Our Daily Dead

Carlo Ponti the film producer who discovered Sophia Loren has died at age 95.

As per the Independent Online article - “Carlo Ponti was one of the most successful producers of the post-war Italian film boom, backing works by directors such as Alberto Lattuada, Frederico Fellini and Vittorio De Sica, but there can be no doubt that the most spectacular ‘production’ of his long career was the transformation of Sofia Scicolone from impoverished bit-part actress into Sophia Loren, international film star, iconic embodiment of Italian womanhood and, not irrelevantly, the second Signora Carlo Ponti.”

There was of course a bit of an issue with the marriage of Carlo and his ‘production’ Sophia. It seems that Carlo was already married and at the time divorce was illegal in Italy. Pointi however managed to get a Mexican divorce during a visit to Hollywood in 1957. At the same time he also wrangled a Mexican marriage by proxy to Loren.

Ah bugger but didn’t that new marriage just put him in the way of trouble from the Italians in general and the scary red-hats over at the Vatican too. Subsequently “…Ponti was informed by the Italian authorities that he would face charges of bigamy should he return home, while Loren would be charged with ‘concubinage’”.

Bigamy derives from the French bigamie, and from the Latin bis meaning twice, and the Greek gamos meaning marriage.

(TIME OUT! … BTW - Do you recall the lines from Groucho as Captain Spalding in Animal Crackers?:

Spalding: “Well whadaya say girls? Are we all gonna get married?” Mrs. Whitehead: “All of us?” Spalding: “All of us!” Mrs. Whitehead: “But that’s bigamy!” Spalding: “Yes, and it’s big-a-me too.”

Twice Married. Tisk, tisk. All this and the Vatican threatened him with excommunication too.

Now in case you skipped catechism:

Concubinage covers “…those unions only in which the man and the woman are free from any obligation arising from a vow, the state of matrimony or Holy Orders, or the fact of relationship or affinity; it is immaterial whether the parties dwell together or not, the repetition or continuance of illicit relations between the same persons being the essential element.”

Excommunication comes from the Latin ex, out of, and communio or communicatio, communion — thus ‘exclusion from the communion’. Excommunication “…is a medicinal, spiritual penalty that deprives the guilty Christian of all participation in the common blessings of ecclesiastical society.” En otras palabas: you don’t get be part of the club no mo’.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Carlo Ponti, Sophia Loren, died, Italian film, Alberto Lattuada, Frederico Fellini, Vittorio De Sica, Sofia Scicolone, Vatican, Bigamy, Groucho, Captain Spalding, Animal Crackers

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 11:48 am and is filed under ODD Guests, Movies & TV, Arts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.