The Latest Numbers

I have now posted 509 different women on my blog.

I've had a couple of problems with my count in the past,  but as of now, it's accurate.  I hope to keep it that way going forward, but if you ever see a discrepancy in my count in the future, please, I beg you, call me on it!

Also, if you have any suggestions, please let me know.  I consider "Pictures of Beautiful Women" to be a very communitarian blog.

(Note: The October Surprise snowstorm that crippled the American Northeast crippled me as well; I've been without power since the storm, and I'm posting this blog entry from my local public library.  Fortunately, I do have some new posts ready going into November, but I'll more likely wait several days before I resume posting.  Thank you for your patience.)    

Two New Links

Beginning today, two new links appear on the right side of my blog.   Both of them involve one of the many women I've featured on this blog.

The woman in question is Kathy Davis, a legendary high-profile fashion and beauty model who began her modeling career in her teens and went on to appear on the covers of Teen and Cosmopolitan, as well as several ads. I featured four pictures of her, including a very stunning and very sensuous hair care ad, back in May 2011.

I noted then that she's now an event planner in the Los Angeles area, and I included in my post a link to the Web site for her business, Kathryn Davis Event Planning.  Well, not only is there a permanent link to her site in the upper right hand corner of this blog's layout, there's a second link to her companion blog, Kathryn Davis Events Editorial, in which she offers various musings and art as well as looks back at her own life and her incredible modeling career.

By all means, please check out both sites.  You will not be disappointed.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Kerry Washington

As part of my look back on women I've already featued, I revisit Kerry Washington, whom I originally featured in 2010.

One of her more notable roles in recent years was as Kelly in For Colored Girls, Tyler Perry's movie adaptation of Ntozake Shange's 1975 play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.

In October 2011 it was announced that Kerry Washington would appear in Django Unchained, a new Quentin Tarantino film.   

The Beauty of Retrospect: Hunter Tylo

Long considered the the most beautiful actress in daytime dramatic television, Hunter Tylo remains a stalwart cast member of CBS's "The Bold and the Beautiful" These pictures show the actress very early in her career. The first two are from 1989, the third is from 1993.

All three of these pictures are stills from commercials advertising - what else? - beauty products.

Sadly, it seems that Hunter Tylo's career is in serious jeopardy. It's not because she turns fifty in 2012, and it's not even because she has had cosmetic surgery that fans say distorted her features. It's because daytime dramas are seeing the sun set on them. They're being replaced by talk and self-help shows.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Margrit Ramme, Again

I have to get back to choosing new subjects eventually, as opposed to revisiting earlier ones, but in the meantime, here are two more pictures of Margrit Ramme for this retrospective period, one in black and white, the other in color.

Both are from Vogue magazine. The black-and-white picture, form the March 1, 1972 U.S. issue, is actually a mirror image; she's looking at herself in a mirror, so her left side is to the viewer's left as well, ditto for the right side. The color photo is from the April 1974 Italian issue.

First appearing in the latter half of the sixties, Margrit Ramme remained active as a model well through the 1980s.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Margrit Ramme

Once again, I revisit Margrit Ramme, the German beauty who took the modeling world by storm in the sixties and seventies.

As these pictures clearly show, she could project everything from innocence to worldliness.

The color picture, from Harper's Bazaar in 1970, shows her in an Andre Courrèges outfit that matches her ice cream. :-D The black-and-white photo, in which she models a Ricci outfit, is from the September 1971 issue of Paris Vogue.

Don't tell me how I know all this, I just know where to look. :-)

The Beauty of Retrospect: The Lovely Wanakee Pugh

It was one year ago today that I first featured model-turned artist Wanakee Pugh on my blog.

And since October 22 is her birthday, I figured, why don't I feature her again?

I like the way I think. :-)

She continues to work as a painter, creating pictures with vibrant colors and bold strokes.

For a quick look at the artist in action, check out this video.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Teri Polo

Despite a few career setbacks involving canceled TV series - and the indignity of appearing in a third Fockers movie - Teri Polo remains my favorite actress of my generation.

That's why I'm revisiting her yet again. :-)

More recently, she has made guest appearances on various TV shows, and she's been in cable TV movies.

