A one-time-only meeting between Sophia Loren and Elvis Presley happened at the Paramount Studios commissary in February 1958. Both were 23 at the time. Loren, born on 9.20.34, was four months older than Elvis, who began life on 1.8.35.

Loren was shooting Melville Shavelson‘s Houseboat (11.19.58) with costar Cary Grant, with whom she’d had an affair a year earlier during the filming of Stanley Kramer‘s godawful The Pride and the Passion. Presley was making Michael Curtiz and Hal Wallis‘s King Creole, which would hit screens only five months later (7.2.58). He began his two-year term in the Army on 3.24.58.

Presley’s life ended tragically on 8.16.77, at age 42.

Three months before Presley’s passing Ettore Scola‘s A Special Day, in which Loren gave one of her most respected performances, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. It played at the New York Film Festival in September ’77, and opened commercially the following month.

Loren, 86, is currently starring in Eduardo Ponti‘s The Life Ahead (Netflix),