Sophia Loren and Cary Grant

They made two films together, and during the first (The Pride and the Passion) Grant proposed to her. She turned him down.

The Pride and the Passion (1957) was a historical drama, but then they made the light romantic comedy Houseboat (1958) about a widower (Grant) who is somewhat clueless about how to raise the three children he has. He hires Loren as a nanny, and because of the housing crisis in Washington DC (where the film takes place) they end up all living together on a somewhat worse-for-wear houseboat.

Houseboat is usually considered a much better comedy than her other earlier American efforts of Boy on a Dolphin (an archeological adventure and romance) and It Started in Naples, with Clark Gable (a comedy and romance about a Philadelphia lawyer trying to get his American-Italian nephew out of Italy).

It was during the making of Houseboat that Loren married Carlo Ponti (by proxy in Mexico), and Grant gave up his pursuit.

The Pride and the Passion also featured Frank Sinatra.

More Sophia Loren

Sophia Loren: A Life in Pictures - 192 Pages Amazon.com

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Original Page May 21, 2014 | Updated September 18, 2023