The forgotten story behind the most famous side-eye in Hollywood history

One of the most engaging and infamous images in show business, this 1957 snapshot of Sophia Lauren and Jane Mansfield has more than first appeared.

On the evening of Sofia Lauren’s “Welcome to Hollywood” dinner party in April 1957, Jane Mansfield walked to the exclusive Romanoff restaurant in Beverly Hills with plans. The fashionable Soirée thrown by Paramount Studios was packed with some of the biggest Hollywood stars of the time, from Barbara Stanwyck and Montgomery Clift to Gary Cooper and Shelley Winters. But it’s an honest photo of Mansfield and Lauren, and will earn the evening a place in Hollywood history.

According to Eve Goldenauthor of Jane Mansfield: The girl couldn’t help it, Mansfield wanted to make sure all the eyes were on her. The then 24-year-old blonde former Playboy playmate, who signed a seven-year contract with Warner Bros. in February 1955, was considered a rival to Marilyn Monroe, who was “provoking problems” for 20th Century Fox. The huge success of the girl, released just eight months away, cannot help it (1956), and does success ruin Rock Hunter? (1957) quickly established Mansfield as a star.

Sofia Lauren was only 22 years old when she arrived in Hollywood. Lauren’s mother, born and raised in Italy under Mussolini’s fascist regime, says she had her “his own theatrical ambitions.” Mary Anne Macdonald CarollanAuthor of Transatlantic Gaze: Italian Films, American Films. Lauren took part in beauty competitions as a teenager and met her future husband, Carlo Ponti, before enrolling in the Italian national film school. Ponty produced many of her early films. Post-World War Italy was also overwhelmed by Hollywood productions as studios took advantage of the country’s lower production costs. “At that time there was an extraordinary artistic, economic, business and film exchange between Italy and America,” Carolan told the BBC.

After the success of Aida in 1953 and the 1954 “Gold of Napoli,” Paramount, which was screened at the Cannes Film Festival that year, signed Lauren and betted that he could follow in the footsteps of Leslie Caron, Ingrid Bergman and Murrayne Dietrich in Europe.

By April 1957 it was time for Lauren to make her debut among the Romanov Hollywood elites. There, Mansfield was the last guest to attend. She walked covered in a “big big fur coat,” says Golden. When she took it off, she was wearing a backless, very low cut satin dress. “She got bored and plump herself next to Sofia Lauren,” Golden says. “It was definitely planned. Jane knew exactly what she was doing.” Delmar Watson and Joe Cherre He shot Lauren and Mansfield side by side. However, while Mansfield stared directly at the lens, Lauren was given the most famous side eye in Hollywood history, glancing the cleavage of the Tenblemate.

68 years later, it is still one of the most iconic photos in Hollywood history. Heidi Krum, Anna Nicole Smith, Sydney Sweeney and Maud Apatow, Sofia Vergara and Julie Bowen I’ve replicated everything. This picture endured as it presents Lauren and Mansfield as polar opposites. The image symbolizes elegance against bombs. Europe against America. Brunette against blonde. “It’s as if they were intentionally dressed as contrast,” says Karolan.

However, there are troubling implications associated with long-term prevalence of images. It highlights the media’s tendency to exaggerate female rivalries and pushes the harmful stereotype that women are constantly competing. The reality is that this was the only time they met, and Lauren probably worried that Mansfield was about to make a wardrobe misstep in front of the press. In a 2014 interview Entertainment Weekly, Lauren said, “Look at the photo. Where are my eyes? I’m staring at her nipples because I’m worried they’re coming to my plate. You can see the horror.

In her new documentary, Jayne, the mother of Mansfield’s daughter Mariska Hargitay, explores the actress’ career to discover a mother she was three years old when she died, but she barely knew. Talk to Vanity FairHarugitay admits that she struggled with photography as a young man. “It was rough. Seeing another woman look at your mom, that’s how excruciating it was for me as a little girl.” Growing up, she developed a modest style that is the opposite of Mansfield’s charming public image. In the documentary, Hargitai admits that she has decided to become another kind of actor with a different image of her mother. Currently 61, Law and Order: Special Victim Unit actors are reclaiming Mansfield’s story in a documentary. After all, this was a woman who could play the violin and piano, spoke three languages, and spoke a life magazine called “Broadway’s clever dam blonde.”

This moment was the only time the two women’s careers intersected. Because while Lauren’s star was rising, Mansfield star was about to fade. In 1960, Lauren won the Oscars for the best actress in two women and became the first performer to win an Academy Award for her role in foreign languages. Meanwhile, Mansfield’s stunt at Lauren’s party was met strictly by 20th Century Fox. “This is when I realized they had signed a loose cannon,” Golden says. “I think this is the moment when Fox really stopped her from being interested in promoting her career.”

In 1962, shortly after Monroe’s death, Mansfield was dropped by Fox, resulting in a poor three-year box office performance. Suddenly, Golden was “a huge house to pay and three children,” and Mansfield began opening supermarkets and gas stations to “support her family.” Golden said Mansfield’s career ambitions “because she knew where she wanted to go, but she didn’t have any vague ideas about how to get there, because she really needed a strong and smart manager.

Meanwhile, Lauren was able to seek advice from Oscar-winning producer Ponty. “She has this incredible knowledge from within the film industry,” says Karolan. “She had a good sense of how to act in the media circus. She couldn’t be manipulated by the media or manager.” Lauren was so wise to navigate her film career that she had been popular for nearly 70 years, combining Hollywood and Italian films.

Not only did Mansfield’s fame flare up, but her life ended with a tragedy. When she died in a car accident on June 29, 1967 at the age of 34, she was driving to a midday radio interview in New Orleans from her nighttime appearance at the Mississippi night club. However, this journey has not been unusual for anyone who has insisted on appreciating the last drop of her fame since becoming a star. “She loved being in the spotlight. She loved her fans. She became an on-screen persona,” Golden says. “She lived her life publicly so you can call her the first reality star. No matter what she was doing, she had a photographer and a reporter with her.”

Carolan admits that Mansfield helped pave the way for actresses like Sofia Lauren, Brigitte Bardot and Claudia Cardinard, and while their path may only have been fleeting, Lauren told Entertainment Weekly that she is still repeatedly asked to sign famous photos. But she always refuses. “I don’t want to have anything to do with that, and I don’t respect Jane Mansfield because she’s not with us anymore.”

My mother Jane can stream on Max.