Be the talk of the town

Essere la favola del paese

Essere sulla bocca di tutti

Meanings

To be what (topic, person) everyone is gossiping about

Examples

The bridegroom and his bestmen showed up at the wedding still drunk after the bachelor party. This made them the talk of the town but, most of all, ruined the whole wedding day

Lo sposo e il suo testimone di nozze si sono presentati al matrimonio ancora ubriachi dalla festa di addio al celibato, per cui non solo sono finiti sulla bocca di tutti, ma hanno anche rovinato l'intera giornata

Everybody knew Eleonor had an inferiority complex about Nadia and copied her in every way, but when Eleonor started dating the twin brother of Nadia's boyfriend, she became the talk of the town

Tutti sapevano che Eleonora aveva un complesso di inferiorità nei confronti di Nadia e la imitava in tutto e per tutto, ma quando si è messa con il fratello gemello del ragazzo di Nadia, è diventata la favola del paese

Origin

This term appears in at least two Latin sources, Horace's Satires (2.1)
at ille, qui me conmorit - melius non tangere, clamo -,
flebis et insignis tota cantabitur urbe.
But that man,
who shall provoke me (I give notice, that it is better not to touch me)
shall weep, and as a notorious character shall be sung through all the streets of Rome

and Ovid's Amores (3.1)

saepe aliquis digito vatem designat euntem,

atque ait "hic, hic est, quem ferus urit Amor!"

fabula, nec sentis, tota iactaris in urbe,

dum tua praeterito facta pudore refers

Often someone points out the poet as well,

and says: "That's him, the one wild Love inflames!"

You're the common talk of the whole city, and don't see it,

while you tell of your doings, with their past shame

Since its earliest publication, in 1925, the New Yorker magazine has carried a department called "Talk of the Town," consisting of short articles of current interest