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Sophia Loren Explains That Famous Side-Eye Photo with Jayne Mansfield

Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren

Sophia Loren attends the ‘Two Days, One Night’ premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2014

This legendary paparazzi photo of Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield needs no comment, but hearing Loren talk about it is pretty hilarious. In an interview to promote her new memoir, the 80-year-old Italian actress tells Entertainment Weekly that she’d never met Mansfield before that night in 1957. The event was a welcome-to-Hollywood party thrown for Loren by Paramount (which had signed her for a five-movie contract). “All of cinema was there, it was incredible,” Loren recalls. “And then comes in Jayne Mansfield, the last one to come. For me, that was when it got amazing.” Mansfield was at the height of her early stardom, having played the daffy blonde in films like The Girl Can’t Help It and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? As Loren remembers it, “She came right for my table. She knew everyone was watching. She sat down.”

Sophia Loren-Jayne Mansfield
Sophia Loren-Jayne Mansfield

And what was Loren thinking at that priceless moment? “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.”

Looking at other photographs from that evening, it becomes clear that Loren’s fears were well-founded; Mansfield’s dress looks structurally unsound from every angle. In fact, her wardrobe malfunction may well have been an intentional ploy to direct photographers’ attention away from newcomer Loren. Nevertheless, Loren seems to have some affection for the famous Delmar Watson photograph. “There may be other photos, but this is the picture. This is the one that shows how it was,” she tells EW. “This is the only picture.”

Photos: Joe Shere/MPTV Images; Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images