Italian actress Sophia Loren has published an autobiography, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: My Life. Born into poverty, she achieved worldwide fame in the 1950s as a voluptuous beauty and a great actress (winning an Oscar for Two Women in 1961.)  She was married to producer Carlo Ponti for fifty years, and has two sons. Now 80, she posed in lingerie for a Pirelli calendar in 2007 and later starred in Nine, a musical remake of Fellini’s 8 1/2.

In Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Sophia recalls hearing of Marilyn’s death during a telephone conversation with her husband, and goes on to pay a sincere tribute:

“That death, so untimely, so ambiguous, caused me terrible distress. And it got me thinking. I thought about the meaning of beauty, about loneliness, about the need to feel love that’s hidden in every one of us. I remembered Marilyn’s seductive smile veiled with sadness. It wasn’t enough to be the most beautiful woman in the world to be happy.

Marilyn had been a great actress, crushed by the weight of her own talent, by all the men who had asked her for everything without giving her anything in return, or by those who had wanted to transform her according to their own tastes. Marilyn’s allure had ended up destroying her, reducing her to an ill-fated sex symbol. She hadn’t managed to find her own way. I felt a shiver run up my spine, as if a shadow had been cast all around me.

The world is a cruel place, nourished by and satisfied with appearances, rarely concerned with what lies beneath the surface. This is why it’s up to each of us to keep any fairy tale anchored to real life, so that we never forget who we are, where we come from.”