She now stars in the sitcom "Man Up!" on ABC.

Links Report

Blogger has been going through so many changes regarding formatting and editing, yet curiously, among all of my blogs, this blog has not benefited from any changes.  Quite the opposite: In addition to having no separate pages and no ability to add gadgets to my template (I'd like additional pages, but I don't need gadgets), I just noticed that the links I added to my blog template somehow got deleted.

Well, I just fixed that.  The links to Eva Voorhees's sites and Linda Morand's two sites are back up, and there is a new link to model Nancy Donahue's page.  I featured a link to Ms. Donahue's site in a posted devoted to her, but that post is buried in the archives now.  I figure it's easier to include it permanently on my main page than force followers of this blog to seek it out themselves in the archives.        

More links will be added in the future as I see fit.  In the meantime, please feel free to check out these pages by clicking on the links  I restored . . . and added.   

The Beauty of Retrospect: Virginia Madsen

So what has actress Virginia Madsen been up to since I first featured her in November 2006?

Well, she's appeared in movies such as The Number 23 (2007) and Diminished Capacity (2008). She also voiced Queen Hipployte in the Wonder Woman cartoon movie of 2009 and, more recently, she played Suzette in the 2011 fantasy film Red Riding Hood.

She turned fifty in September 2011.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Laurel Lee

I'm going on a little longer - and a little more frequently - to revisit previous subjects. I've fallen into a pattern of re-featuring two models, then two actresses. :-)

Today I'm presenting another look at Laurel Lee, one of the most beautiful models you've never heard of.

She is definitely one of the loveliest models from the Wilhelmina model agency in the 1980s. This picture - accentuating her best feature, her hair - is from 1985.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Kiara Kabukuru

I first featured fashion model Kiara Kabukuru back in 2006, just I was getting this blog started, but I hadn't revisited her since. I thought I'd compensate for that be revisiting her now . . .

. . .though the picture above may be, umm, overcompensation. :-O :-D

For my more prudish followers, here's a more conservative picture.

Kiara Kabukuru was born in Uganda but emigrated to the United States as a child with her family. Originally settling in California after arriving in the U.S., she was discovered in a Los Angeles shopping mall at the age of sixteen by photographer Bill Bodwell.

She turned 36 in July 2011.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Allison Janney

I'm always happy to return to the subject of actress Allison Janney, the matron saint of tallness! :-)

So what has she been up to since I last featured her in 2007? Well, she played Violet in the Broadway musical version of the movie Nine To Five, and she's appeared in movies such as Juno, Away We Go, Life During Wartime, and, in 2011, the controversial film The Help.

She returned to series television in the Matthew Perry vehicle "Mr. Sunshine," but it didn't last long.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Lauren Graham

When I first paid tribute to Lauren Graham on this blog in 2009, she was best known for her role as a single mom on "The Gilmore Girls." Now she plays another single mom on the NBC drama "Parenthood."

On "Parenthood," Lauren Graham plays Sarah Braverman, an aspiring writer who lives at home with her parents while trying to raise a teenage son on her own, after having raised a teenage daughter with great difficulty. Her daughter has since graduated from high school and has now moved out and struck out on her own, which is ironic in light of Sarah's own living situation.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Nancy Dutiel, Again

Here are two more pictures from Nancy Dutiel's days as Lancôme's spokesmodel. The first picture is from 1981, the second from 1982.

She had a captivating and distinctive look, yet she somehow failed to achieve the sort of notoriety that other cosmetics models did. Nevertheless, she left behind an impressive portfolio of Lancôme ads. :-)

The Beauty of Retrospect: Nancy Dutiel

Just when I think I've found all the pictures of former Lancôme model Nancy Dutiel that I can possibly find, I take a chance and look for some more . . .and I find more. :-)

These Lancôme ads are from early in Ms. Dutiel's stint as their spokesmodel. The ad above is from 1977, while the one below is from 1978.

