The Latest Numbers

I have now posted pictures of 264 different women as of this posting.

Another special series - a second collection of beautiful singers and other musical performers - will be my focus for the month of October 2009.

Back soon. :-)

The Beauty of Retrospect, Part Nine: More Karen Graham Photos

Sooner or later, I always revisit seventies supermodel Karen Graham, my first celebrity crush. :-D

The picture above, from 1973, may or may not have come from one of her Estée Lauder ads, but I actually found it in the archives of, of all places, a Russian fashion magazine!

These two pictures are from Estée Lauder ads, taken by the Chicago photographer Victor Skrebneski. The one above is from 1976, the one below from 1981.

While not an actress - her original ambition was neither modeling nor acting but teaching French - the Mississippi-born-and-bred Karen Graham had many people believe she was the glamorous woman in the ads, even though she was and remains far more down to earth and simple than these photos suggest.

But the class she exhibited in these poses was very much for real. :-)

The Beauty of Retrospect, Part Nine: Clotilde Redux

Did I dig Clotilde in the eighties?



Boy, did I ever! :-D

Kristin Darnell made a name for herself - her middle name - modeling for several clients in the early 1980s, not just Ralph Lauren. As Kristin Holby - her maiden name - she made a name for herself as an actress, albeit briefly. She played the original girlfriend of Winthorpe (Dan Ackroyd's character) in Trading Places.

The Web site to her current dressmaking business is here.

Model Kara Young

Kara Young is another high-profile fashion model from the eighties who helped make that decade seem better than it really was. :-)

In addition to numerous appearances on the covers high-fashion magazines such as Vogue, Elle, and Glamour, she also dabbled in acting, having appeared in the 1988 Eddie Murphy movie Coming to America.

Newswoman Margaret Warner

In a time when TV news outlets like the Fox News Channel give us "news bunnies" - anchorwomen known more for their looks than their brains - Margaret Warner proves that, in broadcast journalism, dowdy is beautiful.

Currently a reporter and foreign correspondent for PBS's "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," Margaret Warner was a print reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, among other publications, as well as a commentator for CNN before going to public television. Her reporting has won many awards.

Fun fact: Margaret Warner was on the panel of the second 1988 presidential debate between George Bush and Michael Dukakis, and so she was present when Bernard Shaw asked the Democratic candidate the question on capital punishment that destroyed Dukakis's career.

Actress Vinessa Shaw

Vinessa Shaw is another young actress making waves in Hollywood.

She's best known for her roles in the recent remakes of 3:10 To Yuma and The Hills Have Eyes. More recently, she starred in Two Lovers as Sandra, the down-to-earth girl who unknowingly competes with another woman (the glamorous Michelle, played by Gwyenth Paltrow) for the affections of sensitive Larry (Joaquin Phoenix).

I won't tell you the ending of the movie, but I'll say this much. The world needs more Sandras and fewer Michelles.

Supermodel Bar Rafaeli

This stunning supermodel is one of the hottest exports from Israel.

Bar Rafaeli is currently in great demand for her modeling abilities. In addition to the inevitable Sports Illustrated swimsuit shots, she has been the spokesperson for fashion brand Luisa Cerano and the clothing line Hurley. She's also modeled for Subaru and the Italian jewelry line Marco Bicego, among others.

Actress/singer Hayden Panettiere

Hayden Panettiere has made quite a name for herself for an actress who's only twenty years old as I write.

First coming to people's attention at the age of eleven for her role in the movie Remember The Titans, Panettiere went on to follow the example of her mother, a soap opera actress, by playing teenage soap roles. She now stars as Claire Bennet, a high school cheerleader with regenerative healing powers, in NBC's "Heroes."

Oh, yeah, she also sings. :-)

Model Debbie Ogunlana

Debbie Ogunlana is part of the latest generation of black models.

She has been affiliated with a London agency.

Actress Elisabeth Moss

The winsome-looking Elisabeth Moss is no shrinking violet, as anyone who's seen her performance as Peggy Olson on AMC's "Mad Men" can tell you.

Her first claim to fame was as Zoey Bartlet, the President's daughter, on NBC's "The West Wing." She's also played Karen in the revival of David Mamet's "Speed-the-Plow" on Broadway.

Sophia Loren Today

All good things must come to an end, and so ends this week-long tribute to Sophia Loren.

I've shown pictures from her illustrious past. But, to show you all how beautiful she remains, here's the cinematic icon in a much more recent picture. This is from the Academy Awards in February 2009.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing this to Sophia Loren - who, remember, turns 75 next Sunday - as I've enjoyed presenting it. :-)

Sophia Loren Redux

Sophia Loren worked steadily into her late forties with movies like The Cassandra Crossing and Brass Target but grew more selective about choosing movie roles as she passed fifty. Her 1980s projects included an autobiographical film in which she played both herself and her mother, as well as Aurora By Night, an anti-drug movie co-starring American actor Daniel J. Travanti. Both aired on American television.

She became an entrepreneur in various fields, from cook books and eyewear to jewelry and perfume. She continued to act, though, and fulfilled a dream of working with Jack Lemmon by appearing with him in 1995 comedy Grumpier Old Men, which also featured Lemmon's old pal Walter Matthau.

