Italian star Sophia Loren, a cinema icon with two Oscars to her name in Hollywood, celebrates her 90th birthday in Rome Friday, just a few days before French actress Brigitte Bardot.

The two divas helped define film in the 20th century, becoming international cultural icons and revered by millions around the world.

“Sophia Loren, the myth is 90 years old”, crooned the headline on Il Corriere della Sera daily.

Loren, who was born in Rome on September 20, 1934, blew out her 90 candles at a private party in a luxury hotel in the historic centre of the Italian capital.

After a tribute organized in a Rome movie theatre by the Cinecittà studios and the minister of culture, the actress met some 150 friends, colleagues and family members for a dinner on the hotel terrace overlooking the Baths of Diocletian. There, she also inaugurated a suite bearing her name, according to the newspaper Il Corriere della Sera.

Loren dressed for the occasion by her friend and favorite couturier, Giorgio Armani.

Italian actress Sophia Loren, accompanied by her husband Carlo Ponti (right), and Mr Fabre-Lebret, president of the Festival, waves to the crowd, during the Cannes International Film Festival, on April 30, 1964. —AFP photos

This portrait photograph taken in the 60's shows Italian actress Sophia Loren.

Italian actress Sophia Loren attends the Jean-Paul Gaultier's ready-to-wear Fall/Winter 1994/95 collection fashion show, on March 6, 1994 in Paris.

Italian actress Sophia Loren poses at the Louvre museum in Paris, after receiving a gold medal stamped with her effigy at the Hotel de la Monnaie, on February 21, 1964.

Italian actress Sophia Loren poses for photographs during the International Film Festival in Cannes, on May 26, 1976.

This photograph taken on May 14, 1956 at Saint-Germain-en-Lay, near Paris, shows Italian actress Sophia Loren visiting the castle as part of the twinning ceremony with Sorrento, South Italy.

Italian actress Sophia Loren is filmed during the shooting at Piazza del Popolo in Rome of the movie, "Nine" a remake of Federico Fellini's film 8½ ,directed by Rob Marchall on January 25, 2009.

Italian actress Sophia Loren, UNHCR "goodwill" ambassador, poses on November 22, 1992 with children on the Kenyan-Somalian border where 50,000 refugees have gathered in search of food and security.

This photograph taken in May 1964 shows Italian actress Sophia Loren during the Cannes Film Festival.

Italy’s main newspapers looked back Friday at the extraordinary, decades-long career of Loren, one of the last surviving actresses from Hollywood’s Golden Age. During her career, Loren played opposite the greatest actors of the day, from Anthony Quinn and Clark Gable, to Marlon Brando, Cary Grant, Peter Sellers, John Wayne and Frank Sinatra.

La Repubblica newspaper paired her birthday with that of Brigitte Bardot, who will turn 90 on September 28. “Splendid ninety-year-olds”, wrote the paper, saying the duo “redefined the feminine imagination of the 20th century”.

Loren’s 90th birthday marked by a retrospective at the Lincoln Center in New York City.

Italy’s public broadcaster Rai has planned several reruns of her films, including a restored version of “Marriage Italian Style” with Marcello Mastroianni, her favorite co-star who died in 1996.

That choice incorporates several key dates: the 60th anniversary of the film released in 1964, the centenary of Mastroianni’s birth on September 26, 1924 and the 50th anniversary of the death of its director Vittorio De Sica.

Widowed since the 2007 death of her husband, film producer Carlo Ponti, Loren made a comeback on Italian television in 2010 in a movie about her life in which she played her own mother.

In 2014 upon turning 80, she published her memoir, “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow”. Her last film appearance was in 2020’s “The Life Ahead”, directed by her son Edoardo Ponti. — AFP