A Foreign Language Actress So Nice, She's Been Nominated Twice: Sophia Loren
Sunday, February 15, 2015 at 1:00PM 
abstew here. Only 15 women in the 87 year history of the Academy have scored a Best Actress nomination for a foreign language performance. In contrast, British actresses have won Best Actress 14 times. While the Academy has always warmed to Brits, their European neighbors have had to struggle to breakthrough with recognition in the acting races. (There has still never been a Best Actress nominee for a performance in any language outside of a European origin.) The first actress to even score a nomination for a foreign language performance was Melina Mercouri for Never on a Sunday in 1960, over 30 years into the Academy's history. Only two women have actually won Best Actress for a foreign language performance and both those women have the even rarer distinction of being honored twice with nominations for foreign language performances. The first was Sophia Loren who won for 1961's Two Women and was nominated again for Marriage Italian Style (1964). The other is this year's nominee for Two Days, One Night, Marion Cotillard, who won Best Actress for La Vie en Rose (2007).
With her second nomination, Cotillard joins a small but prestigious group of actresses that in addition to Loren includes Liv Ullmann and Isabelle Adjani. Three actresses in three separate languages (Italian, Swedish, and French) that proved their talent was able to transcend language barriers not once, but twice with the Academy. To receive an Oscar nomination is an honor, to do so a second time shows that you've earned the respect of the Academy, and to do it both times for performances not even in English, well, that's a feat reserved only for iconic women like these.
To celebrate Cotillard's place alongside these international legends, for the next few days we'll look back at the three previous foreign language, double-nominated Best Actress contenders. First up, the beauty from Italy that made Oscar history with her first nomination...
Sophia Loren
after the jump
Best Actress 1961 winner: Two Women (dir. Vittorio De Sica) Other nominees: Audrey Hepburn Breakfast at Tiffany's, Piper Laurie The Hustler, Geraldine Page Summer and Smoke, Natalie Wood Splendor in the Grass
Best Actress 1964 nominee: Marriage Italian Style (dir. Vittorio De Sica) Winner: Julie Andrews Mary Poppins Other nominees: Anne Bancroft The Pumpkin Eater, Debbie Reynolds The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Kim Stanley Séance on a Wet Afternoon
When Sophia Loren became the first performer ever to win an acting Oscar for a foreign language performance, she was hardly unknown to American audiences. The Italian beauty had been making films in her native country since 1950, building a reputation among movie-goers that sought out foreign films. But in 1958 when she signed a contract with Paramount to make 5 Hollywood films, she became an international star. Starring in films alongside Cary Grant and Clark Gable, she even scored a Golden Globe nomination for 1960's It Started in Naples before winning her Oscar. But usually cast as the exotic beauty or sex-kitten love interest, her performance in Two Women, in which she plays Cesira, a mother protecting her 12-year-old daughter during WWII, Loren was given a more earthy and gritty part to play - proving that her talent was more than skin deep. While there is no doubt about Loren's cinematic legacy, for me, the performance is not as fully realized as it could be.
In the film, Loren and her daughter go through a harrowing experience when they are both gang raped in a church, leaving both mother and daughter broken and bewildered. Loren's anger and grief are fully felt but the event happens so late in the film, that Loren is never given enough time to completely explore the after effects it has on her character. And up until that point, there has been very little for Loren to do that challenges. The film doesn't seem all that interested in her to begin with. Standing as a symbol for motherly love and for displaced war refugees, the film seems more concerned with showing us the tragedies of war without examining what it actually does to the people living it. So we're left with a brutal act that almost entirely defines Loren's character, reducing her to the role of victim. It's easy to see how the shocking dramatic impact of that moment won Loren the Oscar, but I would've much preferred Natalie Wood's similarly tragic but much more nuanced turn in Splendor in the Grass as that year's victor.
