Freeze Frame: The true story behind the infamous 'side eye' photo of Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield

It's one of the most iconic celebrity photos in history – the infamous 'side eye' from Italian actress Sophia Loren as she gazed enviably at fellow Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield.

The picture, which was taken by Joe Shere in 1957 at a dinner banquet at Romanoff's in Beverley Hills, quickly became an international sensation.

Shere's photo was plastered over every newspaper and magazine in the late '50s and is still widely referenced today, over 65 years later.

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Even though the photograph's backdrop was a party held to welcome Loren into Hollywood, Mansfield stole the show with her low-cut dress as she was seated next to the Houseboat actress.

"If looks could kill" is a fitting quote to describe the star's reaction to Mansfield – and as Loren attested in 2014, it was exactly what it looked like.

"Paramount had organised a party for me. All of cinema was there, it was incredible. And then comes in Jayne Mansfield, the last one to come," Loren, now aged 87, recalled to Entertainment Weekly.

"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?"

Mansfield's braless appearance at the banquet in Loren's honour was labelled a publicity stunt.

It seemed Mansfield wanted to upstage Loren, who was quickly being regarded as Hollywood's new golden age bombshell.

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And the outspoken Italian actress didn't mince her words when she spoke about Mansfield's infamous backless satin dress.

"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," she added.

And Loren said that while there were other pictures of herself smiling at Mansfield throughout that night in 1957, her mind stayed firmly on that dress.

"No, no. Well, there may be other photos, but this is the picture," she admitted. "This is the one that shows how it was. This is the only picture."

However, having one photo from her early '20s define her entire career has been a bitter pill to swallow for Loren.

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Even though she has over 90 film credits to her name, fans often associate Loren with Mansfield and that infamous "side eye" glance.

In 2012, she told Vanity Fair she was reluctant to give interviews for a long time.

"My life is not a fairy tale, and it's painful still to speak about it," she said.

Loren also said she is often asked to autograph a copy of the photo, a request she routinely denies.

"Actually, many, many times I am given this photo to autograph it. And I never do," she admitted.

"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."

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Mansfield died at the age of 33 in 1967 in a car crash after a brief but memorable career as a leading Hollywood sex symbol.

Loren, meanwhile, has been acting for over 50 years, and her latest film credit was in 2020, a Netflix film titled The Life Ahead.

She has also penned a memoir called 'Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: My Life'.