Director Krasimir Ivanov talks about his meetings with Sophia Loren. He has worked with directors such as Ermanno Olmi, Mel Gibson and Martin Scorsese, he is a friend of Monica Bellucci, Claudia Cardinale, Gina Lollobrigida and, of course, Sophia Loren. The interview of Leo Bogdanovski in “Telegraph”:
– How did you congratulate Sofia Loren on her 90th birthday, Mr. Ivanov?
– I called her a few days ago because I knew it would be very busy on the day itself. Although this is not done out of superstition, but we heard each other without greeting each other. She knew what I was calling about. I hadn’t heard from her in a long time. She said she was in perfect shape, never felt so young and so fit.
She thinks about the future, about the next stage of life, what awaits her. Such optimism and zest for life… apparently that’s how you get to 90, not with groans and moans. Last year at this time, she broke her hip joint, which at such an age usually leads to a fatal end, but not for her – after 6 months she was already celebrating on the front line. There are great doctors in Switzerland. Even after she fell, we heard from her children and they said that the operation went more than well.
SEE MORE: Sophia Loren burning her memories (EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS)
– At 90, it looks great. What is her secret?
– All her life she maintained herself and had military discipline. Every day is about diets. I have been to lunches and dinners several times, she invited me to them, the pizzas she made for me were 4-5 cm in diameter. He brought two mini-pizzas and said, “Honey, one is for me.” I asked her where the nearest restaurant was to go to get hired. To this day, she does gymnastics, does not go to the gym, and when she gets up in the morning, she does exercises in bed by raising and lowering her legs.
– How did you actually meet?
– I worked as an assistant in a big TV production many years ago and I had to accompany her from the hotel to the set. When she saw me, she asked where you were from. I call – Bulgarian. And she: what a Bulgarian, you are our boy, Neapolitan. Because I’m dark.
She is a professional through and through. She is one of the last great stars of the golden cinema. We were recently looking for an up-to-date global star for a campaign and found that there was none after Monica Bellucci’s generation. The system in Hollywood is already different, there have been too many stars. With the advent of streaming platforms, it’s more important that the actors are good, not how famous they are and how much they cost, and returns are not certain.
– Sofia Loren has probably never come to Bulgaria…
– No, never. Ten years ago there was such an opportunity, but unfortunately it did not happen. We prepared an exhibition about her life from all her huge archive, but since it didn’t happen in Sofia, we did it later in Mexico. It was about money. Of course I won’t say how much. The amount is not large, but it was clearly not small either. It wasn’t about millions. All evil for good.
– How did I let you into my personal archive?
– I slept at their place, so the fact that she allowed me access to her personal archive is the least. She guards absolutely everything.
As the wife of the film’s producer, she had the opportunity to collect everything from the set – scripts, costumes… She has a huge warehouse in which she collects everything, arranged as if in a hospital. Once we were sorting through the boxes and one of them revealed a 1960s pedal pushchair. Only her nose showed and she seemed to be crying. I’m yelling – okay, I get that when we bring in the Oscars you’re yelling, scripts with captions by Marcello Mastroianni, but why now?
She then told me: you know, this is the only gift I have received from my father. This speaks of a very difficult childhood – he gets to know her, but never marries her mother, many years pass before he gets to know her sister. In the post-war years, they starved and everything was terribly difficult. Apparently that’s part of the battle – learning how to fight life. It hasn’t all been roses and red carpets. They lived in one room – she, her mother, her sister, her grandmother and grandfather. That’s why she is very sensitive and cries easily.
– What else is in this warehouse?
– I got emotional at times because I adore Italian cinema. We open a box and in it a bra, a jumpsuit, a terrycloth robe, ankle socks with garter clips. I immediately guessed it was the costume from Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow where she strips in front of Marcello Mastroianni.
She keeps the costume from The Little Mermaid, for which she won an Oscar, quite tattered, but she has it. We also found the biggest collector in Italy of everything to do with Sofia Loren from the 40’s. Her name is Mina Fabri and I took Sofia to them and she was very impressed. As he looked at it, he asked himself – that’s all, when did I shoot it.
The films are one in hand, but she has acted in a number of advertising campaigns. She told me she had to change her clothes 10 times a day just for one commercial.
– Did you find something about this woman that she did not see?
– She even asked for them, but she didn’t give them to her. One pair of glasses she advertised. As well as some photos from her wedding with Carlo Ponti, which are missing. She’s keeping her wedding dress, but since the photos are black and white, people think she’s wearing a white dress and she’s wearing a yellow one. They are currently negotiating with the municipality of Naples for this collection to go there.
– You are also close to her children. How did you become friends?