Her other nominated role as a prostitute that has been kept by a wealthy man for decades, also suffers from a similar problem in that the film's intentions are revealed far too late in the film for Loren to build a complete performance. It doesn't help that the 29-year-old actress is playing a woman in her 40s for most of the film, with bad gray streaks in her hair to signal her age but no real history or weight to back it up. The flashback scenes where Loren is vivacious and sexy, including one where she's decked out in see-through lingerie with a black spider design barely covering her assets, are certainly memorable but for purely titillating reasons. She lost that year to a much more wholesome performance from Julie Andrews as a magical, singing nanny. Andrews was such a surprising and unconventional choice for a Best Actress win and she was completely deserving of her victory.
Unlike her contemporary Marilyn Monroe, whose skills as an actress were often overshadowed by her measurements, it's impressive that Loren managed to be honored for her work twice by the Academy. And it's all the more amazing that she was able to do so with performances in Italian films, making her truly one of the first global superstars. Loren has since received an Honorary Academy Award in 1991 for her contribution to international cinema and at the age of 80 is still going strong having recently appeared in the film version of the musical Nine. And her co-star in the film happened to be the only other actress to win Best Actress for a foreign language performance and a fellow two-time, non-English-speaking nominee, Marion Cotillard.
Do you think that Loren's performance in Two Women was worthy of becoming the first foreign language performance to win an Oscar? Let us know in the comments.
Reader Comments (51)
Dietrich in "Der blaue Engel"
we also could have waited the Ullmann win which never arrived...
Loren was a gorgeous-looking woman but I'm not convinced she's Oscar-worthy.
With Audrey Hepburn it's even easier - she's not Oscar-worthy.
Sophia would have been on my long list for her winning year but I don't know if she would have made the short one. I would have chosen Ingrid Bergman in Goodbye Again, Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, Hayley Mills in Whistle Down the Wind, Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits
Deborah Kerr in The Innocents and my choice like yours for the prize Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass over her. That being said she does give a strong performance and she's certainly been deserving at various times so I'm glad she was awarded at least once. I'm not much of a fan of giving Honorary Oscars to past winners. They've already been acknowledged how about giving to those ignored.
The second nomination to me was a gift. The performance is okay but hardly nod worthy. If they wanted to nominate someone in a foreign film that year it should have been Catherine Deneuve in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Julie's wonderful in Mary Poppins but my choice that year would have been Anne Bancroft in The Pumpkin Eater.
Wow, I am living for this type of actressexual posts!
I haven't seen either of those movies, but I was really looking forward to seeing Two Women, I had heard great things about that performance. I'll probably check out anyway, but I'm a bit more cautious in my excitement.
I'm really looking forward to your Adjani and Ullman posts.
I suppose I'm splitting hairs on Fernanda Montenegro's nom for "Central Station" (a Brazilian film versus a Portuguese-language one). But I do think it's important to note that it's at least a nom for a film outside of Europe, which is quite an accomplishment. Is it the only actress nom thus far?
I can't really get into Loren. Cotillard, on the other hand, is one of the finest screen actresses we've ever seen, and I loathed her for stealing Julie Christie's Oscar in 2007.
what's great about Marion is that her two nominations are for outstanding work and that she is still young and hot and so on, so hopefully there'll be more Oscar-recognized greatness in the future.
Now that I reflect on things with my "BA Winners Seen" mentality I realize that even Bullock had more range in her unforgivable "Blind Side" win than Audrey Hepburn; even Julie Andrews had more "this film's actually about me" moments in "Mary Poppins".
I'm only coming up with 14 - did you count one of the double noms twice, or am I missing someone?
1) Melina Mercouri (60)
2) Sophia Loren (61, 64)
3) Anouk Aimee (66)
4) Ida Kaminska (66)
5) Liv Ullmann (72, 76)
6) Isabelle Adjani (75, 89)
7) Marie-Christine Barrault (76)
8) Ingrid Bergman (78)
9) Catherine Deneuve (92)
10) Fernanda Montenegro (98)
11) Catalina Sandino Moreno (04)
12) Penelope Cruz (06)
13) Marion Cotillard (07, 14)
14) Emmanuelle Riva (12)
Where can "Two Women" be seen? There are some dubbed scenes on YouTube, but it doesn't seem to be rentable anywhere. I've never seen it -- a big absence in my Best Actress completism.
