ROME: Sophia Loren, Italy’s national cinema icon and eternal diva, turns 80 this week and is marking the milestone with a book of memoirs revealing details of her rags-to-riches life.

For the 300-page “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow — My Life,” Loren went into what she called her “trunk of memories” to fish out old pictures, letters and notes from the likes of Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Audrey Hepburn and Richard Burton, not to mention Italian soul mate Marcello Mastroianni.

The result includes plenty of juicy tales, such as how she stopped Marlon Brando’s physical advances with a fulminating glare and how Grant suggested they should pray to make the right decision when they were falling in love on a film set.

The book reads like a who’s who of world cinema in the past 60 years as it chronicles the life of an illegitimate southern Italian street urchin who became one of the world’s most glamorous film stars.