A Circumstantial Case
“This is a hypothesis.
I am not saying that it is true, only that it is tenable, and to my mind
plausible.”
--Freeman J. Dyson
* * *
An elementary statistical principle is that weak data, all pointing in
the same direction, can add up to strong evidence. If two independent
observations each have a 40 percent probability of being false, the probability
that both are false is only 16 percent. If there are three, it falls to 6
percent.
* * *
When Maria told me
about her father’s revelation that she had been given up for adoption by Sophia
Loren, I was immediately skeptical. Too bizarre, too unlikely.
And I thought evidence that the story was bogus would be rather easy to
find. A good place to start would be
Maria’s birth date:
One of her
authorized biographies, “Sophia,” by Stefano Masi,
published in 2001, says she was in
“The Neapolitan episode [of Sophia’s 1963 film
“Ieri, oggi, e domani”] was, in some way, prophetic: during the shooting Sophia realized that she
was pregnant for real. After the earlier problems, the gynecologist had advised
her to spend several days in bed and to absolutely avoid all automobile
travel…Accordingly Sophia took the train to go from Naples to
Milan…Unfortunately the major part of the Milanese episode took place in an
automobile, and was filmed in a studio, with…a stage car mounted on a hydraulic
lift which simulated the jolts: it was
worse than being in a real car. The
actress lost the baby in the fourth month of her pregnancy.”
Here, I thought, was
a refutation of the adoption theory.
Another authorized
biography is “Sophia, Living and Loving,” a 1979 book by A.E. Hotchner. In Chapter
14 he describes her realizing that she was pregnant, and then losing the
baby. He cites Marcello’s silent
reaction to the bad news, and also a visit to the hospital by Sophia’s sister
Maria.
At the time Sophia
was married to Carlo Ponti, who was aware of his
wife’s involvement with Marcello during the filming of several other
movies. Assuming she carried the baby
to full term, she knew it would cause enormous problems. Clearly she could not expect Carlo to help
her raise a child fathered by another man.
In the early 60s abortion was most certainly not an option. Giving her daughter up for adoption was the
only available choice.
Both Sophia and her
sister Maria were raised by their unwed mother in Pozzouli,
not too far from
“Her sister Maria
suffered a great deal over the fact that she was an illegitimate child: she would have done anything to bear her
natural father’s surname. Riccardo…fearful of incurring expenses he couldn’t handle,
had no intention of recognizing her as his daughter. But when he realized that Sophia was earning
well, he proposed a deal to mamma Romilda: for the modest sum of one million liras he
would agree to give his surname to the rising star’s little sister. In 1953 a million was no laughing matter, but
Sophia did not care about the expense.”
It’s significant
that Sophia’s sister is named Maria, because Italian custom demands children be
named after parents, grandparents or other important relatives. There are no other
Sophia’s most recent
movie, released in 2002, entitled “Between Strangers,” is written and directed
by Edoardo Ponti, her
son. In it she plays an unhappily
married woman who reveals a dark secret:
That many years ago she gave up a daughter for adoption.
A few scenes appear to be relevant to the Maria/Sophia connection:
Sophia as Olivia crumples up her charcoal drawing, tosses it away, a look
of anguish on her face. Max, the gardener, tries to console her. He takes her
to his greenhouse and offers her a drink of berry liquor.
“Yesterday,” Max says, “I saw this light in your eyes. And I felt…I felt
finally I’m seeing the real Olivia. That light. That’s how it always should be
for you. That’s what you deserve.”
Olivia looks at Max coldly.
“You don’t know what I deserve,” she says. Then she turns, walks away.
* * *
John, Olivia’s invalid husband, calls her into the room to see what is on TV.
It’s a news interview of Amanda Trent, a famous sculptor, who as a child was
sent from one foster home to another. She’s asked about how it felt not having
real parents.
“When you have no roots,” Amanda replies, “you’re always searching for an
identity. And as a child I found mine through my dreams.”
“Can you tell us about those dreams?” the interviewer asks.
“Well, I had two big ones. First, I wanted to be adopted.”
“Which at seven came true for you.”
“Yes, indeed it did. I’m very lucky. I have wonderful parents.”
“And the second dream?”
“I always wanted to be an artist and live in Florence.”
Olivia turns to John. “She’s my daughter. The artist Amanda Trent. We were
just kids, you know? When my father found out about it, that was it. He locked
me in my room. All I have of my baby was her first cry. Then my father took her
away from my arms. Gave her up for adoption.”
John angrily says, “Olivia, this joke is over.”
“It’s not a joke,” Olivia replies. “It’s my baby.”
* * *
Later, in another meeting with Max, Olivia says: “You don’t know how I felt
holding my daughter in my arms. If only I didn’t let her go that day.” She
pauses. “My father didn’t take my daughter away from me, Max. I gave her up
myself.”
“Olivia, you were only a child,” Max says.
“I could have held on tighter. You can’t imagine what a strong and
beautiful woman she is now.”
“Where do you think she got it from? Hmmm? Where do you think she got it
from?”
* * *
This is extraordinarily fertile ground for speculation. Especially the
admission Olivia makes that she lied earlier that her father was responsible
for giving up her daughter.
In real life Sophia could have married any number of co-stars her age who
fell in love with her, Cary Grant among them. Yet she chose Carlo Ponti, a man
20 years her senior.
On one of her fan websites, Sophia doesn’t hesitate to explain her penchant
for older men in wholly Freudian terms:
"I needed a father. I needed a husband. I was adopted by Carlo and I
married my father."
[Source: http://www.geocities.com/loren_sophia/bio.html ]
(Maria, as it happens, is 20 years my junior.)
Much less of a speculative stretch is that Sophia obviously has a great
interest in advancing the writing and directing career of Edoardo. She likely gave her son input for the screenplay.
And she knew that drawing upon personal experience would be useful in giving a
powerful and convincing performance.
Playing the role of Olivia also can be seen as an oblique expression of
Sophia’s guilt and longing to reconnect with her daughter.
Reviews of “Between Strangers:”
http://www.mrqe.com/lookup?between+strangers
* * *
Photos of Maria
show an unmistakable resemblance to those taken of Sophia and Marcello in the 60s. Chiara Mastroianni, daughter of
Marcello and Catherine Denueve, also looks like
Maria.
* * *
And finally, this:
“I just spoke to a man who runs a spa in Casamicciola,”
one of my friends recently said. “I told
him that I’d heard that Sophia Loren had given up a baby for adoption in the
early 60s.”
“And?”
“The old man said, ‘Yes, of course, it’s common knowledge
on the island that she gave up a daughter named Maria. But we do not speak openly about it out of respect
for La Prima Donna.’”
“Common knowledge?”
“Absolutely. The old man said he regularly goes out in his
dinghy to Sophia’s yacht and brings her to a hot thermal spring near his spa,
where she takes her cure in the nude.
‘This woman may be in her 60s, but…mamma mia! She’s still got it!”
* * *