Loren will celebrate her milestone in Rome.

Legendary Italian actress Sophia Loren, one of the last stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, will celebrate her 90th birthday in Rome on Friday 20 September.

The Italian culture ministry will mark the milestone by hosting a private party for the Oscar-winning actress and her family at Cinecittà film studios, with guests from all over the world expected to wish the star a happy birthday. 

There will be further celebrations in Loren's honour overseas, news agency ANSA reports, with a retrospective of her films scheduled at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles in November.

Born Sofia Scicolone in Rome in 1934, the cinema icon began her film career after finishing as a finalist in the Miss Italia 1950 beauty pageant.

Italian movie producer Carlo Ponti changed her name to Sophia Loren to appeal to a wider audience and her breakthrough role was in The Gold of Naples (1954), directed by Vittorio De Sica.

Italian cinema legend Sophia Loren, 88, gets a standing ovation tonight at the Arena di Verona Opera Festival which celebrates its centenary with a performance of Aida by Giuseppe Verdi.pic.twitter.com/WorFhiOiUD

— Wanted in Rome (@wantedinrome) June 16, 2023

She became one of the best known sex symbols of the 1950s and co-starred in a string of movies with Marcello Mastroianni as well as Hollywood stars Cary Grant and Anthony Perkins.

Her performance as Cesira in De Sica's 1961 movie La Ciociara (Two Women) earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress, making her the first actor or actress to win an Oscar for a foreign-language performance.

Over the subsequent decades Loren also won a record seven David di Donatello Awards for Best Actress, five special Golden Globes, an Honorary Oscar in 1991 and a Visionary Award in 2021.

Loren, who lives in Geneva, was married to Carlo Ponti until his death in 2007. She has two sons, Edoardo and Carlo Ponti Jr. 

Cover image: Sophia Loren at the Cannes Film Festival on 21 May 2014. Photo credit: Andrea Raffin / Shutterstock.com.