| ROBERT WAGNER decided not to go into
his father's business and chose instead to pursue a career in Hollywood.
Actress Janet Leigh. who worked with Wagner in his first starring role
as Prince Valiant (1954), described Wagner as "well mannered,
straightforward. humorous and eager." These traits along with
his classic good looks allowed him to sustain a twenty-year career in the
movies, after which he successfully moved into television with several
popular series such as It Takes A Thief (1967-1969) and Hart
To Hart (1979- 1984). His courtship and two marriages to Natalie Wood
made many tabloid headlines, as did her tragic drowning while the two were
on a boating excursion in 1981. |
SOPHIA LOREN floats alluringly in the buff in the
obscure Italian film Duo Notte con Cleopatra (Two Nights with
Cleopatra,1953). a film in which she played dual roles. Producer Walter
Wanger had considered her for the lead in his Hollywood version of Cleopatra,
but she lost out to Liz Taylor. Taylor's ex- Richard Burton said of the
Neapolitan beauty, "Sophia is as beautif'ul as an erotic dream.''
Clark Gable concurred, noting, "All that meat on the bone and every
ounce of it choice enough to eat!" Ironically, Loren was scrawny when
she grew up in war-torn Naples, so skinny and shapeless that other kids
called her stuzzicadente (toothpick). What's more, as she got older,
she was plagued with a nose too long, a mouth too wide, breasts too big
and, at five feet eight inches, a body too tall - but somehow the combination
of distractions worked. At sixteen she was discovered by Carlo Ponti, the
thirty-seven-year-old producer who would take charge of her career and
her life. Longtime lovers, the two were officially married in France in
1966 after he obtained a legal divorce. He had already turned Loren into
a major star by taking her to Hollywood in 1958 with much hoopla. Her Best
Actress Oscar for the Italian film, La Ciociare (Two Women, 1961),
was the first to a foreign actress in a foreign-language film. In 1991
she received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. |
