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Sophia Loren Refused to Get a Nose Job in Early Career: They Said It Was “Too Long”

Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren was told to get a nose job when she was a newcomer in Hollywood, but refused: "They were saying that my nose was too long," she recalled.

Good for her! Sophia Loren was told to get plastic surgery in the early stages of her career, but she refused to cave. The legendary actress and classic beauty recently opened up to The Hollywood Reporter about her struggle deflecting people’s opinions about her physical appearance.

“I always tried not to listen to these people,” Loren, 80, told the mag. “They were saying that my nose was too long and my mouth was too big.”

Related: PHOTOS: Plastic surgery nightmares!

The issue became so big that her late husband Carlo Ponti even commented about it at one point. “Carlo said, ‘You know the cameramen, they say that your nose is too long. Maybe you have to touch it a little bit,'” she recalled. “And I said, ‘Listen, I don’t want to touch nothing on my face because I like my face. If I have to change my nose, I am going back to Pozzuoli.'” (The actress first found fame in her native Italy. It was only after she moved to Hollywood to pursue her acting career that she was told to make adjustments to her physical appearance.)

Loren, currently promoting her memoir Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: My Life, remained resolute in her decision to refuse surgery. “It didn’t hurt me at all,” she said. “Because when I believe in something, it’s like war. It’s a battle.”

Sophia Loren

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The two-time Oscar winner, who has more than 90 film credits to her name, said her face could have been very different had she gone under the knife. “At that time, they used to do noses like a French nose with a little tip at the end — they liked that,” she told THR. “Can you imagine me with a nose like that?”

Despite the commentary about her physical appearance, Loren was happy enough to be in Hollywood. “Can you imagine me, from Pozzuoli, Naples, and hunger, the war and everything — I go to Hollywood and I see Rita Hayworth and Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis?” she recalled. “I mean, what is this, a dream? I’m always afraid to wake up. I had a wonderful time learning a lot about the business, but of course, when you go back to where you were born, you always give the best. That’s where I was really the best.”

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Loren became a trending topic this week after explaining in an interview the story behind an infamous 1957 photo of her giving side-eye to a fellow sex symbol, Jayne Mansfield. “She was very beautiful, my god,” Loren told THR about the late blonde bombshell. “But in these pictures, I was worried that everything was going to come out! I said, ‘My god!'”

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