It is a gloomy day in Geneva, where Sophia Loren, 73, made her home with husband Carlo Ponti just before his death in January 2007. "A little gray," the Italian film legend observes.

The flame-haired actress has by no means let herself go gray. Asked the secret to her beauty, Loren just laughs. "If you think joyful about life and find a serenity inside of you, it's very gratifying," she says. "Then when your children grow up and you start to have grandchildren, it's a divine caress from God. That's the secret."

The star of more than 100 films, Loren has not acted since losing her husband of nearly 50 years. She will make her return to the big screen in "Nine," a musical directed by Rob Marshall ("Chicago"), to be released, appropriately enough, in 2009.

"It is the dream of every Italian to be in a musical in America," she says. "I adore music and always liked seeing musicals as a kid with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Musicals make you feel alive."

Loren will play the ghostly spirit of the mother of a character based on the musical's late screenwriter, Federico Fellini. Regrettably, she receives no such otherworldly visits from Ponti. "I wish," she says, sighing. "To be able to (experience) these kinds of things, you must believe in certain things. I don't even dream about my husband, and it's so sad for me. But in life, I think he's always beside me."

Every Wednesday this month, Loren will be feted by Turner Classic Movies in a 23-film salute. Her film "Two Women" screens this evening.

"They followed my career very, very nicely," Loren says. "The films that really count in my life are there."

Of her late leading men, Loren says Cary Grant and Marcello Mastroianni were perhaps the most dashing: "Marcello was the boy next door, and Cary Grant was the dream of my life."

But these days, she has moved beyond looking for a mate. "I have two boys — two men (grown sons Carlo Jr. and Edoardo) — beside me. I date them."

While visiting her sons in Los Angeles, Loren met with Marshall.

"It was right out of a movie," recalls Marshall, who narrates a tribute that's part of the TCM marathon. "My heart almost leapt out of my chest because she's so tall and beautiful. Everything you imagine her to be on screen — the humor, the warmth, that great laugh — is all there in reality."

She'll sing a lullaby written for the film, he says. "She will be the spirit of this production." And that says something with a cast of other Oscar winners: Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench.

Loren collected her Oscar for 1960's "Two Women" and says she has no intention of retiring.

"If you really loved what you do and feel that you still can give to the public as an actress, then I think it's the most wonderful job I could have in my life."