Actress Rachel McAdams

Canadian actress Rachel McAdams landed her breakout role at the age of 26 when she played "Queen Bee" Regina George in Tina Fey's satirical 2004 film Mean Girls.

Since then she's been in several mainstream movies, playing Amy in The Family Stone and Colee Dunn in The Lucky Ones. more recently she played Irene Adler in the 2009 version of Sherlock Holmes, earning a Saturn Award for best Supporting Actress.

Model Cynthia King

Cynthia King is a successful model from the 1980s whose work was in demand by many clients.

She was represented by the Wilhelmina agency.

Sara Kapp, In Black and White

Sara Kapp is either strikingly stunning or stunningly striking, depending on one's point of view.

There are only two women I can think of who have this striking, sharp, distinctive look. The other woman is actress Anjelica Huston. :-)

Sara Kapp's role as Borghese's in-house model looms large in her career, but it's not her only major credit. She was a model for one of the many store mannequins manufactured by the Rootstein company, and she was a muse for the late fashion designer Abbijane Schifrin.

Ms. Kapp, who now lives in Italy, once joked about her own appearance while talking about how she entered modeling. She said that anyone looking at her must wonder why she even dared to.

I don't know what she was talking about.

To those who suggest that Sara Kapp is plain-looking, I'd offer the following reply. The woman is just plain, all right - just plain gorgeous! :-)

Supermodel Sara Kapp

Sara Kapp is a model who may not be a household name to many, but to insiders in the modeling trade, she's just as big a star as Naomi Campbell or Cindy Crawford.



Ms. Kapp was at the height of her career in the seventies and the eighties, appearing in ads for clothing and cosmetics.

She was also a huge favorite in runway shows, as the picture below indicates.

In the 1980s, Sara Kapp was the exclusive model for the Princess Marcella Borghese cosmetics brand, and her face appeared in numerous upscale department stores as a result. The pictures at the Borghese counter were enlarged and back-illuminated like photos at any other cosmetics counter, but Sara Kapp didn't need any of that to appear larger than life. She already was. :-)

CNN weatherwoman Jacqui Jeras

Jacqui Jeras is a familiar face to CNN viewers, as she reports on the nation's weather for the cable channel.

Before arriving at CNN, Jacqui Jeras was an on-camera meteorologist for television stations in Indiana and Iowa, as well as an associate producer for WOI-TV in Des Moines. She's covered natural disasters for CNN, and in 2005 she logged 84 hours of coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

Actress Teri Hatcher

Okay, can we please stop talking about Teri Hatcher's association with Botox? She's always been a beautiful woman, so why not just leave it at that?

Of course, Teri Hatcher is more than just a pretty face. She's an accomplished actress who has made a big splash over the years, first as Lois Lane in "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" and as Susan Mayer in "Desperate Housewives."

She's appeared in several other television shows, mostly in one-shot roles, and she played Paris Carver in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.

Fashion model Linda Fenn

Linda Fenn is a fashion model who enjoyed great success in the eighties.

She was primarily associated with the Wilhelmina agency.

British model Karen Elson

Karen Elson is known now as a fashion model, one who has appeared in ads for Ann Taylor and Christian Dior, among others, as well as covers of magazines like Vogue and Elle. But what she really wants to be is a pop musician.

She's performed in the New York cabaret troupe The Citizens Band, which she co-founded, and she marked 2010 with the release of her debut record, The Ghost Who Walks. She's also married to Jack White of the White Stripes.

CNBC anchorwoman Amanda Drury

Amanda Drury is the latest rising star on NBC Universal's Consumer News and Business Channel.

A former anchor for Bloomberg Television, where she reported on both business and international relations, Drury worked in her native Australia at CNBC's Asian Pacific channel anchoring its editions of "Squawk Box" and "Cash Flow". Before working at CNBC headquarters in New Jersey, Drury worked in Sydney on CNBC's Asia Pacific where she anchored "Squawk Box" and "Cash Flow." She joined CNBC's American headquarters in New Jersey as a co-anchor for "The Call" in May 2010.

