Model Maggie Rizer

Maggie Rizer is as resilient as she is gorgeous.

The Staten Island-born blonde beauty was one of the hottest models at the turn of the millennium, having appeared in ad campaigns for the Gap,Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, and several other fashion brands. But in the middle of the two thousand zeroes, her stepfather mishandled her money and left Maggie and her family financially ruined.

She's made a big comeback in the modeling world, though, appearing in ads for Dooney and Bourke as well as for L.L. Bean's SIGNATURE line.  She's also an AIDS activist.

She married a businessman, Alex Mehran. Now living in California, Maggie Rizer has become a mom, having given birth to a son (Zander, short for Alexander) on November 23, 2011. :-)

And she still has the look. :-)

Stage musical actress Jill Paice

Jill Paice is a popular stage musical performer on Broadway, the West End and even Los Angeles.

She originated the role of Niki Harris in Curtains, the last Kander and Ebb musical, in Los Angeles and reprised the role on Broadway in New York. She also played Scarlett O'Hara in a London West End musical adaptation of Gone With The Wind.

Ms. Paice, who is originally from Ohio, is also known for playing the role of Betty Haynes in the musical White Christmas in a national tour.

Television reporter Erin Moriarty

Erin Moriarty has been a reporter for CBS-TV's investigative news show "48 Hours" since 1990.

Although she had worked steadily as a reporter in the eighties for local stations, including a three-year stint at WMAQ-TV in Chicago as a consumer reporter, her background is in law; she holds a law degree from Ohio State University. She joined CBS in 1986 and was a consumer correspondent for the network's morning and evening news shows before joining "48 Hours."

Actress Lisa LoCicero

Lisa LoCicero is an actress who has been a presence on American television for a long time.

Although she's had bit parts in movies, she's best known for playing Olivia Falconeri on the ABC daytime drama "General Hospital." She's also played one-shot characters and recurring roles on TV in everything from "Without a Trace" to "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."

Model Gail Kendrick

Gail Kendrick is another high-profile fashion model from the 1980s, having been represented by both the Zoli and HV agencies in New York in that decade.

She was not as big a name as other 1980s fashion models, though she did appear on the November 1982 issue of Glamour. The cover, depicted below, is the only color photo of Ms. Kendrick that I have found . . .

. . . though she looks great in any photographic medium. :-)

I don't normally show magazine covers - too much text getting in the way - but in this case, I am willing to make an exception.

Model Nancy Jenks

Nancy Jenks is a fashion model who was active in the late 1980s.

She was represented by the Reinhard agency in Philadelphia.

New Pages

Switching to a new template for this blog has enabled me to include features the old template didn't have, such as a dropdown menu for my archives, which was the primary reason for the switch. But I also have among other new features the ability to create separate pages for this blog. So far I have already created two.

The first is a set of criteria that I originally posted as a blog entry in November 2006 and updated in subsequent entries. The original posts were difficult to access once they were archived, but now, with a new page spelling out my rules for who gets featured on this blog and who doesn't, this information is instantly accessible. Rather than search for it, anyone can refer to it by clicking on the "Criteria, Rules and Standards" link, which is in the upper-right-hand corner of the home page.

Now for the inevitable question: Am I going to create pages devoted to specific women, or women in specific professions? My short answer is no, not yet. My long answer is that I don't know. Theoretically, I suppose I could build an entire page devoted to, say, 1970s model Karen Graham. But why should I? All of the pictures I have ever featured of her are in the archives, easily found by entering her name in the search field in the extreme upper-left-hand corner of the home page. To feature them again on a separate page would seem redundant. Having said that, I have not ruled out creating separate pages for specific pictures. That might be a possibility in the future. But for now, I'm going to keep posting previously uncollected pictures on my home page, as I've been doing since I started this blog.

Thank you for your time.

Actress Natasha Henstridge

With her blonde hair, voluptuous figure, and broad smile, Natasha Henstridge could easily be a model, and in the early nineties, she was just that. Eventually, though, she switched to an acting career.

The Canadian-born Henstridge (she's from Newfoundland) has appeared in many movies, among them Species and The Whole Nine Yards.

She's also appeared on television, in miniseries such as "Jason and the Argonauts," as well as regular shows like the ABC legal drama "Eli Stone." Currently she appears in the CW supernatural drama "The Secret Circle," as the principal of a high school with a cadre of witches.

She married British singer-songwriter and actor Darius Campbell in February 2011.

