Television actress Caity Lotz

Caity Lotz is a young actress who has appeared in numerous TV shows.

She currently has a recurring role in the young-adult superhero series "Arrow," in which she plays a vigilante superheroine to complement the Green Arrow, the show's title character.  Ms. Lotz's character, Sara Lance, is believed to have drowned, but she returns as the Black Canary.  The Green Arrow and the Black Canary both first appeared in DC Comics in the forties.

  

So, Caity Lotz has a good deal of tradition to live up to.  She has a good chance of doing it in style.

TV anchorwoman Angie Koehle

Angie Koehle is the morning and afternoon news co-anchor at WTAJ-TV, a CBS-affiliated station in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Ms. Koehle has been in journalism since her college days, working as an intern at KDKA-TV in her senior year and working as a news writer and an assignment desk assistant at WTAE-TV - both Pittsburgh stations - before becoming a TV reporter.  She worked as a reporter all across Pennsylvania before joining WTAJ-TV's reporting staff in 2009.  She becme an anchorwoman in 2012. 

Ms. Koehle's reporting of the news has made its own news.  She broke one story of how a former death row inmate had moved into a homeless shelter. As a result, the law now that now requires shelters to report to local authorities whenever a convicted murderer moves in.

Does Angie Koehle have a bright future?  I think so. 

Actress Felicity Jones

Felicity Jones is a young actress from Great Britain.  She turned thirty in October 2013.

She has appeared in many movies, both televised and theatrically released, but she's probably best known for one movie so far - 2011's Like Crazy. She played Anna, a British college exchange student in Los Angeles who falls for an American student.  She decides to stay with him in LA for the summer, after graduation . . . unaware that her visa expires as soon as she gets her degree.

Ms. Jones' performance in this movie earned her Empire Award for Best Female Newcomer, a National Board of Review Award for Breakthrough Performance, and a Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Prize for Breakout Performance.  The Detroit Film Critics Society Award nominated her for both a Best Actress award and a Brekathrough Performance award.

More recently, she played Charles Dickens' secret mistress, Nelly Ternan, in The Invisible Woman.  Ralph Fiennes, who directed, also played Dickens. 

Actress Michelle Hurd

Michelle Hurd has been a reliable presence in both movies and television.

The daughter of actor Hugh L. Hurd, she first came to the attention of audiences as Dana Kramer in the soap opera "Another World" from 1991 to 1994 and again from 1995 to 1997.  Since then, she's played one-shot characters in numerous TV shows, such as "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit," "Bones," and "Charmed," as well as recurring roles in "ER" and "Gossip Girl."  She also played Athena Barnes in the 2001 Showtime series "Leap Years."

Michelle Hurd's film work includes roles in the theatrical release Girl Most Likely and the cable Christmas TV movie Naughty or Nice.    

Actress Melissa George

Melissa George is a young starlet from Australia.

While she's done a few television shows in the United States, Americans probably best know her for her performance of Kathy Lutz in the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror. But she's also done notable television work, such as her role as anesthesiologist Laura Hill in the HBO series "In Treatment," and she had a recurring role as Dr. Sadie Harris in the ABC series "Grey's Anatomy."        

It was a television role in her native Australia that first got her notoriety.  She played a troubled teenager in the Australian serial "Home and Away."   

Actress Anna Faris

Anna Faris is an actress who's been very ubiquitous lately.

She's done movies ranging from the sublime (Lost In Translation, Brokeback Mountain) to the ridiculous (the Scary Movie franchise, playing Cindy Campbell), and she's also voiced the role of Sam Sparks in the animated Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs movies. 

Not everything Anna Faris touches turns to gold, however.  She starred in the universally hated, all-star mess that was Movie 43.  It's clear that 43 is not her lucky number, nor is Movie 43 a credit she's likely to include on her résumé.

She currently stars as Christy Plunkett in the CBS sitcom "Mom" with Allison Janney (a previous honoree on this blog).

Model/actress Angie Everhart

Angie Everhart was probably the redhead model of the 1990s.

She appeared on the covers of different women's magazines, becoming an object of emulation for women and an object of desire for men.

She made the transition to acting, a field in which she's made mostly small films, such as Denial and Payback.

Weatherwoman Stef Davis

Stef Davis joined AccuWeather in September 2013.

As of this writing, there isn't much information about her. But you can catch her reports at AccuWeather.com.

Actress/dancer Betsy Chang

Betsy Chang is a journeywoman of a performer who has appeared in many Broadway shows since she debuted in the long-running production of 42nd Street as an ensemble performer in 1988.

