People: Sophia Loren: Retire? Never!

Some things about the film business have changed for actresses in the more than five decades since Sophia Loren was first discovered, and some things have stayed exactly the same.

Take pay equity, for instance, and the reality that worthy actresses sometimes make less than their male counterparts.

“It never changed. It’s always the same. It’s always the same like before, but not only in the movies. Even in life sometimes, unfortunately,” Loren said on the red carpet Monday night before the nonprofit Americans for the Arts honored her at its National Arts Awards.

Loren received the Carolyn Clark Powers Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to her by director and choreographer Rob Marshall before a star-studded crowd that included Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga and artists Chuck Close and Jeff Koons.

Herbie Hancock and Gaga were also among the honorees, but it was Loren who stole hearts in a black evening gown, accompanied by son Edoardo Ponti and daughter-in-law Sasha Alexander.

At 81, Loren still works when the mood strikes. The word retirement is not in her vocabulary.

“That’s terrible, the word retire. Never,” she said. “We start always like it was the beginning of a long career.”

With the onslaught of technology and the speed at which the world turns today, Loren said she enjoys embracing the “new” in life.

“Well I think you have to get accustomed to the new things that come out and try to run after them and try to be always living in a world that belongs to you, even though you have to learn many things more,” she explained.

What is Loren’s best advice for young actresses today?

“To take life seriously,” she said, “to do the right things and not to take life easily, as sometimes the girls, they do because they don’t have experience.”

She added: “They need good mothers, good parents.”

Tracy Morgan plans stand-up tour

After renewing his comedy career with appearances on “Saturday Night Live” and at the Emmy Awards, Tracy Morgan will embark on a nationwide stand-up tour this winter.

The “Tracy Morgan: Picking up the Pieces” tour is set to begin Feb. 5 at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana, it was announced Tuesday.

Morgan was in a coma for two weeks following a June 2014 accident, when a truck on the New Jersey Turnpike crashed into the back of a van he was riding in. Comedian James “Jimmy Mack” McNair was killed in the crash.

Morgan made a surprise appearance at the Emmy Awards last month, with a more substantive turn as guest host on Oct. 17 of NBC’S “Saturday Night Live,” the show where he was once a cast member. In one sketch, he was joined by his fellow cast members of “30 Rock,” Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Jane Krakowski and Jack McBrayer.

“People are wondering, `Can he speak? Does he have 100 percent mental capacity?“’ he said in his opening monologue. “The truth is, I never did. I might even be a few points higher.”

Morgan was unavailable for comment about his concert tour, although in a news release he described it as getting back on a bike after falling down – “you don’t forget where the pedals are.”

His bookings, from February until the end of May, include some cold-weather gigs: Vermont and Ontario in February. But he does have two dates in Hawaii in early April.

He will perform three shows in New Jersey, including at a theater in New Brunswick, about 20 miles north of where the accident happened.