The Beauty of Retrospect: Charlize Theron

When I originally featured Charlize Theron, the South African beauty was working on the movie Battle In Seattle, about anti-World Trade Organization protests in that city in 1999. The movie has since been released, of course, and it got decent notices.

Since then, she's done movies such as The Burning Plain (which got her a Saturn Award nomination), The Road, and most recently, Young Adult, about a woman who returns to her hometown to recapture the glory days of her high school experience. The movie pairs her with, of all people, Patton Oswalt.

She's already received six acting nominations from various critics' boards and academies for it, and the Oscar nominations, as of this writing, haven't even been announced yet.

Thus concludes my current retrospect of women I've previously featured, just in time for the new year.  I'll be back soon with a fresh A-Z round. :-)

The Beauty of Retrospect: Sara Kapp

Pictures from the portfolio of the stately, stunning Sara Kapp are hard to come by, but I've found more than a few with a little diligence. This is the ninth picture I've found of her, from an old issue of Vogue.

Sara Kapp inspired a line of mannequins, so it seems appropriate that she poses here with tailor's dummies.

Full disclosure requires me to state that I know one of the New Jersey-raised Ms. Kapp's childhood friends, and I am also connected to Ms. Kapp via a social network, though I've never met her in person. (She lives in Italy now.)

The Beauty of Retrospect: Sheila Johnson

It's hard to talk about modeling in the 1980s without mentioning Sheila Johnson.

Known for her Napier jewelry ads (which I've featured here before), she modeled for several clients throughout the decade.

She even dabbled in acting, with a small role in the 1988 Eddie Murphy movie Coming To America.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Whitney Houston

On this Christmas Day, what better woman to revisit on this blog than the star of the The Preacher's Wife, the 1990s remake of The Bishop's Wife?

Whitney Houston continues to try to get her performing career back on track after years of derailings caused by her personal destructive behavior. Never mind that - let's hope for happier times for her in the future.

The above picture is from 1984, from happier times past - and a year before she released her debut pop album.

Earlier in 2011, it was announced that Houston will produce and star in a remake of the 1976 movie Sparkle, about a trio of sisters who go from singing gospel to becoming a successful girl group on the pop charts.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Catherine Deneuve

I can't revisit women I've featured before on this blog without revisiting Catherine Deneuve. And, of course, despite her starring roles in movies such as La Chamade, Indochine, and countless others, you can't talk about Catherine Deneuve without talking about . . .her Chanel ads from the seventies.

Yes, it's a pity that many Americans only know Catherine Deneuve for her ads for Chanel No. 5, while accepting the "talents" of other "actresses" at face value, but in a truly horrible world, no one in this republic would have heard of Catherine Deneuve at all.

The above print ad is from 1977.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Alva Chinn

I diverged from my alphabetical order in this retrospective break to honor Eva Voorhees on her birthday, so now I go back to the letter "C" . . . which gives me a perfect opportunity to revisit Alva Chinn! (The photo immediately below is from 1983.)

I mentioned earlier that Alva Chinn helped break racial barriers at a famous 1973 fashion show in France. It's funny . . . I've never really seen race when looking at pictures of Alva Chinn. I've never seen her as a beautiful black woman. I've only seen her as a beautiful woman.

And, as you can clearly comprehend from this recent picture of her - taken in 2011 - I still do. :-)

The Beauty of Retrospect: Eva Voorhees

I want to revisit a special woman for a special occasion - veteran fashion model Eva Voorhees celebrates her birthday today.  (Never mind which birthday.)

Eva Voorhees left her home state of California and went to New York City, where her modeling career took off. Although she became famous in the international modeling world, she also did some modeling for local interests in the Big Apple. Both of the pictures here are from department store ads from New York magazine.

The black-and-white photo is from a 1982 Macy's ad, and the color photo is from a 1981 Saks Fifth Avenue ad. Mind you, these are from before Macy's and Saks became national brand names.

What a nice way to honor a birthday girl. :-)

The Beauty of Retrospect: Cynthia Bailey

I revisit a model I've featured before with two astonishing photos. 

