She was always one of my favorite actresses, and when they cast Liz Taylor as Cleopatra, I felt that Sophia Loren would have been a much better choice.
I still watch it from time to time on disk, love the look of the thing, and find some of it amusing, but it’s a massive failure. Thanks to the way movies were shown back then, the studio managed to start making money after a mere four years or something.
Joan Collins did a screen test for the role, Liz was a better choice than that, I think Sophia Loren was one of the actresses under consideration.