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Sophia Loren is an Italian actress and sex symbol from the 1950s to present. At age 14, Sophia Loren entered 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. They married in 1957 when she was 23, but had to divorce five years later when he was threatened with bigamy charges because the church did not recognize his divorce! In 1966 he finally obtained a divorce from his first wife and they were re-married, and remained married until his passing in 2007, when he was 94! She stood out from all the other sex symbols of her era because she could truly act, and she deservedly won the Best Actress Oscar! But decades before Jacqueline Bisset made headlines in her see-through diving suit, Loren shocked the world (but thrilled all American males!) when she appeared in her see-through shirt in 1957's Boy on a Dolphin! Some of her film roles include: El Cid, La Ciociara, Boy on a Dolphin, Two Women (in which she won the Best Actress Academy Award), and Marriage Italian Style AND Kirk Douglas was born in New York in 1916. He was born Issur Danielovitch Demsky, to Russian Jews who had emigrated to New York, and he changed his name and began acting and later became a superstar. After some minor Broadway roles, he served in the Navy in WWII, and after the war, his first film was a leading role in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers in 1946. He followed that up with an important role in Out of the Past, the classic film noir, and then I Walk Alone, where he again had a supporting role, this time with Burt Lancaster, with whom he would appear many times. Champion in 1949 made him a major star, and for the next years he played lots of lead roles in important movies, often playing someone mentally unstable, as he had in Champion. In 1957 he used his star power to see that Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory was made (he was the producer and star, and it likely would never been made but for Douglas, and it is to mind in the three or four finest movies ever made). He is well remembered for his starring role in Kubrick's Spartacus, as well as in Lonely are the Brave, and many others. As he grew older he took major supporting roles, opposite such stars as Lancaster (they made 7 movies together) and John Wayne. In 1963 he bought the rights to Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and he starred as McMurphy in a Broadway production. But he was heartbroken when he could not get a major studio to make a film version with him in the lead, and he gave the rights to his son Michael, who was finally able to get it filmed in 1975 (and while Nicholson was perfect, one can't help but wonder how the elder Douglas would have been!). Douglas is pretty indestructible! He survived a helicoptor crash and a major stroke, and I saw him at a retrospective a couple of years ago, and he looked better than ever. But I was struck when I read his fine autobiography "The Ragman's Son" just how haunted he was, and how he never escaped his difficult childhood. All through my growing up I heard that Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster were best friends. Apparently this was not at all true, and they mostly only had a professional relationship, and even that was strained. Lancaster was quoted as saying "Kirk would be the first to admit that he's difficult to work with - and I would be the second"! Few actors have ever given us nearly as many wonderful performances as Kirk Douglas (and his film selection was second to none), and yet he never won an acting Academy Award, a sad commentary on the method by which the Oscars are chosen. AND Laurence Olivier was born in Surrey, England in 1907. He was the son of a very strict priest, and he spent much time with his mother, but she passed away when Laurence was only 12. He discovered acting as a child, and played Shakespearean roles as a teen. In 1926, he joined The Birmingham Repertory Company, and the following year played the leads in Hamlet and Macbeth. In 1930 he married an actress, Jill Esmond, and while they were married 10 years and had a son, they were never happily married (Olivier wrote in his autobiography that he was impotent on their wedding night, which he attributed to his strict religious upbringing). He starred in Private Lives on the stage in 1930, and that made him a star. He appeared in five movies in 1930 and 1931 alone, but none were very notable, and he focused more on the stage, having sucess in 1935 where he alternated the roles of Romeo and Mercutio with John Gielgud (but he was jealous that Gielgud received better reviews than he did, and he did not act with him again!). In 1937 he starred in Fire Over England with Vivien Leigh, and after the film was finished, they started having an affair, even though both were married. In 1939 she starred in Gone With the Wind and he in Wuthering Heights, and after those two great triumphs, they both divorced their spouses and were married. Wuthering Heights was Olivier's greatest film role. Prior to this movie, he had one major failing as a movie actor, which was that he acted as if he was on the stage, which detracted from his appearances because he appears to be over-acting when delivering his lines. He approached the role of Heathcliff in the same way, and producer Sam Goldwyn threatened to fire him after filming began, but legendary director William Wyler was able to convince him to tone down his performance, and it surely ranks as one of the finest ever captured on film (there is a moment when he returns a rich man, and he says to Catherine that he has forgotten to congratulate her on her marriage, and he adds, "I have often thought of it", and I have never heard a line better delivered!). He and Leigh appeared in several movies together, but over time it became apparent she suffered from bi-polar disorder, which put a great strain on their relationship. Olivier spent some time as a pilot in the Reserves during WWII, and in 1944, he and Ralph Richardson formed a new Old Vic Theatre Company, where he had many triumphs on the stage, in both Shakespeare and more modern plays. In 1945 Olivier directed and starred in a film version of Henry V, and in 1948 he directed and starred in a film version of Hamlet, and he won the Best Actor Oscar, and the movie was named Best Picture. That same year he and Leigh went on a 6 month trip performing in Australia and New Zealand, and it was at that time their marriage began to completely break down, although they remained together (both personally and professionally) for quite some time. They divorced in 1961, and Olivier married actress Joan Plowright, with whom he soon had three children. In 1955, Olivier filmed the last of his three great Shakespearean films, Richard III, and over the rest of his life he alternated between the stage and many memorable appearances in movies, including The Prince and the Showgirl (opposite Marilyn Monroe), Spartacus, Othello, and many more. As he aged he successfully transitioned to older character roles, and one of his very finest was as the Nazi dentist Szell in Marathon Man. There is a funny story about that movie (although it may well be apocryphal). Olivier had always detested "method" acting, and before the scene where he appears with Dustin Hoffman where Hoffman's character had been up for a very long time, Hoffman showed up for filming, and looked dreadful. Olvier asked him if he had been in an accident, and Hoffman (a "method" actor) replied that he had stayed up for two days so he could be authentic, and Olivier is supposed to have responded, "Have you ever tried acting, dear boy?"! Was Laurence Olivier the best movie actor of all time? I don't think so, primarily because of his "over-acting" tendencies in his early years (caused by his extensive stage experience). But he surely was one of the handful of finest film actors ever, and his body of work is truly remarkable!

Important Added Info: Note that this still measures 8 1/4" x 10" [21 x 25 cm].

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