In 1957, Jayne Mansfield, an American actress and model known for her publicity stunts, attended a dinner in Beverly Hills at the exclusive Romanoff's restaurant hosted by Paramount Pictures to officially welcome Italian actress Sophia Loren to Hollywood. A photograph of the two women, with Loren casting a sideways glance at Mansfield's cleavage, was distributed world-wide and became an international sensation.
In April 1957, Italian actress Sophia Loren was being welcomed to Hollywood by Paramount Pictures at a dinner party at Romanoff's restaurant in Beverly Hills. Loren had achieved considerable success in Europe as an actress. She had been the most photographed actor at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. [2]
During that same year, 20th Century-Fox had begun to market American actress Jayne Mansfield as the studio's "blonde-bombshell" successor to Marilyn Monroe after the success of the film The Girl Can't Help It (1956). [3] Mansfield, herself a successful actress with film and Broadway credits as well as having appeared in Playboy as the Playmate of the Month, [4] was widely known for staging publicity stunts which garnered nationwide attention, such as when her top fell off in a pool while surrounded by journalists. [5] [6]
According to Loren, Mansfield was the last person to arrive to the dinner and walked directly to her table, where she was seated between Loren and her dinner companion Clifton Webb. Mansfield, wearing a backless satin dress in her signature pink color with a deep, plunging neckline, was photographed at the table during the dinner as Loren looks on at her revealing dress. Mansfield's dress, which was worn without a bra, appears to expose one of her nipples in some photos.
Loren was captured in several images staring at Mansfield's exposed breasts. More than one photographer captured the moment; both Delmar Watson and Joe Shere caught Loren casting a glance from the corners of her eyes at Mansfield's bust. The photographs received worldwide attention, appearing in newspapers and magazines with the word "censored" hiding Mansfield's exposed bosom.
Fearful of public outrage, most Italian newspapers refused to print the wirephotos; Il Giorno and Gazzetta del Popolo printed them after retouching to cover much of Mansfield's bosom, and only Il Giornale d'Italia printed them uncensored. [7]
In November 2014, Loren described the dinner and incident in an interview with Entertainment Weekly: [8]
"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. 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."
Although Loren is frequently asked to autograph a copy of the photograph, she refuses, preferring to separate herself from the incident instead. "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." [9] [10]
In 1993, Daniela Federici created a homage with Anna Nicole Smith as Mansfield and New York City DJ Sky Nellor as Loren for a Guess Jeans campaign. [11] In 2002, Mark Seliger took a picture named Heidi Klum at Romanoff's with Heidi Klum in a reproduction of the restaurant set. [12] In 2023, Joe Shere photographed Sydney Sweeney as Mansfield and Maude Apatow as Loren. [13]
This photo was also parodied in the 2014 Modern Family episode "iSpy" with Julie Bowen in Loren's place staring down the chest of Sofia Vergara, who took Mansfield's spot. [14] Jessica Simpson, after claiming Vogue body shamed her in 2020, posted the picture on her social media and said that she felt like Jayne Mansfield. [15] Vogue later apologized to her. [16]
Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone, known professionally as Sophia Loren, is an Italian former actress. With a career spanning over 70 years, she was named by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest stars of classical Hollywood cinema and is one of the last surviving major stars from the era. Loren is also the only remaining living person to appear on AFI's list of the 50 greatest stars of American film history, positioned 21st.
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Jayne Mansfield was an American actress, singer, nightclub entertainer, and Playboy Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s, Mansfield was known for her numerous publicity stunts and open personal life. Although her film career was short-lived, she had several box-office successes, and won a Theatre World Award and Golden Globe Award, and soon gained the nickname of Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde."
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Jayne Mansfield was an actress, singer, playmate and stage show performer who had an enormous impact on popular culture of the late 1950s despite her limited success in Hollywood. She has remained a well-known subject in popular culture ever since. During a period between 1956 and 1957, there were about 122,000 lines of copy and 2,500 photographs that appeared in newspapers. In an article on her in the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture (1999), Dennis Russel said that "Although many people have never seen her movies, Jayne Mansfield remains, long after her death, one of the most recognizable icons of 1950s celebrity culture." In the novel Child of My Heart (2004) by Alice McDermott, a National Book Award winning writer, the 1950s is referred to as "in those Marilyn Monroe/Jayne Mansfield days". R. L. Rutsky and Bill Osgerby has claimed that it was Mansfield along with Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot who made the bikini popular.
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