Sophia Loren as soon as mentioned, “The whole lot you see I owe to spaghetti.”
The quote was attributed to Sophia Loren in an interview with LIFE journal printed on Aug. 11, 1961. Nonetheless, in a New York Instances interview dated Feb. 15, 2015, she dismissed it as “not true” and “utterly made up.”
A press release repeatedly attributed to Italian movie star Sophia Loren over time ascribes her magnificence to a food plan of pasta. “The whole lot you see I owe to spaghetti,” she is quoted as saying.
The comment has made the web rounds for years. This instance was posted on X (archived) in celebration of Loren’s ninetieth birthday on Sept. 20, 2024:
(@TheDustinFitz / X)
It is unclear whether or not she ever truly mentioned this. The quote appeared many instances in magazines and newspapers within the early Nineteen Sixties — for instance, in a syndicated Family Weekly feature by Peer J. Oppenheimer dated Nov. 10, 1963:
Whereas Sophia readily admits she is a bit chubby, it does not fear her. One other well-endowed Italian actress as soon as remarked that Sophia had a neck like a giraffe. When instructed about it, Sophia smiled, “I like animals, do not you?”
One other time, when cautioned about her love for spaghetti (which she likes to clean down with crimson wine), Sophia got here again with, “Do not you already know that every part you see I owe to spaghetti?”
In some cases, tales just like the one above attributed the quote to a LIFE journal interview. This helped us discover its authentic supply, the Aug. 11, 1961, issue of LIFE, by which Dora Jane Hamblin reported that:
She eats every part in sight, washed down with crimson wine, and when teased about her urge for food narrows her eyes in her greatest temptress look, swivels her shoulders provocatively and says in a Mae West voice, “The whole lot you see, I owe to spaghetti.”
Nonetheless, as etymologist Barry Popik blogged in 2017, Loren denied this 55 years later in a Feb. 15, 2015, interview with The New York Times, by which she was requested level clean if she mentioned it:
Did you truly say the quote regularly attributed to you, “The whole lot you see I owe to spaghetti”?
Non è vero! It is not true! It is such a foolish factor. I owe it to spaghetti, no, no. Utterly made up.
So, did Loren truly say it? Sadly, LIFE reporter Dora Jane Hamblin died in 1993, so we might by no means know the true reply to that query.
Sources
Hamblin, Dora Jane. “‘Che Gioia, La Vita’: ‘What a Pleasure Is Life!'” LIFE. Time Inc, 1961.
Luongo, Michael T. “Sophia Loren on Her Life in Motels.” The New York Instances, 10 Feb. 2015. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/journey/sophia-loren-on-her-life-in-hotels.html.
Popik, Barry. Barry Popik. https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/everything_you_see_i_owe. Accessed 23 Jan. 2023.
“Sophia Loren.” Eureka Humboldt Commonplace, 9 Nov. 1963, p. 26. newspapers.com, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/117089171/sophia-loren/.
