Noel Coward once said that Sophia Loren should have been “sculpted in chocolate truffles so the world could devour her.”

The Italian beauty has mesmerized men around the world for most of her 79 years. Born Sofia Villani Scicolone in Rome, Loren has long been established as a paragon of beauty. Many men have fawned over her, including the above-cited Noel Coward.

Now Loren is telling her tale, including details about the men in her life, her years as a child in poverty, and the man she stayed married to for 50 years, Carlo Ponti.

Her memoir is called Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: My Life as a Fairy Tale and it is due for release on December 2 of this year.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Loren talked about some of the items that will be brought to light in her book.

Regarding her marriage to Carlo Ponti, a man 22 years older than her, she says, “What I wanted to have was a legitimate family, a legitimate husband, children, a family like anybody else. It was because of the experience I had with my father.”

Her marriage lasted until Ponti’s death in 2007 and produced two children.

"Mistakes are a part of the dues one pays for a full life." -Sophia Loren

— Jade Allen (@environmentsing) June 28, 2014

Her life growing up was difficult. She says she had to be the bread-winner, and saw herself as the “father” in the home, since her own father left her mother with two children and no support.

The New York Times tells how Loren uses “letters, photographs and memorabilia from her long career in film to introduce each chapter” of her book.

“A woman’s dress should be a like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.” —Sophia Loren

— 5asec Indonesia (@5asecIndonesia) June 28, 2014

Atria Publishing, who is releasing Loren’s memoir, says, “Her long awaited memoir gives her many fans a glimpse of the woman who has left her mark on an era — from the challenges of growing up poor and hungry in wartime Italy to the flowering of her career and the joys of being a mother and grandmother.”

Image via Wikkimedia Commons