Sophia Loren in 2016.

On September 20, 2017, she was 83.

She would have never been silent, even to a powerful Hollywood mogul. For example:

“Being Marlon Brando didn’t help, either, according to a movie-star anecdote I have picked up somewhere. He is said to have groped Sophia Loren, during a film shoot many years ago. She set him straight crisply. By the time she was finished with him, the megastar was reduced to a whipped little boy. He behaved much better to everyone on set, after this humiliation.

Now, this Dama di Gran Croce is a real woman, in my estimation, not a Hollywood tart. After learning of this offstage performance with Brando, I could only cry, “Brava!” Put the little creature in his place!”

And I add that she was beautiful to stand up for herself, for other women, for good manners, and for the moral good in society. To  young people everywhere, I beg you to make such situations beautiful by refusing all vulgar, coercive suggestions.

from “On Women and Power” by David Warren, The Catholic Thing, October 13, 2017