Ratings for that show, I understand, have skyrocketed. ;-)

French actress Clotilde Courau

Clotilde Courau got a great deal in her native France at the age of 22 for her acting in Le petit criminel in 1991. She won a César award (the French equivalent of an Oscar) as Most Promising Actress.

Today she goes by another title: Clotilde, Princess of Venice and Piedmont. She married Emanuele Filberto di Savoia, Prince of Venice and Piedmont, in September 2003. Emanuele Filberto is a grandson of the last king of Italy. So Clotilde Courau - not Catherine Deneuve - is technically the French Grace Kelly. ;-)

Courau's movies from the nineties included Map of The Human Heart (1993) and Milk (1999, not to be confused with the Harvey Milk bio of the same name). She has continued working since becoming a real-life princess, with suich films as 2008's Modern Love.

American audiences know of her best - if they know of her at all - as Katie in the Hollywood film Deterrence.

Minnesota State Senator Tarryl Clark

Tarryl Clark, an accomplished Minnesota politician, is Mary Richards incarnate, a bright and eager woman with heartland charm and appeal. But that's not why I'm featuring her here.

She represents District 15 in Minnesota's state Senate. But that's not the reason I'm featuring her here.

She's involved with many charities and community activist groups. But that's not why I have her on this blog.

No, the reason I'm featuring Ms. Clark, a distinguished gentlewoman from the Land of 10,000 Lakes, is because she is the Democratic candidate opposing the Republican representing Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District in the House of Representatives . . . the horrible Michele Bachmann!

The Democrats are expected to lose a bunch of seats in the House this year and possibly control of the House altogether. But if Tarryl Clark can unseat Bachmann in the meantime - if she can arrange it so that at least the Democrats, if they must go down, can take Bachmann with them - that would be more than great.

It would be beautiful. Just beautiful. :-)

Go here for more information about her campaign.

Supermodel Elsa Benitez

In a television commercial for some fast food chain - does it really matter which? - Mexican model Elsa Benitez walks by a group of teenage boys and says, "Hi, guys!" The boys swoon.

Believe me, they weren't acting. :-D

Elsa Benitez came from Hermosillo, the capital of the Mexican state of Sonora. There aren't many women's magazines she hasn't appeared on the covers of - among those whose covers she has graced are Vogue, Elle, Glamour, and Marie Claire - and she also appeared in Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, causing many more teenage boys to swoon. :-)

Actress Bess Armstrong

In a perfect world, Bess Armstrong would be having a distinguished acting career and have a trophy case full of Oscars. At least that's the impression I got from her performance as a trophy wife in the 1981 Alan Alda movie The Four Seasons. I thought it would lead to such a career.

However, fate - or the Muses or some Hollywood executive or whoever the heck guides these things - dictated that she merely be an ubiquitous character actress rather than a star. Too bad. People don't realize how much talent she has.

While Bess Armstrong has done several movies since 1981 - the adventure movie High Road to China and the comedy-drama Nothing In Common are two of her better-known ones - she's mostly been on television, most notably as Sara Sheffield on the sitcom "The Nanny" and as Patty Chase on the critically acclaimed but low-rated "My So-Called Life." She's also been in several TV movies, as well as the 1997 version of Walt Disney's That Darn Cat.

The Latest Numbers

As of now, I have posted pictures of 363 different women on this blog.

Of course, the number of pictures is much bigger. I lost count of that long ago! :-D

More are to come. Soon.

The Beauty of Retrospect: A Very Special Catherine Deneuve Post!

Only a fashion designer whose father is one of the greatest rock stars of all time could have made this photographic opportunity possible.

That's right, that's French actress and cinematic and fashion icon Catherine Deneuve at right with Paul McCartney and his daughter Stella. The most beautiful woman in the world got her picture taken with a Beatle. :-)

Oh yeah, the Beatles song "Michelle" - about a Frenchwoman - was Paul's. :-D

Photographers live for opportunities like this! My hat's off to the celebrity photographer who got this one.