Sophia Loren Finally Explains That Infamous Side-Eye Photo With Jayne Mansfield’s Cleavage
Her proto-side-eye explained! Sophia Loren finally revealed to Entertainment Weekly in its latest issue what was going through her mind when she was photographed in 1957 giving side-eye to fellow sex symbol Jayne Mansfield.
“Paramount had organized a party for me,” Loren, now 80, recollected of the event, coincidentally held 57 years ago. “All of cinema was there, it was incredible,” she reminisced. The star-studded party was supposed to be an official welcoming for the Italian bombshell, who was still relatively new to Hollywood at the time, but Loren’s spotlight that evening was upstaged by the iconic, Marilyn Monroe-esque Mansfield.
“And then comes in Jayne Mansfield, the last one to come,” Loren told EW about Mariska Hargitay‘s late mother. “For me, that was when it got amazing…. 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?” (As evidenced in the infamous photo, the brunette beauty is seen cautiously staring over at Mansfield’s dangerously low-cut dress, which bares — and barely covers — her cleavage.)
“I’m staring at her nipples because I am afraid they are about to come onto my plate,” Loren told the mag. “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.”