The great Italian film star Sophia Loren is, of course, famous for the work that she has done on screen over the past seven decades. But she is equally well known for the adoration that she inspired in many of her co-stars. Omar Sharif sighed that he fantasised about her naked after they acted together. Clark Gable confessed that he’d had “the wrong thoughts” about the beauteous Loren when they appeared in the otherwise forgotten 1960 drama It Started in Naples .

Cary Grant, meanwhile, was cast opposite her in the 1957 epic The Pride and the Passion and was initially horrified at the idea, declaring, “My God! You want me to play with this Sophie somebody, a cheesecake thing? Well, I can’t and I won’t.”

He was soon converted when he met Loren in the flesh, and the two embarked on a

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