Sophia Loren at 19

There are over 170,000 pictures of Sophia Loren on the Internet, but this picture of her - at nineteen years of age - may be the earliest one available.

Sophia Loren's mother, an actress named Romilda Villani, had wanted to go to Hollywood but her own mother wouldn't let her. Villani, by contrast, encouraged her own daughter to pursue her own Thespian dreams. This led the young girl - originally named Sofia Scicolone - to adopt her current name, as Scicolone was too Italian even for Italy. :-D

Sophia Loren married film producer Carlo Ponti; their marriage was considered one of the strongest and sturdiest in the cinema world; they were married for nearly forty years until Ponti's death. The marriage produced two sons, Carlo Jr. and Eduardo.

Another fun fact: When the Beatles emerged, they were asked the usual questions about their likes and dislikes, and Paul McCartney chose Sophia Loren as his favorite actress.

Loren Week - All Sophia, All The Time!

Sophia Loren is also known for her savvy and her sharp wit as well as for her acting.

Commenting on her slender, curved figure, she declared, "Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti."

More Sophia Loren

Sophia Loren made several movies with another Italian legend, Marcello Mastroianni. Yes, I suppose you could say they were the Hepburn and Tracy of Italy. :-)

The movies they did together include delightful diversions such as Yesterday Today, and Tomorrow and Marriage, Italian Style, along with serious fare like Blood Feud. Their last movie together was Robert Altman's Pret-a-Porte from 1994. Mastroianni died two years later.

One landmark movie of theirs was 1977's A Special Day, directed by Ettore Scola, with whom they worked many times. A Special Day concerned a housewife in Fascist Italy left alone in her apartment while her family goes to see Mussolini and Hitler during the Fuhrer's visit to Rome. She meets a charming, handsome middle-aged tenant who turns out to be gay, and their lives are changed as a result of their brief encounter.

Sophia Loren, Again

I'll be posting pictures of Sophia Loren all week, in honor of her seventy-fifth birthday this month (it's September 20).

Sophia Loren stunned many with her performance in the 1960 Vittorio De Sica film Two Women She won the Oscar an Academy Award for Best Actress, the first major Academy Award for a non-English-language performance.

International stardom brought her roles in the sixties with numerous leading men, from The Millionairess (with Peter Sellers), It Started in Naples (with Clark Gable), 1965's L (with Paul Newman), and the classic 1966 movie Arabesque (with Gregory Peck).

Actress Sophia Loren

Behold, Italy's greatest export.

Sophia Loren was the greatest Italian actress of the twentieth century, and remains one of the greatest living cinema actresses of all time.

Having started out in small roles in Italian movies, she set her sights on Hollywood at an early age and, with roles opposite Cary Grant in Houseboat, Anthony Perkins in Desire Under the Elms, and Charlton Heston in El Cid, became an international star. :-)

Rosaura Lezama

Rosaura Lezama isn't a household name - yet.

Originally from Mexico, she's an occasional model, film student, and filmmaker currently working her portfolio and working as a video producer at a marketing agency called Night Agency in New York. But cinema is her main love.

She's driven and passionate about what she does. She has a great future ahead of her as she lives out the American dream. :-)

This picture was taken by Arthur Eisenberg, an avid photographer and a friend of mine on Facebook, Flickr, and MySpace.

Supermodel Sheila Johnson

Like Beverly Johnson, with whom she shared a last name (but no relation), Sheila Johnson was a top black model of the seventies and early eighties and was fairly ubiquitous - not to mention drop-dead gorgeous. Also, like Beverly Johnson, Sheila Johnson even did a couple of iconic magazine covers.

There the similarities end.

While Beverly Johnson had a more athletic image, Sheila Johnson was more soft and alluring, as evidenced by the picture below, which she did for an ad for Napier jewelry.

This once high-profile model has kept a low profile of late, but she's still an iconic (there's that word again) figure in the modeling world. Those who remember her do so fondly.

Oh, Sheila. . . . :-)

Actress Janet Hubert

Janet Hubert is one of those women for whom the term "striking" was invented. :-)

The Chicago-born stage and television actress first became known for playing Tantomile in the original cast of the Broadway version of Cats, which did not allow her the opportunity to capitalize on her looks. (All of the cast members looked like Kiss's first drummer. :-O)

She achieved fame as Will Smith's Aunt Vivian in the NBC sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," in which she appeared for the first three seasons. She left when she became pregnant, apparently causing a violation of contract, yet her pregnancy was written into the show. In any case, she was replaced, and so the post-Boomer generation got its own equivalent to the "two Darrins on 'Bewitched'" syndrome.

Janet Hubert has worked steadily in television since, and she plans to publish a memoir in 2010.

Actress Heather Graham

It's hard to believe that Heather Graham has been a Hollywood golden girl since she was nineteen, especially since she's 39 at the time of this posting.

She first gained notice as Nadine in 1989's Drugstore Cowboy. Movies she's done since then include I Love You To Death, Boogie Nights, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Bowfinger, among others.

Not everything Graham touches turns to gold, however. In 2006, she starred in the ABC-TV series "Emily's Reasons Why Not," which should have been titled in the singular person. It only aired for one episode.

Currently she appears in The Hangover.