Was Sophia Loren the only co-star John Wayne was actually nice to?
One of, if not the most, iconic movie cowboys of all time, he may well have been, but John Wayne wasn’t known for his, how shall we put it mildly, delicate touch.
Wayne had many a clash over his career with the great and the good, including fellow legend Clint Eastwood, director John Ford and the glamorous Katharine Hepburn. But one actor who he was very pleasant toward, possibly due to her being one of the most attractive women on the planet, was Sophia Loren.
Loren, who turned 91 this week, had starred in several movies in her native Italy as a teenager, but was not long off the boat as a 20-year-old when she was cast alongside ‘The Duke’ in a movie called Legend of the Lost from 1957.
A romantic adventure film in which Wayne played a treasure hunting guide in Timbuktoo, it was a location shoot plagued with difficulties, including the big man breaking a bone in his foot that required him to use crutches and led to a three-week pause in production, and more seriously to Loren herself, who almost died due to asphyxiation; a faulty gas stove in her hotel room causing her to pass out and be rescued by her Italian co-star on the movie Rossano Brazzi.
Loren speaks highly of Wayne’s behaviour toward her on set however, given she could barely speak English and despite having made several films in Italy was still fairly wet behind the ears. She revealed that he would put an arm round her and make sure she was comfortable while making the movie, protecting her against some of the banter of the more experienced crew.
She remembered: “My English was not great, the crew would sometimes make fun of me, but John Wayne always would stick up for me. (He was) A simple man with a great heart”.
While the film barely broke even on release, it served as a stepping stone for Loren, who was destined for greatness. By the following year, she was starring in the comedy Houseboat alongside Cary Grant, who fell hopelessly in love with her, and then showed her range by leading in the gritty Italian drama Two Women in 1960.
That role earned her an Oscar for ‘Best Actress’, making her the first ever foreign language recipient and sending her on her way to becoming one of the most popular female movie stars in the world. By the early 1960s, she was raking in a million a movie to star with major talents including Charlton Heston, Clark Gable and Paul Newman, and received four Golden Globe awards during the decade. She was again nominated for the ‘Best Actress’ Oscar thanks to her work in 1964’s Marriage Italian Style which was also nominated for ‘Best Foreign Language’ film.
She continued to work over the next twenty years or so while raising a family, and in 1991 was honoured by the Academy with a lifetime achievement award. She acted well into her 80s, with 2020’s The Life Ahead seeing her take on a lead role as a Holocaust survivor and former prostitute who opens her doors for the children of other working girls.
Despite being 86 at the time of filming, the legendary actor’s performance was hugely acclaimed, and she was once again nominated for industry awards.
