Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Photo of the Day

Jimena (Sophia Loren) and El Cid (Charlton Heston) in EL CID

This was Sophia's first big blockbuster. This wasn't Charlton's first big blockbuster.

3 comments:

Steve R. Orsulak said...

Sophia and Heston did not get along while making this movie. Seems that Charlton was hard on her, but it is said that he was hard on all the actresses that he worked with. Sophia made PRIDE AND THE PASSION prior to EL CID and I think this was her first Epic movie that helped propel her. Carey Grant fell for her big time during the filming.

PEPLUM cinema said...

ATTILA is Sophia's first epic film hit but EL CID is Sophia's first blockbuster. It grossed something like $26 million domestically.

http://www.boxoffice.com/statistics/movies/el-cid-1961

Michael O'Sullivan said...

Actually Sophia's first blockbuster was QUO VADIS in 1950, her first movie outing, she is an extra somewhere in it, with her mother. Ten years later she was headlinging her own epics..,.

Perhaps the reason Heston disliked her is that her contract entitled her to equal billing. The first ads only had 'Heston as EL CID' as the main billing and had to be pulled after a court case (I remember reading about it as a child) to give her equal billing with him.