Sophia Loren stars in son's directorial debut

LOS ANGELES -- Sophia Loren, returning to Hollywood to promote her son's directorial debut, recalled her first visit, which included an infamous encounter with Jayne Mansfield.\nTo welcome Italy's top star, Paramount Studios invited a stellar crowd to a reception in 1958 at Romanoff's, the town's toniest restaurant. The publicity-prone Mansfield, whose propensity for bearing cleavage pushed new limits, was among the guests.\nSomeone, perhaps her studio's press agent, seated the blond actress next to the guest of honor.\nAn alert -- or perhaps planted -- photographer snapped a shot just as Mansfield's bodacious bosom plunged over the bodice and Loren gazed down in astonishment.\nThe photo was too graphic for family newspapers and magazines, but it has had a long underground life. "They keep on sending me this picture, the fans," Loren said, "hoping that I would sign it. Never."\nDespite the dubious debut, Loren has returned to Hollywood many times since -- both to make movies and for some R&R at her ranch in suburban Thousand Oaks.\nThis most recent visit was for "Between Strangers," written and directed by her younger son, Edoardo Ponti. It premieres 8 p.m. EDT Sunday on the WE: Women's Entertainment cable channel.\n"We chose cable because today's theatrical market is not conducive to character-driven movies," said Ponti, a tall, lean 30-year-old. "On cable it could be seen by 80, 90 million people. We could never do that in theaters," although the film will appear in theaters overseas.\n"Between Strangers" tells the stories of three troubled women in Toronto, where it was shot on a budget of less than $7 million. Loren appears as an aging, frustrated artist in a loveless marriage with a violent, wheelchair-bound husband (Pete Postlethwaite). Others in the cast include Mira Sorvino, Gerard Depardieu, Malcolm McDowell and Klaus Maria Brandauer.\nLoren the first to win an Academy Award for a performance given entirely in a foreign language (1961's "Two Women") plays the role in a gray wig, frumpy dresses and little makeup.\nDid she rebel at abandoning her traditional glamour?\n"Every morning she would show up with a bit more lip gloss than she should," said Ponti during an interview. "Every morning I would tell her, 'Please take it off.' It would happen the next morning, and it became a joke."\n"He made me suffer so much I'm joking," Loren said with the sly laugh. "It was a very difficult role to sustain, because every day it was full of emotions, full of things you had to feel so deeply. Was it tiring? No, no, no. I love to act, I love to do good things, and this was one of them."\nThe mother-son relationship helped during the filming, Ponti explained. "I know her face so well that I can sometimes say something to her that I could not tell other actors. I could tell her: 'In this moment when you're not speaking, open your mouth slightly.' I know what kind of emotion she's going to give."\nLoren turned 69 on Sept. 20, but her age doesn't show. Her figure she's dressed in a red pantsuiton this day remains voluptuous, the classic Italian face unlined, surrounded by a swirl of dark curls.\n"I feel younger than I am sometimes," remarked Loren, who received an Oscar for career achievement in 1991. "The same drive, the same enthusiasm, eager to live, eager to do things. The drive that is inside of me helps me to go on and to remain young."\nThat drive keeps her working in films, mostly in Europe. She has completed two recent movies and plans another with Lina Wertmuller. By her own account, "Between Strangers" is her 100th.