Word: italianity
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...grandest producers, perhaps second only to Dino De Laurentiis. The two forged a partnership in the early 50s, when De Laurentiis was producing films with his own bombshell wife, Silvana Mangano. Dino and Carlo's signature film was Un Americano a Roma, a modest comedy about a young Italian besotted with all things American. It expressed the hope of two paisan producers to make films that appealed both to the local market and the American, often by pairing one of their star spouses with a Hollywood name. Thus Mangano played Penelope (and Circe) to Kirk Douglas' Ulysses; Loren...
Boris and Natasha. The gangster and his moll. The statuesque babe and the little round man. Beauty and Obese. That double image, like joke figures on a wedding cake, was the one struck by the great Italian actress Sophia Loren and her discoverer, mentor, curator and prime exhibiter, producer Carlo Ponti. They had been together since 1950 - when he was nearly 40, she just 15 - and they stayed that way through 56 years, two marriages to each other (the first annulled) and 37 movies that he sponsored and she appeared...
...They faced plenty of obstacles: the rude public merriment at their pairing; all the misery the Vatican-cowed Italian government tried to bring to their joint political, financial and personal life; the stories of his infidelities and of the movie stars (Cary Grant, Peter Sellers) utterly smitten by her allure. Yet Ponti and Loren persevered, becoming a metaphor for the lasting attraction of opposites...
...Their off-screen story was every bit as dramatic as any of their movies. It might take the name of one of them: Marriage, Italian-Style. Ponti, then married, had tried keeping his relationship with Loren hush-hush, as his lawyers won a Mexican divorce from his estranged wife, Giuliana. In 1957 the producer and his star were married by proxy in Mexico, with two male attorneys standing in for them. But the Italian government forced the annulment of their marriage and branded Ponti a bigamist. The couple had to live either abroad or secretly in Italy, until 1966 when...
...Since the Chinese exporters have such low labor costs - around $2 an hour - they can afford to pack the cars with standard features like electronic stability control, antilock brakes and rear-view cameras for parking assistance. Nor are the cars being designed with drab proleterian styling. The highly regarded Italian design shop Pininfarina produced the interior and exterior styling of the Liebao line. And lest you think Americans won't buy a Chinese car, consider this: according to an AP AOL-Autos poll conducted last month, 70% of Americans under age 35 said they'd consider a Chinese car (overall...