Both ads feature double images of her, and black and white and in color, with the "From sensible to sensational" tagline used by Lancôme at the time. Going into the 1980s, that slogan was dropped.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Pat Cleveland

We're going back to Cleveland - I ain't talkin' about Ohio! :-D

Don't let this elegant, low-key picture of Miss Cleveland in a fur coat fool you. For Pat Cleveland remains one of the most boisterous models in the fashion trade. She flaunts her larger-than-life personality, and she always has a good time doing it. She's the kind of woman who can walk into a room full of women as beautiful as she is and attract all the attention from the men in the room. It's her aura, you must understand. :-D ;-)

And the picture above is much more indicative of her personality than the previous one. :-)

Retrospective Time!

Having finished around alphabetical round of subjects for this blog, and having literally gone from A to Z - and also having painstakingly made a list of the first five hundred women to appear on this blog in the middle of all that - I'm going to revisit some of the women I've featured for awhile.

I like retrospectives.  Because I put less pressure on myself to think of new subjects for what's supposed to be a fun blog.  Also, I tend to find pictures of women I've already featured that I didn't know existed, and they're too good not to share.  But if you remember my Karen Graham retrospectives, you know that. :- )

Model Heidi Zimmerman

Heidi Zimmerman is a model from the late eighties.

She was represented by the Karins agency in Paris.

Actress/comedian Kristen Wiig

If you saw the raucous comedy movie Bridesmaids, then you all know about Kristen Wiig.

Kristen Wiig has been a cast member of NBC's long-lived sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live," and she's begun to branch out to movies.

Her SNL characters include Judy Grimes, a nervous travel agent; Aunt Linda, a difficult movie critic, and; Target Lady, a clerk at the chain store of that name and a collector of all sorts of tchotchkes.

Her movie debut was in Judd Apatow's Knocked Up, from 2007.

CNBC newswoman Kayla Tausche

Kayla Tausche came to CNBC in January 2011 with a wealth (no pun intended) of experience as a financial reporter.

An Atlanta native, she was a journalist with DealReporter in both its London and New York bureaus, reporting on deals involving mergers and buyouts. She also worked at Bloomberg covering stories in the consumer and retail trade.

Actress Susan Sarandon

I've been putting off adding pictures of Susan Sarandon to this blog for far, far too long. But, I figured, since today is her 65th birthday, heck, why not add them today? :-)

A New Jersey girl (she grew up in the sprawling suburb of Edison, just west of her native New York City), Susan Sarandon got her first big break when she played Peggy Grant in Billy Wilder's 1974 movie adaptation of the Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur play The Front Page. (It happened to be the first movie to team Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau since 1968's The Odd Couple.) But it was her role in an underground film made the following year, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, that brought her notoriety.

Since then the artist formerly known as Janet (her Rocky Horror character's name) has played numerous movie roles. It would be a chore to list even some of her movie credits, but I'll try anyway; Pretty Baby, Compromising Positions, White Palace (as a middle-aged waitress coveted by a younger man), and Safe Passage.

Oh yeah, she starred in a few other movies you might have heard of: 1988's Bull Durham, 1991's Thelma and Louise (in the latter title role), Lorenzo's Oil, and The Client. These pictures got her numerous acting awards and nominations.  but it was as Sister Helen Prejean in the 1995 capital punishment drama Dead Man Walking that got her a Best Actress Oscar.  

Susan Sarandon is still active as an actress, so she's not about to activate her Medicare card just yet. :-)

She's also known for her twenty-one-year relationship with actor Tim Robbins, and she's also associated herself with politically liberal causes.

NBC anchor Amy Robach

Amy Robach is one of the newer stars among the NBC family's anchorwomen.

Robach joined MSNBC in September of 2003, after having worked as the early morning and noon anchor for WTTG-TV in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, she was a weekend anchor and general assignment reporter for WCBD-TV in Charleston, S.C. Robach is the recipient of many local news awards from here time on local and regional broadcasts.

In 2007, she became the anchor or the weekend edition of "Today," and she's filled in on weekday editions of the show and on NBC's nightly newscast since then.

She married former "Melrose Place" star Andrew Shue in 2010.

Actress Joely Richardson

Joely Richardson is the daughter of the great actress Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson, and, like her mother, she has become an accomplished actress in her own right.

She's known for her roles in movies such as Shining Through and The Last Mimzy, though she's probably best known to American audiences as Julia McNamara in the plastic surgery TV drama series "Nip/Tuck," for which she received several Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress.