Fifty-seven years after the picture was taken Sophia Loren sheds some light on what lead her to give the world its most notorious side-eye photo.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the 80-year-old Italian bombshell says yes, she was thinking exactly what it looks like she was thinking when she was unexpectedly snapped staring at Jayne Mansfield’s chest at a lavish party in Beverly Hills.
“Paramount had organized a party for me,” Loren explained.
“All of cinema was there, it was incredible. And then comes in Jayne Mansfield, the last one to come. For me, that was when it got amazing.”
Sophia continued: “She came right for my table. She knew everyone was watching. She sat down. And now, she was barely . . . Listen. Look at the picture. Where are my eyes?
“I’m staring at her nipples because I am afraid they are about to come onto my plate. In my face you can see the fear. I’m so frightened that everything in her dress is going to blow—BOOM!—and spill all over the table.”
Sophia said while many other pictures of the evening emerged, pictures which see the two laughing together, the side-eye shot was the one that truly depicts what was going on in her mind.
Sophia Loren says she was afraid Jayne Mansfield’s dress was ‘going to blow’.
The Hollywood legend admits she has been presented the picture many times to sign but she doesn’t oblige.
“I never do. I don’t want to have anything to do with that. And also out of respect for Jayne Mansfield because she’s not with us anymore.”
While the two-time Academy Award-winner is usually reluctant to give any interviews she has recently written a memoir titled Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: My Life, which was published this month.
The book will no doubt be punctuated by her most memorable roles and the famous men in her personal life but Sophia told Vanity Fair in 2012 her life hasn’t played out like a Hollywood script.
“My life is not a fairy tale… it’s painful still to speak about it.”
Oh, the highs and lows of a Hollywood legend – it certainly sounds like a page turner!
