Abstract

In 2014, at the age of 80, Sophia Loren published Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. My life, her autobiography. Ten years later, we aim to analyze not only this but also the other writings of the Italian diva, namely the recipe manuals published in 1971 and 1999. If the recipe books have the function of taming the transgressive aspects of her star persona, the autobiography appears above all to be the self-fashion portrait of a beauty symbol in spite of herself. The events of her life are told according to the fairy-tale scheme of the poor teenager who climbs the heights of fortune and achieves success without ever denying the values of Italian tradition, such as family and marriage. If truly «writing a story is trying to build oneself, much more than trying to know oneself» (Lejeune), we can affirm that this biography has fulfilled its purpose, that of conservatively restructuring the myth of a star who has repeatedly affirmed of living in a century that does not belong to her.