Sophia Lorenremains one of the most recognized Italian actresses in cinematic history.

“Listen,” Loren says.

“Look at the picture.

Sophia Loren

Credit: The Kobal Collection

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’ve got the option to see the fear.

Sophia Loren | Sophia Loren had her breakout moment at 20 years old when she went to Cannes to support Vittorio De Sica’s The Gold of Naples ,

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I’m so frightened that everything in her dress is going to blow BOOM!

and spill all over the table.”

Read the rest of Loren’s candid thoughts about that flashy night with Mansfield.

Mansfield

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Though she declined his proposal for marriage, he continued to woo her during the making of this comedy.

“This photo is beautiful because it reminds me of Cary.

He was one of the most special people in my life.

Sophia Loren | Cary Grant and Loren had begun a romance while filming 1957’s The Pride and the Passion . Though she declined his proposal for marriage, he

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He was the one who called to tell me I won my Oscar.

And, so, I sat in his lap and we laughed like two kids.

I played with his hair and joked about all the women who were screaming for him.

Sophia Loren | ‘‘I didn’t know Elvis at all, but we were both making films at Paramount and eating in the cafeteria and we both thought, ‘Oh, I

Bob Willoughby/Redferns

We were really just like two little kids.”

For him, the cinema was like life just a big adventure."

Heston remained a lifelong friend.

Sophia Loren | Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, who shot Loren for seven LIFE magazine covers, snapped this photo of the actress playfully berating her film producer husband. She met

Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

“No enemies, that’s my philosophy.

For understanding people, it’s easier that way.”

It’s the most important single instant in my career."

Sophia Loren | Charlton Heston said that Loren never complained about the frigid weather and skimpy wardrobe she endured while making this costume epic. ‘‘Of course I didn’t,''

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Oscar glow (1962)

“I look very happy next to my Oscar, no?”

“And with the cigarette in my hand, of course, even though I don’t smoke.

“What a marvelous man he wasand what a jet-lagged man he was.”

Sophia Loren | Loren was just 25 when she portrayed a shopkeeper enduring the horrors of World War II with her adolescent daughter in Vittorio De Sica’s landmark

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Loren skipped the ceremony that year.

“I never, ever thought I had a chance to even be in the top five.

There had never been an actress in a foreign language film to win an Oscar.

Sophia Loren | ‘‘I look very happy next to my Oscar, no?’’ says Loren. ‘‘And with the cigarette in my hand, of course, even though I don’t smoke.

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It was too impossible to believe.”

Bob Altman said to us, ‘What do you want to do?’

But this time he’s snoring by the end of it.

Sophia Loren | She celebrated her Best Actress win for Two Women with her mother, Romilda (center), and sister, Maria (right). ‘‘We’re in Rome, just talking in bed

Reporters Associati & Archivi/Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images

Oh, beautiful, beautiful Marcello.”

(He returned the favor in 1991, presenting her with an honorary Oscar.)

“Mamma mia, he was handsome!

Sophia Loren | ‘‘We did 14 films together,’’ says Loren of Mastroianni, her most beloved and popular costar, who died in 1996. ‘‘We were in comedies like Too

Embassy Pictures/Miramax Films

But he was somebody who wanted to know me before giving his friendship.

So, it took him time to open up.”

“Maybe one week, not more.”

Sophia Loren | In 1963, Loren handed Gregory Peck his Academy Award for To Kill a Mockingbird . (He returned the favor in 1991, presenting her with an

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We had a press conference in the amphitheater of the hospital, and there were hundreds of photographers there.

It was such a wonderful moment for me, one of the best moments of my life.

So, absolutely, why not have hundreds of photographers?"

Sophia Loren | After a difficult pregnancy, which included estrogen shots and bed rest, Loren gave birth in Geneva to her first son, Carlo, in December 1968 (a

Francois Gragnon/Paris Match via Getty Images

“My mother suffered so much in her life by meeting the wrong person, like my father.

I’ve tried to show that suffering in many of my performances.”

Romilda Villani, Loren’s mother (who died in 1991), refused to see the movie.

Sophia Loren | In this dramatized television film about her life, Loren played her own mother, who gave birth to Sophia in a home for unwed mothers after

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“But I think she would have loved it.

Oh, she would have been moved by it.”

“Oh Walter, that beautiful man,” she sighs.

Sophia Loren | In the sequel to the popular Jack Lemmon-Walter Matthau comedy, Loren played Matthau’s saucy love interest. ‘‘Oh Walter, that beautiful man,’’ she sighs. ‘‘Watching Walter

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“Watching Walter and Jack together was beautiful, too.

Never a moment of nervousness, never a moment of ‘Oh my God, we’re actors!’

Just watching them have fun, it was like my own private cinema.”

Sophia Loren | ‘‘I was very emotional when I did this scene,’’ says Loren, who made a cameo in this musical as the mother of movie director Guido

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“And it was because I was sharing the screen with the best actor in the world.

And also the most charming, serious, perfect, handsome, and everything else.

I’ve respected him for so long.

Ever since [inMy Left Footwhen] he was able to draw with his foot.Madonn’!

And [There Will Be Blood] about the petrol coming out of the ground.

Every time he appears in a film, I’m at the cinema.

So, to be in thesamefilm next to him, I was very touched by it.”