Pozzuoli, a small town near Naples, is about as far from Hollywood as you can get. There is no glitz, no glamor, and its residents have been historically impoverished. Back in the 1940s, this was even more so the case. But, it was here, among the rubble of bomb sites and the blares of sirens, that a star was born.  

Sophia Loren’s childhood was defined by a constant struggle for survival; even after the war ended, food and shelter were often in scarce supply. Her father was almost entirely absent from her life, having walked out on her mother and his two daughters when Loren was a baby. To take her mind away from the hardships her family and so many others were going through, Loren turned to the cinema.