Actress Sophia Loren ends 39-year tax feud

Italian actress Sophia Loren poses for photos at a red carpet event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in this Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2012 file photo. Italy’s top court has handed the actress a victory in a nearly 40-year-long battle over back taxes. Rome-based Court of Cassation judges ruled on Wednesday Oct 23 2013 that the beauty icon was right when calculating tax owed on 1974 income. AP

ROME – A court ruling in Italy this week has put an end to a 39-year legal dispute between Oscar-winning film star Sophia Loren and Italian tax authorities, Italian media reported on Thursday.

The 79-year-old Loren, who lives in Switzerland, was quoted as saying she was happy with a ruling by the supreme court that said her 1974 tax return was indeed covered by a 1982 tax amnesty.

“A saga that has lasted nearly 40 years is finally over,” Loren was quoted by the La Stampa daily as saying, adding: “I always look to the future and I leave bad experiences like this one behind me.”

Her lawyer, Giovanni Desideri, said: “The supreme court has wrapped up a Kafkaesque case.”

Loren, who was born Sofia Scicolone and started out in film in 1950, famously spent 17 days in prison in 1982 in a separate tax dispute — an incident that drew crowds to the jail near Naples.

The actress shot to fame internationally when she acted alongside Cary Grant in Houseboat (1958) and she won an Oscar for her heart-rending masterpiece Two Women (1961) about a mother raped while protecting her daughter in war-torn Italy.

She received a lifetime achievement Oscar in 1991.