How can anyone not love Sophia Loren? The world loved her in the 1960’s and yet Heston was unimpressed by her beauty or talent. She had set fire to Hollywood since she signed the original five-picture Paramount deal in 1956. She followed with starring roles opposite Cary Grant, Clark Gable and Sinatra in films like Happening in Naples, Houseboat, Pride and Sensibility, and Millionaire with Peter. sellers. She was skilled in drama as comedy with a strong physical presence and won her first ever Oscar for a non-English film for Two Women (La Ciociara) the following year for El Cid. So what went wrong with Heston?
Heston also came to the film as a main star and 1959 Academy Award winner for Ben-Hur. The director’s first choice for the title and central role, he clearly felt a sense of ownership over his involvement with El Cid. He had enough power that he responded to early drafts of the scenario that it was “ranging from minimally good to bad.”
But then Lauren was brought on board. Equally famous, equally acclaimed – and with equal strength and determination. She wanted to rewrite the script with more romantic scenes for her character, Donna Jimena. She was only going to agree to shoot for 8-10 weeks, so the shooting schedule had to be rearranged to suit her. She demanded a huge wage.
Some reports claimed Lauren was paid $1 million for the role, but that wasn’t until the fall of the Roman Empire in 1964. It seems most likely that she was paid $200,000, which is a huge sum in those days ($1.9 million today). He claims it was more than Heston received.
Lauren also negotiated $200 a week for her personal hairstylist, brought her own screenwriter and translated the script into Italian and then back into English, which she was most comfortable with.
Her star was not happy and did not try to hide it. In fact, he demanded that a reserve employee be hired to replace him in any nearby scenes that only show Lauren’s face. As the situation deteriorated, director Anthony Mann struggled to get the alpha male actor to look at Lauren at all.
Charlton Heston: The Last Hollywood Icon Mark Elliott tells that Lauren’s antics “really infuriated him,” according to producer Peter Snell.
So much so that Heston was “more uncomfortable” during any love scenes, and in the future, he’ll turn down roles that might involve screen sharing again.
He took a Man Shot afterwards but Heston could barely bear to look at Lauren during the emotional scenes and even in the deathbed scene. He later insisted that he was “looking to the future,” not in the eyes of his wife.
It was picked up by later reviews, with one saying that “Miss Lauren and Heston spend most of the picture looking at each other.”
Heston was also unhappy with the fact that he aged significantly throughout the movie while his shining star (along with her expensive hairstylist) remained extremely beautiful.
It got to the point where Heston got angry at everything the Italian star had done. “Lauren was one of those actresses who got flogged with her chronic lateness,” Snell added.
Heston’s son Fraser also later revealed his father’s anger that Lauren insisted her role get bigger, something that was already happening after the positive reactions to her early scenes.
However, it was Lauren who caused the greatest drama ever when she sued producer Samuel Bronston for breach of contract in New York Supreme Court when the movie was released. In the battle of vanity, the Italians will deliver the final blow – on a billboard.
Variety reported at the time: “On a 600-square-foot billboard facing south over Times Square in Manhattan, Sophia Loren’s name appears in luminous letters that can be read from one of the incoming lines, but Mamma Mia!—that name below Charlton Heston . . in the language of complaint : “If the defendants were allowed to put the plaintiff’s name under the name ‘Heston’, it would appear that the status of the plaintiff would be inferior to that of Charlton Heston… It is impossible to determine, or even to estimate, the extent of the damages to be incurred by the plaintiff.”
Despite all the drama, the movie ended up making a healthy $26.6 million on a $7 million budget and is still remembered today, perhaps more for its impressive size than anything else.
Heston later admitted that he wished he had been kinder to Lauren on set, and the two were often photographed together, including at the Hollywood Walk of Fame Star Ceramis to honor her on February 1, 1994.
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