Sophia Loren has finally opened up about her infamous side eye glare at Jayne Mansfield during a dinner party in 1957.
"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,"
Loren said in a recent telephone interview with Entertainment Weekly. "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."
The Beverly Hills dinner party was reportedly organized by Paramount for Loren, who was new to Hollywood.
Loren, 80, said she has been presented with prints of the photo to autograph but never has signed the image.
"I never do. I don’t want to have anything to do with that," she told EW. "And also out of respect for Jayne Mansfield because she’s not with us anymore."
Two years before the iconic photo was taken, Loren was the most photographed performer at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival, Vanity Fair reported. The two-time Academy Award winner’s memoir, titled "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: My Life," was published this month.
Twitter users reacted with amusement.
Mansfield died in a tragic car accident in 1967 at the age of 34. Her daughter is "Law & Order: SVU" actress Mariska Hargitay.