Taking Names

Sophia in tears

Sophia Loren cried at an awards ceremony Saturday as she recalled her climb to fame from the gritty Neapolitan suburb where she grew up. “Lady History was generous to the girl from Pozzuoli, and I thank her together with all of you,” Miss Loren said, her voice breaking with sobs, at the award ceremony in Rome’s City Hall.

The city honored the actress with the Campidoglio (City Hall) prize, describing her as “not only an icon of cinema, but a very synonym of Italy, of that Italy made up of elegance, passion, genius, humanity and beauty.”

Miss Loren, 73, wore a low-cut, tailored outfit to the ceremony in the Italian capital, which is hosting an international film festival.

George on board

George Clooney will become a board member of a new Swiss energy company that will develop environmentally friendly techniques for car motors and other devices, the billionaire who is setting up the firm said Saturday.

The new company will have different branches doing research and development in the clean production of hydrogen, solar energy and fuel cells, said Nicolas Hayek, chairman of the Swatch Group. “First, I hesitated between Al Gore and Clooney,” Mr. Hayek said in an interview with the daily Berner Zeitung.

But he didn’t ask the former vice president because it was still unclear whether Mr. Gore would run for president and therefore might have accepted the post as a mere public relations exercise, Mr. Hayek said.

Mr. Clooney’s spokesman, Stan Rosenfield, confirmed the report in an e-mail to Associated Press.

Mr. Hayek, who chairs the executive board of Swatch Group AG, the world’s largest watchmaker, said he also will preside over the board of the new company, which will be based in the western Swiss city of Biel. He did not say when the new company, which has yet to be named, will get under way.

Good grief, Charles

Charles Schulz, the creator of the beloved Peanuts comic strip, was a shy, lonely man who used his childlike drawings to depict a life of deep melancholy, according to a controversial new biography. The book is based on six years of research, unlimited access to family papers, more than 200 interviews and a close reading of the 17,897 strips Mr. Schulz wrote and drew. It portrays him as a man who felt unseen and unloved even if his readers numbered in the hundreds of millions.

FBI eyes magician

The FBI has raided magician David Copperfield’s warehouse and a theater where he performs in Las Vegas following sexual misconduct accusations by an unidentified woman, authorities and his lawyers said on Friday. The FBI would not disclose the nature of its investigation of Mr. Copperfield, saying only that federal agents had raided the Las Vegas warehouse as part of a criminal probe based in Seattle.

EBay record

Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh raised $2.1 million for children of fallen Marines and law enforcement officers on Friday by auctioning off a letter from Senate Democrats denouncing him for a remark about “phony soldiers.” Philanthropist Betty Casey purchased the letter on EBay, which said it was the most expensive item ever sold for charity on the online marketplace.

• Compiled by Kevin Chaffee from wire reports.

Transitions

Art historian and curator Harry Cooper, who has held various positions at Harvard University over the past decade, will head the National Gallery of Art’s department of modern and contemporary art starting in February. Mr. Cooper, a Bethesda native, replaces Jeffrey Weiss, who left the National Gallery this spring to become director of Dia Art Foundation in New York.