– At one time, Sophia Loren often traveled to Moscow for various events. I went with her because I speak Russian very well. Her children came from time to time. One time I showed my mother a picture of me with her son Carlo and she yelled: It might be Sophia Loren, but you’re prettier.
One of her sons is a conductor, the other a director. They both live in Los Angeles. On one of the trips to Moscow, Carlo had to conduct the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. The score came to him late and I asked him how he was going to conduct this big orchestra. He shouts: Krasi, but they know it by heart, because it was the overture to “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, I will only help them with the rhythm. I shout – then I can also conduct the Moscow Philharmonic. He says – yes, do you want to try? And I have dreamed of being a conductor since I was a child. I’m sorry I don’t have a video of that memorable moment. Thanks to Carlo Ponti, I conducted the Moscow Philharmonic.
– Did you have any contact with Carlo Ponti-father?
– No, because he had just died and when we met, she was very depressed. To this day, she lives with Carlo Ponti’s secretary, who worked for him before he married Sofia, in a huge villa in Geneva. The third woman is the nanny of her two children, one German. They help her with administration and everything in life. They are like her left and right hands.
– Have you talked about Bulgaria?
– I have seen photos on the Internet of Sophia Loren in Assen Peikov’s studio, where she posed for him in Rome around 1955. The head of her bust is almost finished. And I asked her where it is. I know everything at their place, in her archive, but I have never seen this bust anywhere. She said that there was never such a statue at home. I unraveled the case by calling Asen Peikov’s son – Rudolfo, who lived in America at the time and we had mutual friends. I tell him I’m with Sophia Loren and we want to know the history of this statue.
He then said it had not been paid yet. And what is happening? Asen Peykov made statues of all the great Hollywood stars who passed through Rome. Carlo Ponti brings her along to bring her up to their level.
The whole story is very banal, because he brings her only to take a few photos for the yellow press, to show that she has become Asen Peikov’s muse. At the end of the seance, he takes the bust out of clay and tells him that he will take care of taking it to a foundry to cast it in bronze. But then no one knows what the fate of this work is. However, Sophia Loren keeps a golden rose that Assen Peykov made for the Sympathy Awards of the Municipality of Rome. She’s standing next to her Oscars. She didn’t even know it was on Assen.
Do you have a favorite movie of hers?
– “Sunflowers”, which was filmed in the Soviet Union, she played with Marcello Mastroianni. It tells the story of a woman whose husband goes to fight with Italy and Germany against Russia during World War II. Mastroianni plays a soldier. A Russian woman finds him almost frozen and revives him. He decided to stay there, and in Italy he was married to Sophia Loren. It’s Vittorio De Sica’s. She has a soft spot for him because she accepts him as her father.
– She has thousands of awards, where does she keep them?
– They are in a display case in a medieval library with chiseled ornaments, located in a huge corridor between the bedroom and the living room. As I roared once, he shouted – you are laughing at me, but do you know how difficult it will be for me without this showcase these three months. But we will return it to you after the exhibition and it will be arranged in the same way. And she – but what will I do without her during this time. She then said something very curious: Krasi, do you know that every day I pass this library 30-40 times and, seeing it, I remember who I am, what I have achieved. I was left speechless. I have so many stories. I lived with them for weeks while we prepared this exhibition. When it didn’t happen in Bulgaria, I was very disappointed because I had also spent personal money. But my mother said – what are you sorry for, I don’t know another person who slept with Sophia Loren. Did you have fun?
Naturally, I am the happiest person. Remember that, everything else is details you don’t need to remember. That such a woman has allowed you near her – that should be like an order on your lapel.
– What advice did she give you?
– There are many of them. It’s like an advice book. Especially when it comes to cooking, stay and watch. How to cook the pasta, how to cook the pizza, the dough… there are no compromises there. She gave me a lot of advice. We sit down and he starts talking to me. Stoicism and discipline are the most important things I learned from her. She continues to observe them to this day. Every morning she gets up at 4 o’clock and starts putting on her makeup. The “operations” for the preparation of the exhibition began at 6 a.m. in her bedroom. She already looks like Sophia Loren, but at this age she needs a little time to achieve it. And I have asked her – we are insiders, why are you wearing make-up, are you going out somewhere. “No, I’m not going out anywhere, I’m just used to it, I’ve been doing this all my life and I don’t know anything else.” For a moment she did not relax and say: I have achieved this, this and this. A could afford to give it more casually.
She speaks perfect French and English, sings, cooks. One day I asked her why she had never acted in the theater. I was curious why. In Bulgaria, it is believed that if you play on stage a lot, then you become a film and television actor. Then she opened my eyes and said, “There is nothing like that. I never played in a theater, because I knew that when I stepped on the stage, I would start acting theatrical, and that would later ruin my career in the cinema.” There is something true.
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