Hey SanFran - e-mail me at josh.rozett@gmail.com
You beat me to the comment, zig.
Other interesting footnotes to this post are Luise Rainer, Austrian two-time-in-a-row winner, and Ingrid Bergman (six nods, two wins in the category) for performances not in their native languages.
Romy Schneider (five nods, two wins) and Kristin Scott Thomas (three nods) pulled off similar feats as non-native French speakers at the Césars.
San FranCinema- It's not immediate gratification but Two Women will be showing in April on TCM. It looks like they're doing a mini tribute to her and showing both nominated performances and a few other films that same day.
And shame on me for not mentioning Greta Garbo (three nods), Claudette Colbert (three nods, one win), Simone Signoret & Anna Magnani (two nods, one win), and Leslie Caron (two nods) among the non-native speakers who managed multiple Best Actress nominations performing in English.
joshr - carol kane for hester street (75)
zig - true, which is why i phrased it the way i did... (i had originally written that no actress had ever been nominated for a performance in any asian languages, but decided not to limit it since there's never been any african, arabic, etc.In fact there has never been an asian actress nominated for best actress. the closest was merle oberon who hid the fact that she was half indian for most of her life.)
san francinema - i saw it on a dvd from the library. the only versions i could find were dubbed (although Loren dubbed her part). and it was beyond annoying. i actually mention that fact tomorrow for ullmann...
Ah, yes, Sandino Moreno! How could I forget? This thread brings me back to my love of the recent LA Film Critics picks in this category (those two wins in a row for the Korean films "Mother" and "Poetry" among them).
Man, 1961 Best Actress was a crazy line-up! Too good.
Worthy performance in a great line-up. Piper and Audrey are my favorites.
"...Andrews was such a surprising and unconventional choice for a Best Actress win and she was completely deserving of her victory..."
Surprising? To whom? She was in a hugely popular Best Picture nominated film. She was already widely expected to win because she was passed over for the role Audrey Hepburn was given in "My Fair Lady" and the sympathy factor was running high in the press media. There may not have been a more predictable winner in the entire decade. History rewritten, again.
Deserving? To whom? If anyone has seen Kim Stanley in "Séance on a Wet Afternoon," they will understand.
At least Ms. Stanley did win the NYFCC award for Best Actress.
Paryk: you can be the frontrunner and still be a surprising, unconventional choice. Jean Dujardin was the frontrunner for best actor a few years back, and in a best picture winner, but he's still a surprising and unconventional choice for the award.
I do think she deserved the win the first time (every one of them would be a deserving winner), but the second nomination is a travesty. They should have nominated her for A Special Day.
She was great in "TWo women",and "Una giornata particolare ",but her american films were awful. She is a good actress, but not a great one. Jeanne moureau, Liv Ullman, Bergman are amazing european actresses. Sophia Loren was a sex symbol who gave convincing performances, but nothing else. I would like to see Loren in "PErsona ", Cries and whispers or Autumn playing Ingrid's role, she couldn't have possibly.
Hmm....not sure about including Kane, since part of her performance is in English, and most of the film is...but I guess it could qualify.
It's a bummer that the number is so small given how many great performances could and should have been nominated. Liv Ullmann alone could have been nominated at least half a dozen times. It's incredibly sad how resistant the Hollywood Foreign Press has been, in particular, about nominating foreign language performances, given that they are, in fact, foreign - but they've always been more about movie stars. SAG is notoriously stubborn about it, too.
To compare her to Liv Ullmann is not fair. Try to cast Ullmann in a sexy comedy, like Ieri Oggi Domani...
I do think Ullmann is a much better actress than Loren, but that reasoning is not good.
