Sophia Loren is provoked, her almond-shaped golden eyes flashing, a generous marquise-diamond pinkie ring catching the light as her left hand waves toward the ceiling for emphasis. "In the mentality of the public, how many names have lasted?" she demands. "Very few, I tell you. I'm known all over the world-China, Russia-can you imagine how many years I've been. . .there?"

Loren stops, incredulous that, forty years into a career that established her as an international sex symbol, an Italian icon, she has to endure. . .this. . . the suggestion that her husband, mentor, and frequent producer, Carlo Ponti, hasn't steered his wife's career in the best direction. That, somewhere along the line, Loren's highly charged screen presence slid from memorable interplay with Marcello Mastroianni to mediocre TV movies and endorsements for eyewear.

It's not at all easy to get Sophia Loren riled-this is, in fact, a woman who prides herself on her supreme patience. "I look at the world in a wonderful way; I'm the most serene and tolerant and peaceful person," she says by way of prologue. But mention Ponti, the chief instrument of her patience indeed, the man who kept her waiting for yearsand she is visibly, aberrationally peeved.

As we sit in Bungalow 11 of the Beverly Hills Hotel, her annoyance billows into a most uncharacteristic display of hubris. "You have to remember, I'm Italian, not American, but, still, everybody here knows me. How many other Italian actresses are known as I am?"

The lady has a point. Claudia Cardinale, Monica Vitti, Mariangela Melato - where are they now? And Gina Lollobrigida, what ever happened to Gina Lollobrigida? "Lollobrigida is another generation," Loren jokes, "seven years older." They faded, but Loren is still adored, her movie-stardom having enlarged over the years nearly to the point of European royalty, a woman who is a famously devoted wife and mother, yet remains ethereal, regal.

Loren has accomplished all this even though it's been twenty-nine years since she won her only Oscar, for Two Women, and despite the fact that more than a few of the nearly one hundred movies she's made are eminently forgettable. What is not forgettable is her face. Always a big hunk of woman whose imperfect parts-wide hips, large mouth, long nose, weak chin-came together to form an exotic whole, Loren has aged more than gracefully. Governing her expansive facial terrain are those massive orbs, theatrically made up, with heavily drawn brows, iridescent copper eye shadow, and extraordinarily long lashes.

At close range, Loren's face seems remarkably unwrinkled, the lines of living lost in the creaminess of her olive complexion. In less gentle lighting, there's a noticeable softening of the cheeks and jawline, skirmishes in the war with gravity even her formidable cheekbones can't win. But that's nit-picking. The fact is, the woman looks terrific.

It was a face that made Carlo Ponti look twice when he saw it forty years ago. According to their younger son, Edoardo, Ponti provided the peasant from Naples with "a global view," while he "got more than he bargained for." Part of that deal has been the Loren-Ponti business partnership, with Ponti producing the majority of Loren's movies over the years.

Spending time with Loren, one comes to realize that it's not she who articulates her life, but rather her life and the way she's lived it that speak for her. Offered a choice between public and private worlds, she unhesitatingly chose the latter. And yet, what other middle-aged actress still projects such a powerful sexual mystique?

And therein lies the oxymoronic gift of Sophia Loren-Immaculate Siren, a dame with the mentality of a mother trapped in the body of a sex symbol. "My aim was to act, to find roles that put me in the category of actresses with a capital A. If doing the so-called sexy roles gave me the popularity to choose what I wanted, fine with me."

Not to be outdone was Gene Siskel. The slender half of the Hatfield-and-McCoy review team perched on the edge of his chair, intent on having Loren illustrate how, during her career, she had "handled it with humor."

He alluded to a now famous phrase coined in Loren's starlet years, eagerly exhorting her to repeat it once again for the ages. "I'm too old," Loren daintily demurred. Siskel persisted. Just say it once, for the cameras, he pleaded. Loren seemed embarrassed by this unexpected challenge, but held her ground. "No, I'm too old," she repeated, gently but firmly. "You say it."

"Everything I have," Siskel ventured, "I owe to spaghetti." Loren nodded.

In the back of the room, Ponti, dressed in haute couture gray and brown wools, eyeglasses tilted down on his nose, observed the scene with Edoardo, who unself-consciously draped one arm around his father's shoulder and held his hand. When I marveled at Loren's graciousness, Ponti merely smiled and shrugged: "It's business."