I lived my life as best I could, hidden behind a thin yet sturdy veil of shyness. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but I was really shy, perhaps bec… - Sophia Loren

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I lived my life as best I could, hidden behind a thin yet sturdy veil of shyness. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but I was really shy, perhaps because of our situation: My father was absent, and my mother was too blond, too tall, too lively, and, above all, unmarried. Her eccentric, excessive beauty embarrassed me. She was a ragazza madre, a girl-mother, as the saying goes. I dreamed of a normal, reassuring mother, with black hair, a creased apron, her hands rough, and her eyes tired — like Mamma Luisa, whom I would find once again a few decades later in A Special Day, a movie in which I play a character named Antonietta, a devoted housewife and mother of six.