Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

draft at 28,000 feet over the Alps. As it plummetted sickeningly before the pilot could regain control, Carlo was hurled against the seat in front of him, his right ear cut so badly that it took fourteen emergency stitches to close it. Do they know how you felt, rushing from Switzerland to Rome to be with him while fortyfive plastic surgery stitches were then put into his ear? And did they consider it a sin, perhaps, that you knelt by his bed and wept when you heard that his first words, as he was taken, cut and bloodied, from the plane were, “Luckily Sophia wasn’t on board.” What do they know about loving a man? A baby’s shrill cry sifted through to the waiting room. Even the card players froze for a second, and the readers put down their papers. Everybody in the room smiled. No, this was not the time to be thinking of shame. One little flower forcing its head above the frozen earth can make you forget winter. One infant’s innocence can make you forgive the world’s cruelty. The door opened again and a nurse walked swiftly to Sophia — and already Sophia felt in her heart that something was wrong. She followed the nurse out to the hall to hear, in a whisper, what was happening with Maria. The words penetrated in isolated snatches and phrases: “baby very tiny ... in grave danger . . . doing everything we can to save . . . special equipment . . . round the clock care for the baby . . . yes, a little girl . . . mother is all right, doesn’t know of her baby’s problem— not yet . . . no, nothing you can do.” Sophia went home and spent a sleepless night in prayer. In the days and nights that followed she begged God a million times to spare the life of Maria’s baby. An item in Louella Parsons’ column gave a stark account of what they all went through: “Doctors in Rome are fighting to save the life of the baby girl born prematurely to Sophia Loren’s sister Maria, married to Romano Mussolini, son of the late Italian dictator.” A few days, and the miracles of happiness came to pass. The baby responded to treatment, thrived, and the doctors assured a harassed Sophia that her tiny niece would live and be well. . . . Maria asked her sister to be the baby’s godmother at the christening ceremonies. . . . Sophia’s picture was taken, holding her precious little Alessandria in her arms, cooing to her, loving her . . . and Sophia’s cup of blessings ran over. A happy ending? We’re afraid not. Within a few days, a new uproar commenced. In a Milan Catholic newspaper a leading moral theologian, the Right Reverend Giovanni-Battista, wrote an open letter addressed to Sophia’s spiritual advisor, Father Rotondi who had officiated at the christening. The prelate wrote that he could understand how “his old friend, Father Rotondi” would have wanted to help Miss Loren, but “I cannot understand how you could allow little Alessandria to be committed to the spiritual attention of the woman. “I prefer to think that you were the victim of a fall into one of those snares from which we never seem to be officially safe,” the letter went on, “rather than to be con vinced that you contributed, even in good faith, to an increase in the number of the world’s scandals.” Three days later the Vicarist of Rome issued a communique invoking the Article of canon law which bans “persons who behave in a sinful way, publicly, gravely,” from standing as godmother or godfather at a christening. Although the communique did not mention Sophia by name, a Vatican press office statement did. It quickly pointed out that the communique “evidently referred to a baptism at which actress Sophia Loren was godmother.” Joining in the chorus of condemnation, L’Osservatore Romano pointed out that so long as Italian and church law block Ponti’s divorce from his present wife and his marriage to Sophia, she is living in “public concubinage” in the eyes of the Roman Catholic church and is “therefore unfit for godmotherhood.” Surprised at the fuss, Sophia remarked simply, “I wouldn’t have been there if I had known they didn’t want me.” But she also said, with a contented sigh, “It was one of the happiest events of my life. In any case, I am the child’s godmother and proud" of it.” The baby’s father, Romano Mussolini, came to his sister-in-law’s defense with a simple, warm-hearted bit of logic. He said. “She held the baby in her arms and loved it. 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