Big Nipple (summary)

Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci called Los Angeles “the Big Nipple.” The somewhat shocking nickname is amusing, but is seldom used. Bertolucci explained this Big Apple-knockoff nickname in a 1989 BBC interview (below).
 
 
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000934/bio
Biography for
Bernardo Bertolucci

Mini biography
Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian director whose films are known for their colorful visual style, was born in Parma, Italy, in 1940. He attended Rome University and became famous as a poet. He served as assistant director for Pier Paolo Pasolini in the film Accattone (1961) and directed Commare secca, La (1962). His second film, Prima della rivoluzione (1964), which was released in 1971, received an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay. Bertolucci also received an Academy Award nomination as best director for Ultimo tango a Parigi (1972), and the best director and best screenplay for the film The Last Emperor (1987), which walked away with nine Academy Awards.

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Personal quotes
“The Big Nipple” (referring to Los Angeles).
 
 
http://industrycentral.net/director_interviews/BB02.HTM
Face to Face: Bernardo Bertolucci
by Jeremy Isaacs.
BBC, September 1989
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INT:
You described Hollywood as the big nipple. What did you suck from it?

BERNARDO:
No, that was when they gave me, I think, best director or best picture; I don’t remember, the best director Oscar. I really wasn’t waiting also for that because we had already 7 or 8 Oscars and so I had a bit to improvise something to say. And so I said that if New York is the Big Apple, through me tonight, Los Angeles it is the big Nipple! So there was a moment in the audience of a bit, not shock, but amazed. And then the day after I remember I was driving in Sunset Boulevard and the radio, there was the disc jockey saying “and now music from the Big Nipple…” And so they adopted it as… I just meant that night these nine Oscars were like a big, big breast feeding all of us. It was a joke. Sometimes from Hollywood is a very dry nipple; that time it was big and very generous.