Technically speaking, Rinko Kikuchi was nominated for a role in a foreign language (Japanese Sign Language, in a section of the film that was otherwise in spoken Japanese).
It's so sad to think about all of the foreign language performances that have been among, if not the, best of the year and received little to no acclaim stateside. In particular, the Oscars/America in general really need to expand their world view beyond Europe.
La Loren was indeed a surprise win in 1961, as the consenus was that Geraldine Page (who won the Golden Globe & NBR) will win that night. As a matter of fact, Loren din showed up as she din expect to win (she cited "nervousness" as her excuse). That said her win was a sweet sign that Oscar could indeed honor a non-Hollywood, foreign lang performance. It was a good performance but IMO not really the best of that year. Among the nominees, I wld've gone w Wood's sensitive and naunced turn in Splendor or Hepburn's iconic & tres-chic hooker in Breakfast (Can u imagine anyone else be Holly GoLightly w/o coming across as crass?)
But the best performance IMO that year wasn't even nominated. Deborah Kerr's complex & haunting performance as the repressed & self-righteous governess (is she hallucinating? why is she so determined in her quest to save the children on her own?) in The Innocents....the best adaption of Henry James' masterpiece: The Turn of the Screw, ever
I was already inclined to suggest that you rewatch Two Women (for Peggy Sue: La Ciociara), but then you called the worst Best Actress win ever - give or take Grace Kelly in The Country Girl - "completely deserving" and this of course renders everything you've got to say completely irrelevant. Not to mention that you're contradicting yourself when you first write "the performance is not as fully realized as it could be" and then follow this up with "Loren is never given enough time to completely explore the after effects it has on her character. And up until that point, there has been very little for Loren to do that challenges. The film doesn't seem all that interested in her to begin with".
As for your comments on the Julie Andrews non-performance, well, no one can be blamed for his or her atrocious taste - or can they? -, but in this particular case, bad taste certainly isn't something to be proud of, especially when one takes into consideration how great Anne Bancroft and Kim Stanley were in 1964.
And to our lord and master I'd like to say the following: Nathaniel, the next time you want just another posting that disses Loren and praises Satan's Bride, please write it yourself and do not hire a ventriloquist's dummy to do so. It does not back up your opinions that you allow members of your staff to parrot them.
I think it's an absolute travesty that Gong Li didn't get a single nomination for her brilliant work in the 90s.
I loved Gong Li in Memoirs of a Geisha! No matter what people think of the movie, the venomous jealousy and heartbreak in performance were amazing. I loved that the NBR gave her their award for Supporting Actress.
Does anyone know how many actors have been nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for a foreign language performance?
Marion was stunningly beautiful when she win the Oscar
I hope she amazes us again this year
holy racism! gong li hasn't been nominated? the woman has given amazing performances when she was at her peak. i mean, The Story of Qiu Ju? Raise the Red Lantern? Ju Dou? jesus christ... tsktsk.
can someone in TFE do a whole thing about gong li's blazing, blistering work with yimou or has it already happened? a not too heavy consolation for the lack of oscars.
Hannes:
'62 Marcello Mastroianni--Divorce, Italian Style
'76 Giancarlo Giannini--Seven Beauties
'77 Marcello Mastroianni--A Special Day
'87 Marcello Mastroianni--Dark Eyes
'88 Max Von Sydow--Pelle the Conqueror
'90 Gérard Depardieu--Cyrano de Bergerac
'95 Masimo Troisi--It Postino
'98 Roberto Benigni--Life is Beautiful (winner)
'00 Javier Barden--Before Night Falls (some parts are in English)
I didn't include any of the silents or when English was the dominate language.
I almost forgot to add about Loren's 1964 nom (a B grade sex farce which makes me cringe), which I think should have gone to Ava Gardner (definitely more deserving) or Hepburn (her snub is totally uncalled for as it was Jack Warner who made the decision NOT to cast Andrews. In all fairness, althot she can't sing, Hepburn did a wonderful transformation from the cockney gal to a hi society dame).