The California native and UC-Berkeley graduate went on to have roles in Shogun: The Musical and A Christmas Carol, and she played the role of Gad's Wife in the 1993-94 production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  She's also had small roles in movies such as the Andy Kaufman biopic Man On the Moon (as a Radio City Rockette!) and The First $20 Million Is Always The Hardest.

I apologize, by the way, for the size of this picture; it's the only one of Ms. Chang that I could find.  Hopefully I'll find a better picture of her for a future retrospective. :-) 

Fashion model Gloria Burgess

American model Gloria Burgess is proof that European models don't have a monopoly on mystique.

With her statuesque physique, her perfectly sculpted face, her piercing eyes, and her dark complexion, she became a catwalk queen for her commanding presence at fashion shows. 

The Washington, D.C.-born and raised Ms. Burgess, who studied political science in Islamabad, became a model when, while working as a dancer in Tokyo, she was discovered by designer Issey Miyake. Soon she was modeling in the fashion shows of Paris.  So, she's seen a lot of national capitals. :-)

She became a black modeling icon, which was fine by her.  But when I look at her, I don't just see a beautiful black woman.  And I see more than just a beautiful woman.

I see Gloria Burgess. :-)

Alda Balestra, Then and Now

Two more pictures of the wonderful Alda Balestra . . .

The picture blow shows Ms. Balestra from her modeling career . . . backstage at a fashion show, with a sweet expression on her face.  (Backstage fashion show photos of models are the best kind of fashion photos, because they capture the models as themselves. :-) )

The more recent picture of Ms. Balestra below, taken by Maxime Ballesteros, is from the opening of an exhibition honoring fashion designer Alexander McQueen in Berlin . . . her face still displaying the same sweetness.

It should be clear by now that time hasn't reduced her stature or diminished her beauty one iota.  She's still one of the most important people in the fashion world.  :-)   

Alda Balestra for André Laug

Because I know you couldn't get enough of Alda Balestra . . .here's another post for her! With not one, but two more photos!  

Both of these photos capture her essence perfectly. :-)

They both happen to be from ads for the André Laug fashion house, both taken from the February 1981 issue of the U.S. edition of Vogue.

Italian fashion model Alda Balestra

In 1970, when she was a mere sixteen years of age, Alda Balestra won the Miss Italy beauty pageant. It wouldn't be long before folks in the modeling trade would recognize her incredible looks. :-)

She could strike any pose ranging from sophisticated . . .

. . . to sensuous.

The black-white photo at the top is from a 1981 Rodier Paris clothing ad, while the photo immediately above is from a Chrsitian Dior ad from about the same time.  While Christian Dior has used models in similar poses with the same exotic look, none of them could pull it all off like Alda Balestra could. :-)

 

These two photos from separate L'Oreal ads from 1983, demonstrate her unique combination of elegance and beauty.  It's a very European look, with a touch of playfulness thrown in.  Who else could make lavender eye shadow and lipstick look so alluring? :-)

Alda Balestra married Franz Graf Stauffenberg, a German Catholic aristocrat whose family's peerage dates back to the seventeenth century.  Incidentally, the most famous member of the Stauffenberg family was Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, who in 1944 was one of the leaders of the failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler and overthrow the Third Reich.

Today, Alda Balestra von Stauffenberg (as she's now widely known), who turns sixty in August 2014, lives in Berlin.  She is a public relations consultant and is the mother of two, a son and daughter who were both born in the United States. Still looking as lovely as ever, Alda Balestra spoke about her career in 2013 for ExModels.de, a Web site exploring feminine beauty and age. Ms. Balestra certainly proves that the two don't have to contradict each other. :-)

  

   

Actress and model Suzy Amis

Suzy Amis started out as a model with the Ford agency and made the transition to acting in the mid-1980s. In 2000, she made the transition to being film director James Cameron's wife, and she retired from acting. 

But in the twentieth century, when she was acting, she made numerous movies, including Rocket Gibraltar, The Ballad of Little Jo (where she starred as an unwed mother who poses as a man on the American frontier), and the terrorist action movie Blown Away.  And yes, she did appear in one of James Cameron's movies - she played Lizzy Calvert in her future husband's 1997 epic Titanic.   

James Cameron is actually her second husband. Suzy Amis was previously married to Sam Robards, son of Lauren Bacall (an earlier honoree on this blog) and Jason Robards. They had a son together, and she and Cameron have sired three children.