Actress/dancer Kearran Giovanni

Kearran Giovanni is certainly one of the comeliest actresses on daytime television, having played Dr. Vivian Wright on ABC's "One Life To Live" since June 2009.  But she's also a regular on the big stage as well as the small screen.

She's performed on Broadway in productions of Catch Me If You Can, Guys and Dolls, and Sweet Charity, among other shows.

She became part of the ensemble cast in Hugh Jackman's Back On Broadway show, running through January 1, 2012.

New Look

I had to abandon the classic rose template I had been using for five years on this blog . . . and not because I wanted to.  The old template had been incompatible with the new features on Blogger.com, and as long as I used it, I could not add new links easily, and I could not add any other features if I so desired.  Also, I wanted a dropdown menu for my monthly archives, as the appearance of sixty different links - one for each month up to now - was looking cumbersome and unwieldy.  I liked the look of the old template, but it looks like I'll have to get used to the new template I chose. 

There isn't much in the way of viable alternatives.

So on I go, to my 515th beautiful woman . . .   

Political commentator Laura Flanders

Laura Flanders is one of the most fearless and outspoken political commentators in the news media today.

An unabashed liberal, Ms. Flanders has appeared on MSNBC founded and hosts GRITtv, which can be seen on Link and Free Speech TV. She writes for The Nation and The Huffington Post, and her new TV show "The Laura Flanders Show" debuts on public television stations in the fall of 2011.  Her Web site is here.

Fun fact: Alexander Cockburn, the "Beat the Devil" columnist for The Nation, is her uncle.

Actress Dana Delany

Dana Delany seemed to come out of nowhere when she first appeared as Army nurse Colleen McMurphy in the ABC-TV Vietnam War series "China Beach." in 1988. But she was most certainly not an overnight success; she had been working as an actress in small roles for fourteen years before then.

Despite its initial popularity - and an Emmy for its star - "China Beach" eventually suffered in the ratings and was canceled in 1991. The series was done, but Dana Delany wasn't.

Since then she's appeared in movies such as Light Sleeper and Fly Away Home. She played Katherine Mayfair in "Desperate Housewives" for 64 episodes, and she now plays Dr. Megan Hunt, a neurosurgeon who becomes a medical examiner after an accident causes loss of dexterity in her hands, in the series "Body Of Proof."  

Actress Sarah Chalke

Sarah Chalke is a familiar face to anyone who's ever watched "Scrubs." She played Dr. Elliot Reid on that sitcom.

The Canadian-born Chalke has also appeared in movies such as Alchemy and Cake, though television is still the medium in which she is most visible. She played one of the most disliked and one of the most unlikeable secondary characters on "How I Met Your Mother" - Stella, the New Jersey suburbanite who is engaged to Ted but leaves him at the altar. Not cool.

Sarah Chalke got her own sitcom on CBS in 2011, the New York romantic comedy "Mad Love," but it was canceled after only thirteen episodes.  Again, not cool.

French model and jewelry designer Anne Bezamat

You would think that France, known for having some of the most beautiful actresses in the world, would also be the homeland of some of the most beautiful models in the world.

You would be right, of course. And no French model is probably more beautiful than Anne Bezamat.

Originally from Paris, where she studied literature at the Sorbonne, Anne Bezamat took the modeling world by storm in the early 1980s with her cool appearance and her impeccable style. She grabs your attention with her eyes, which are like melting icicles - frosty with a touch of warmth. :-)

She now lives in New York City, where she has since gone on to a career as a jewelry designer. Her business's Web site is here. Just don't expect budget trinkets to stuff in Christmas stockings; Ms. Bezamat's jewlery is very expensive and of very high quality and beauty.

What else would you expect from a classy, beautiful Frenchwoman? :-)

Fashion model Laura Alvarez

Black fashion models broke racial barriers in the sixties and the seventies, but Hispanic models opened a few doors in that period as well. One notable Hispanic model of the time was Laura Alvarez.

As a Latina, she helped make "exotic" looks all the more desirable.

The top photo is taken from a 1974 Bloomingdale's ad, while the bottom photo is from an Avedon spread in the February 1975 U.S. issue of Vogue.

I'm Back!

The October 29 freak storm in the northeastern United States knocked out my electrical and cable service for three days and change, but both have since been restored, and I'm back online.  Without further ado, I'm happy to move onto the next A-Z round of new subjects.  So let's go! :-)