MUMBAI: Italian actress Sophia Loren will be honoured by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Wednesday for her half-dozen decades in cinema.

"It means a lot to an actress who has been working ... such a long time in this field," she says. "Even though I have an Oscar ... when they called me from this building to invite me to another big honour, it is really very moving," Loren has reportedly said. 

Loren got her break in films as an extra in the 1951 MGM epic Quo Vadis and her breakthrough came in the Italian feature The Gold of Naples in 1954.

She got Hollywood recognition with Naples director Vittorio De Sica. In his Two Women, Loren played a mother who is raped while protecting her daughter in wartime. The performance earned her the first major Oscar for a non-English-language performance.

The Academy once again honoured her in 1991, with an award for her contributions to world cinema. Of her work, Loren is most fond of Two Women and A Special Day.