Newswoman Carol Martin

In the 1980s, Carol Martin was a fixture on the news broadcast of WCBS-TV in New York.

As a regular co-anchor on that newscast, she won two regional Emmy awards for her reporting.

Carol Martin has been involved in numerous media projects since leaving WCBS-TV, from hosting the syndicated talk show "Alive and Wellness" to running a production company producing video mementos for families and businesses.

French model/actress Noémie Lenoir

Noémie Lenoir has enjoyed a reputation as a model and as an actress simultaneously.

Her modeling credits include ads for Victoria's Secret, L'Oreal and the Gap.  As an actress, she has appeared in French films such as The Valet and Gomez contre Tavarès.

Her American film credits include the action comedies After the Sunset and Rush Hour 3.

Journalist Beverly Kirk

Beverly Kirk is a newswoman with impressive credentials.

Originally from Kentucky, she has been both a newsreader for National Public Radio and an anchor for WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., as well as a reporter for NBC's news division.  

Ms. Kirk currently runs Bevkirk International, media consulting and professional services company that provides media training and coaching services as well as instruction speechwriting and editing.  She's also an adjunct professor at American University in Washington.  

Actress Valerie Harper

For her portrayal of liberated Jewish woman Rhoda Morgenstern, first on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and her own show "Rhoda" for four years each (1970 to 1974, 1974 to 1978) Valerie Harper became an inspiration to young Jewish actresses everywhere.

There's just one problem: Valerie Harper is not Jewish.

She's just a very good actress.

Nevertheless, the character of Rhoda Morgenstern was a breakthrough for American television, as she was one of the first TV characters - maybe the first TV character - to be so clearly identified as Jewish. When "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" debuted in September 1970, it was the first of several sitcoms (particularly CBS sitcoms) to acknowledge the real world after a long line of 1960s fantasy sitcoms. And Valerie Harper was at the forefront of it.

In fact, when Harold Gould played Rhoda's father on "Rhoda," not too many people were aware he had tried for the role of Ann Marie's father on the sixties Marlo Thomas sitcom "That Girl," only to be rejected for being "too New York." (Get it?) But the 1970s were a (thankfully) different decade for American television.

Though she's done other TV shows along with movies and theater, Valerie Harper will always be Rhoda to a generation of TV fans.  And she continues to shine like the morning star (which is what Rhoda's last name means in German).  

La da da da da, la da da da . . . :-) 

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)

When Lieutenant Governor David Paterson of New York suddenly became governor of the state after his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, was forced to resign in a scandal, Paterson proved to be ineffective in office. But he did leave one important legacy - Kirsten Gillibrand. In 2009, Paterson plucked the Democratic U.S. Representative from upstate New York out of obscurity and appointed her as an interim U.S. Senator to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton, after Mrs. Clinton became Secretary of State.

As a House member, Mrs. Gillibrand, a lawyer by training, was a moderate Democrat  who opposed strict gun control laws and amnesty for illegal immigrants.  However, she's become more liberal as a U.S. Senator, supporting the pro-immigrant DREAM Act, allowing gays in the military, and improved access to contraceptives for women. After winning a special election in 2010 to complete Mrs. Clinton's term in the Senate, she looked toward seeking a full six-year term in 2012.

She and her husband Jonathan Gillibrand reside in Brunswick, New York, with their two sons.

Model/talk show host Cristina Ferrare

Cristina Ferrare was one of the most glamorous beauty models of the seventies. Based in Los Angeles, she had many clients, including Max Factor. She also appeared on numerous fashion magazine covers.

Cristina Ferrare began a post-modeling career as a talk show host in the 1980s. In addition to co-hosting a local morning show, "A.M. Los Angeles," she also a co-host of "The Home Show" on ABC,  Ferrare, whose hobbies include cooking, currently hosts "Big Bowl of Love," a cooking show on Oprah Winfrey's cable channel.

One of Cristina Ferrare's most notable moments in the media spotlight, however, was an unwelcome one.  She became a center of attention in 1982 when her then-husband, automobile executive John DeLorean, was arrested for trafficking cocaine in a sting operation in an (unsuccessful) attempt to save his sports car company.  DeLorean defended himself procedurally in his trial and was found not guilty by reason of entrapment.  All the while, Cristina Ferrare stood by her husband, but the marriage failed after it was all over. :-( 

She is now married to entertainment executive Anthony Thomopoulos.

