Editor's note: Ormond Gigli was the pre-eminent Time/Life photographer of the 1950s and '60s, although his career continued through the 1980s. In the mid-1950s and '60s, none of his photojournalistic contemporaries was given anywhere near the number of editorial pages as Gigli. His portraits of the time include the likes of Sophia Loren (at age 18, when she was an up and coming starlet), Anita Ekberg, Rex Harrison, Barbra Streisand, John F. Kennedy, Halston, Gina Lolabrigita, Lawrence Olivier, Diana Vreeland, Giancarlo Giannini, Marcel Duchamp, Marlene Deitrich, Richard Burton, and many more. Simply put, Gigli invented color celebrity photojournalism in national magazines, which were the premiere cultural medium of the time. Gigli became a celebrity in his own right and his career was written about in publications such as The New York Times, Collier's, and Harper's. His most famous photograph, entitled "Girls in the Windows" sold for twice the asking price at a recent Sotheby's auction.

was sent out to photograph Sophia Loren before she was a big star in Italy, let alone in America. The big Italian star at that time was Gina Lollobrigida. I got to Sophia's house in Rome for a ten-thirty appointment and was greeted at the door by her mother, since Sophia was still living at home.

Her mother invited me in and offered me coffee. It was always so hard to photograph in Italy and other Mediterranean countries because everything started very late in the day, and I always wanted to start early because of the light. Especially in summer, once the sun was directly overhead, it became very difficult to photograph. By now it was eleven o'clock and still no Sophia. "The lazy thing," her mother said in halting English. "She's still in bed. Go in there and throw her out of bed."

This made me very nervous. I was a young guy at the time but I was also married. "I can't do that," I said.

"No," she said. "You go in there. You throw her out of bed. Tell her you're here."

"Why don't you do it?" I suggested.

But she insisted, and in I went. Sophia was still sleeping and very exposed, wearing a a flimsy nightgown that of course looked wonderful on her. I was sitting on the edge of the bed feeling like an idiot, saying, "Sophia, come on. Ciao. Let's go!"

Sophia may have looked inviting in that nightgown, but she certainly wasn't the glamorous actress I had expected. By the time she got fdressed and had breakfast, the sun was too hot to shoot, so I had to take it easy and wait for late afternoon to start shooting. That gave me plenty of time to plan an unusual shot. Sophia had made a movie the year before in which she portrayed a street vendor in Naples selling oranges, so I had the idea to put her in a peasant blouse and skirt and have her stand in a fountain holding some oranges.

"What?!" she said when I described what I wanted. But she proved to be game for what I wanted. I got some oranges, found a fountain, and threw water over the blouse and had her pull it down low. Just as the afternoon sun had softened and everything was perfect, some garabinieri rode by on horseback, giving me a dirty look. As he was approaching me, and I was beginning to wonder where we were going to shoot after he threw us out of this public fountain, Sophia yelled "Ciao!" She bent over, lifted her skirt a little bit, and the policeman saluted her, smiled and rode off.