Andrews is a refreshing choice but in hindsight she probably won because of the sympathy vote over the rob of her Eliza by Warner & because The Sound o Music had just exploded in the theatres in Mar 1965 & cemented her status as Hollywood's IT gal of the moment.
IMO, Garnder's sexy confident cougarish (she's sexy & she knew it!) turn in The Night of the Iguana IS the best performance in 1964.
The examples are far fewer in the supporting actress category, so i think we should make special mention to Valentina Cortese in "Day for Night"
Willy - La Ciociara sounds better, right?
Cal - Well said. We can't compare actresses that way.
Claran - I don't fully buy your theory that Page was the favorite despite the precursors.
@Paul Outlaw: Luise Rainer was German, not Austrian. MGM advertised her as being Austrian, for obvious political reasons in the 1930s.
Henry, add Javier Bardem for Biutifull.
Sean: Rinko Kikuchi was nominated in supporting, not lead.
Hannes & Henry: Bardem's role in Biutiful was also entirely in Spanish.
Foreign language supporting noms:
'73 Valentina Cortese - Day for Night (French)
'00 Benicio del Toro - Traffic (mostly Spanish, some English) (winner)
'06 Rinko Kikuchi - Babel (Japanese sign language)
'06 Adriana Barraza - Babel (at least partly Spanish? I haven't seen it yet)
I need to drop two names: Carmen Maura and Norma Aleandro.
Thank you.
I'm not the greatest Sophia's fan on earth but I can understand the success of her perf in TWO WOMEN...deglam aside, it was a smart move to select her for a role nobody was aware she could play so effectively...the scene after the gang rape when she protest with some soldiers who don't understand a word and apparently don't care anything is still harrowing
I can take comfort in the fact that Norma Aleandro is an Oscar nominee even though it didn't happen for The Official Story. In 1985 both Cher and Norma Aleandro were ignored in favor of Lange and Bancroft despite jointly winning the Cannes prize. However, two years later both of them were nominated albeit in different categories.
Hollywood created the Academy Awards to celebrate itself. Foreign productions not in English are never a priority. Few want to consume movies where they have to read them for comprehension. My passion for foreign language movies are all European productions. European culture never feels too exotic nor too foreign to relate to.
@Fergenaprido: Ah you're right! Thanks for amending. My categories were confused.
@dela & mcv: That Gong Li hasn't been nominated at LEAST a handful of times, even just for her work with Zhang Yimou, is appalling, especially given how much international acclaim the films and her performances received.
Ziyi Zhang was sixth place in 2005 for sure, though obviously probably deservedly left off considering that film is awful.
I'm hoping her live action Mulan movie happens and she gets nominated for that, though I'm sure that'll be in english.
@Benji: Rainer's Hollywood career took place before there was any overwhelming reason to conceal her German nationality, as the US was "neutral" in WWII until 1941 and public anti-German sentiment didn't begin to explode until late '39. Depending on the source, Rainer herself was born in Germany or Austria and raised in both countries, but liked to consider herself American because her father was raised in Texas.
Too bad there will probably never be any impetus for a Gong Li "make up" or "lifetime achievement" Oscar. She deserve to win for Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern at the very least, and nominations for at least a couple of others.
Superb piece.
ARG! Don't know how I missed Bardem for Biutiful ('10). Guess I was so busy deciding whether to add Bichir from the next year.
Thanks for the reminder about Norma Aleandro. I associate her lack of nomination for The Official Story as a lack of a nomination at all, so I end up forgetting her supporting nom for Gaby: A True Story. Which I haven't seen... Has there been a Smackdown for 1987?
@PaulOutlaw I agree, Luise Rainer was basically a proper cosmopolitan, having lived her most recent decades in London. Born in Germany, doing her most acclaimed theatre work in Austria, then America, then London. Quite a life! MGM styled her the 'Viennese Teardrop', but then Luise never wanted to be put in boxes anyway. I had the honour to see her speak in person 5 years ago, an extremely memorable experience.