Model and jewelry designer Caroline Ellen

Caroline Ellen started out as a fine arts student who studied drawing and painting, and then she became a model . . . which led to an artistic career of a different sort.

Her years as a fashion model through the Elite and Click agencies in New York and the L'Agence and FAM agencies in Paris led her to take a greater interest in jewelry, and she studied jewelry design at New York's Jewelry Arts Institute. She now her has her own jewelry company, which offers an array of handmade gold-colored bracelets, earrings, necklaces and rings.

For more information about her jewelry, go to her Web site.

Actress/dancer Jenna Dewan

Jenna Dewan is a movie actress as well known for her dancing as for her acting.

She starred in the 2006 romantic dance movie Step Up, a film that has generated three sequels (the third sequel, which is the fourth movie in the franchise overall, is as of this writing slated for a July 2012 release). Ms. Dewan hasn't appeared in the sequels, but she did play another dance-oriented role in Take the Lead, which also starred Antonio Banderas.

Despite her popularity with movie audiences, Ms. Dewan - or at least her movies - earned the wrath of film reviewers.

She married her Step Up co-star Channing Tatum in July 2009.

Cosmetics model Claudia Cron

In 1979, Karen Graham was the exclusive model for Estée Lauder cosmetics. But she was not the only model under contract with the Lauder company. Let me explain. The Lauders launched a separate cosmetics brand, Prescriptives, in 1979. And in order to develop a separate image for Prescriptives, they needed a separate spokesmodel for it. They chose as Prescriptives' first spokesmodel Claudia Cron, a stunning beauty who, like Karen Graham, had been discovered by modeling agency legend Eileen Ford.

As the above picture of Ms. Cron - posing with a makeup palette - suggests, the identity of Prescriptives was its emphasis on color-coded makeup to accurately match a woman's natural skin tones.  Ms. Cron was the face of the brand from its 1979 launch until 1986. She also appeared in movies and TV shows during the eighties.

The Lauder company announced the termination of its Prescriptives brand in September 2009, but Claudia Cron is still around.  A graduate of the Parsons School of Design, she is now a painter - working with a palette of a different kind - based in Connecticut, as well as a gallery owner.  Her art work primarily involves ghostly silhouettes of trains, buildings, and bridges. Her Web site is here, and you can reach the site for her gallery, the Orison Project, by clicking on this link.

Actress Kristen Bell

No one is going to be forgetting Kristen Bell, who played the title role in the 2008 comedy movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall (about a television actress who dumps her boyfriend and encounters him later) any time soon.

She is best known to many of her fans for her work in television, appropriately enough, particularly as the title star of the teen detective show "Veronica Mars"  and as Elle Bishop (for twelve episodes in the series "Heroes," about ordinary people with superhuman abilities. (Another "Heroes" star, Ali Larter, has already been featured here.)

Kristen Bell has also made a lot of movies - too many to list here. As of this writing, her most recent film is Big Miracle, which is based on the successful 1988 rescue of gray whales trapped in ice off the coast of Alaska.  Ms. Bell plays a news reporter.

Stage actress De'Adre Aziza

De'Adre Aziza is a rising star in the world of theater.

A singer as well as an actress, she has appeared in the Broadway musical version of the movie Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, as well as Passing Strange, a musical about finding oneself artistically . She played three different roles in the latter production and received a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress for her work in it.

Ms. Aziza is originally from Teaneck, New Jersey.

The Latest Numbers

I have now posted pictures of 554 different women, including my more recent subject, another unidentified model. Of course, I've posted far more pictures than that, with repeat appearances from many of those same 554 women.

Another A-Z round begins tomorrow. :-) I hope to have some interesting choices in the weeks ahead.

The Beauty of Anonymity: Wella Shampoo Model

Tonight I start a new A-Z  round of women I haven't featured before.

APRIL FOOL! :-D Actually, I have one more picture to show you before I get to that.

The picture above is of a model from an ad for Wella shampoo. The picture is from circa 1974. And, of course, I don't know this beautiful woman's identity.

If anyone knows who she is, what her name is, and all that bit, please e-mail me at vwgolfman2000@comcast.net.

The is the fourth anonymous model I've featured on my blog. No one so far has been able to identify any of the first three.