I almost didn't believe it was real.

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  50. Flirty, thought it was just me that recognized that.

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  51. Sophia Loren. Definitely.

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  52. It makes me glad that Sophia Loren has had a good life after that kind of start.

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  53. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  54. Loren had a horrible time with her pregnancies. This sounds very credible, and of course, sad and disgusting. Italy was a terribly poor country until fairly recently - people couldn't farm, had to forage for food.

    Don't think it's Hepburn - her background was considerably different, even though she suffered a lot during WWII.

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  55. Anonymous8:57 AM

    Sophia Loren...

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