When I first saw the picture below on the cover of a magazine - specifically, the June 1995 edition of Essence - I was breathless, speechless, and all that other incredible stuff you feel when confronted with the image of a woman who's beyond beautiful. :-)

The woman in question is Cynthia Bailey, an Alabama native who took the modeling world by storm in the nineties. This cover photo made the June 1995 issue of Essence one of the hottest-selling issues of the magazine in its entire history.

In addition to several editorial assignments, Cynthia Bailey has done ads for Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Lord & Taylor, and too many other clients to list.

And if you think she looked gorgeous in 1995, you should see how she looks in 2011 - just look at the next picture!

She currently appears on a reality show, "Real Housewives of Atlanta," and she lives in Georgia's capital with her daughter Noelle.

The Latest Numbers

I have now posted pictures of 528 different women on this blog.

For the remaining two weeks of the year, I'll be revisiting women I've already featured here, and I'll likely begin another A-Z set of new subjects after January 1.  And, despite my long-ago suggestion that I might present another set devoted to dancers sooner rather than later, it looks like I'm going to be sticking with featuring dancers every other December, in even-numbered years.

Sorry. 

Brazilian model Natalia Zambiasi

Brazil, a country that's as ethnically diverse as the United States - maybe even more so - has produced a very diverse group of supermodels over the years. The latest Brazilian beauty to fall into this tradition is Natalia Zambiazi. 

Born in 1990, she hails from Carizinho, a city in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. She is with AMZ, a modeling agency in her native country.

Finding downloadable pictures of her is very difficult. It seems the Brazilians want to keep her to themselves as much as possible. :-) 

Model Wendy Young

Wendy Young is a fashion model from the mid-1980s.

She was represented by the Reinhard agency in Philadelphia.

Actress Yan Xi

You may not have heard of Yan Xi yet. But you probably will very soon. The New York-based actress has played walk-on and bit parts in several TV shows, as well as parts in indie films and short movies like Piyali's Password, Public Interest, and, more recently, an intriguing short film titled Cerise.  She is definitely an actress who's on her way to a big career. 

She's also been in several theater productions, including one of Agamemnon for the Georgetown Theatre Company

For more about Yan Xi, go to her Web site. :-)

Actress Reese Witherspoon

In the movie Water for Elephants, a drama set in a traveling circus in the 1930s, the hero, Jacob (played by Robert Pattinson of Twilight fame) tells his love interest, a performer named Marlena, "You're a beautiful woman. You deserve a beautiful life."

Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon, who played Marlena (she is depicted above in that role), is a beautiful woman who has had a beautiful life. She made her big cinema debut as Dani Trant, a teenager in love with an older boy, in another period drama, 1991's The Man in the Moon, set in 1950s Louisiana. In 1999, her performance as an overachieving candidate for high school student body president in Election won her eight nominations for her acting as well as three awards from film critics societies, including the National Society of Film Critics award for Best Actress.

She went on to do some lighthearted fare, including the role of society girl-turned-law student Elle Woods in Legally Blonde and in Legally Blonde 2 - Red White and Blonde, a sequel that took Elle to Washington as a congressional aide.

Ms. Witherspoon, who grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, has appeared in Cruel Intentions, a modern film adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, as well as in a 2002 film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Bering Earnest.  Her performance as June Carter Cash in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line earned her seventeen awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Fun fact: Reese Witherspoon is a descendant of New Jersey patriot and Declaration of Independence signer John Witherspoon.

Model Marcia Turnier

Marcia Turnier is a fashion model from the 1980s, and like most models of that decade, she had a stunning and unique look all her own.

She was represented by the Zoli agency in New York.

Australian actress Yvonne Strahovski

Yvonne Strahovski appears to have given a new meaning to the term "saucy Aussie." ;-)

The daughter of Polish immigrants to Australia, she grew up in the state of New South Wales.  Having appeared in many TV shows Down Under, Yvonne Strahovski has made a big splash in the United States thanks largely to her role as CIA agent Sarah Walker in the NBC series "Chuck."

Sarah recruits the title character, a computer expert working as a clerk in a big-box electronics store, into secret agent service after he's received an e-mail from an old friend working for the CIA that has embedded the last remaining copy of America's biggest spy secrets into his brain. The show follows Chuck and his relationship with Sarah and with John Casey of the National Security Agency.

As of this writing, the series is in its fifth - and final - season.