The Beauty of Retrospect, Weather Edition: Alexandra Steele

Alexandra Steele briefly re-appeared on The Weather Channel in the early winter of 2014-15, after having been fired from that channel in 2011 and appearing for a time on CNN.

It looked like she was back to stay.  However, she disappeared again. I haven't seen her on The Weather Channel since, and her biography does not currently appear on the channel's Web site.

I don't know where she is now, but I have a feeling she'll pop up again.

The Beauty of Retrospect, Weather Edition: Michele Powers

Michele Powers is still doing the weather for New Jersey TV viewers on the News 12 New Jersey cable channel, just as she was when I first featured her here in December 2013.

So why am I featuring her again now?  Three words - new promo headshot!

Beautiful, huh?

Well, that's my blog, folks! :-) 

The Beauty of Retrospect, Weather Edition: Stef Davis

My March 2014 post of AccuWeather's Stef Davis has proven to be more popular than I could have imagined,  leaping into my list of the top ten posts of all time on this blog and having gotten 4,897 views as of this writing.

Since she's so popular, I thought I'd treat you to another picture of her. :-)   

This picture is courtesy of one of my Internet buddies on a message board we both post photos on. :-)

Let's see how many views this post gets! :-D 

The Beauty of Retrospect, Weather Edition: Vivian Brown

Numerous female on-camera meteorologists at The Weather Channel - some of whom have been featured on this blog - have come and gone, but Vivian Brown remains.

Ms. Brown, who is the second woman to have ever been featured on this blog, has been at The Weather Channel since 1986 - longer than my cable service has carried The Weather Channel - and she has a multitude of adoring fans, including myself. Why would I be a member of an online Vivian Brown fan club otherwise? :-D

I hope she doesn't follow the lead of weatherwomen past like Betty Davis, Jeanetta Jones or Kristina Abernathy, who have all left The Weather Channel over the years. Because I can't think of anyone else I'd rather have get me through a snowstorm.  Because The Weather Channel without Vivian Brown is Paris without the Eiffel Tower. :-) 

The Latest Numbers and Statistics

I have now posted pictures of 902 different women on this blog.

Meanwhile, the list of the top ten posts remains mostly the same as before . . . with one big exception.  The March 2014 post of AccuWeather personality Stef Davis has jumped up two positions, from number six to number four, with 4,873 views.  It has a long way to go before it overtakes my most popular post of all, my July 2011 post of TV newswoman Kristen Welker (38,906 posts as of today).  Feel free to click on the chart below to enlarge it.    

Stef Davis is so popular here that I'll be be posting another picture of her - along with more pictures of two other on-camera weather forecasters I've featured here - in the coming week.  June will be devoted to looks back at different fashion and beauty models I've already featured.

A caveat about these numbers:  These figures go back to May 2010.  Sometimes Blogger.com's numbers have gone back even farther, so I can't say that these chart positions are dead-accurate like a Billboard record chart.  But I think they come close enough to accuracy for my purposes.       

New Link: Louise Vyent's New Web Site

Dutch fashion model Louise Vyent, who now lives in New Jersey, has been a favorite model of mine for a long time.  I was a huge fan of hers in the late eighties and the early nineties, and I have followed her post-modeling career as well.  She has previously worked as a photographer, but now she has an entirely new  business . . . as a developer of professional skills.  Her new business is simply called "Louise Vyent: Effective  Presentations." 

Ms. Vyent, a recent graduate of Montclair State University, helps clients such as people in the media and related fields develop their abilities to present their ideas, use media effectively and properly, and develop social media strategies and a personal brand.   Her site explains her services in grater detail, and she also includes a blog with videos from well-known people who demonstrates an ability to communicate effectively.   Is this sounds like something you'd like to investigate for yourself, you should definitely check it out.  

The link to Ms. Vyent's site, like all links to modeling and photography sites on this blog, is just below the members list and the blog archive field in the upper right hand corner of the screen - the link to her site is three spaces up from the bottom of the list.  I wish her luck with her new endeavor.  :-)

Model Julie Wolfe

Julie Wolfe is another famous model from the 1980s, her profession's golden age.

Starting at L'Agence in Paris, Ms. Wolfe was represented by Elite throughout the decade, working through Elite's New York, Paris and Los Angeles offices.

Now a mother of two, Julie Wolfe lives out on the east end of Long Island and works as a real estate broker.   

And if you thought this was '80s model Esmé Marshall when you first clicked on this blog, you're not the first person to make that mistake.  I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Wolfe at a party in New York, and when I spoke to her, the first thing I said was, "You look like . . ."

She finished my sentence.  She knew I was going to say "Esmé Marshall," because she's gotten that a lot over the years. 

And yes, we connected on social media later, in the interest of full disclosure.  I find her to be a very engaging woman.   

Model/actress Talisa Soto

Talisa Soto is another model who successfully made the move to acting.

Born in Brooklyn to parents from Puerto Rico, she modeled through the Click agency.  She began her acting career with a role in Spike of Bensonhurst, about an aspiring boxer from Brooklyn, and she followed that up by becoming a Bond girl in the 1989 James Bond movie License To Kill (the second - and last - James Bond movie to feature Timothy Dalton as Bond). 

Ms. Soto went on to bigger roles in movies such as 1992's The Mambo Kings (as Maria Rivera, the love interest of mambo singer Nestor Castillo, played by Antonio Banderas)  the 1994 romantic comedy Don Juan DeMarco, and the 1995 martial arts-fantasy film Mortal Kombat (as Princess Kitana).

Talisa Soto has been married to actor Benjamin Bratt since 2002.   

Stage actress Kristen Smith Davis

Kristen Smith Davis is another stage actress who's active in regional and national-tour theater. :-)

She's performed in Sacramento, Portland, Maine, and more than a few places in between. Her credits include Alice in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, Chava in Fiddler On the Roof, and Chloe in An American Paris.  Plus too many others to list. :-D

For more about Kristen Smith Davis, go here.   :-)

Actress/comedienne Maya Rudolph

Maya Rudolph rose to prominence as a cast member of NBC's long-running comedy sketch show "Saturday Night Live" from 2000 to 2007.

The daughter of songwriter Richard Rudolph and soul singer Minnie Riperton (whose high voice undoubtedly inspired Mariah Carey), Ms. Rudolph played numerous characters on "Saturday Night Live," such as "Bronx Beat" host Jodie Deitz and attorney Glenda Goodwin, in addition to celebrity impersonations too numerous to list here (though Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Gayle King, and Michelle Obama are among them).

In addition to playing roles in the TV series "City of Angels" and "Up All Night," she has appeared in movies such as Away We Go (about a struggling mom-to-be) and Bridesmaids.

Model/actress Patty Owen

Patty Owen has had an incredible career as a model and as an actress.

As the headshot above demonstrates, she started out as a conventional fashion model.  But she soon staked out an identity as being one or the edgier cover girls in the modeling trade.

Her work was regularly included in magazines, such as Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, and Marie Claire, and she appeared on several covers as well. As an actress, she played the tough-cookie type in shows such as "Miami Vice."

Alas, her lifestyle became as edgy and as her portfolio, as she fell into the hardened, fast-paced life associated with living in New York in the 1980s.  Ms. Owen went through many experiences that left her empty and unfulfilled until she found inner peace. 

Because in spite of her tough exterior . . .

. . .she's really a sweetheart. (Full disclosure: I know Ms. Owen.)

Now known as Shanti Owen or Shanti Patty Owen, she works as a relationship coach. She's overcome her past, having realized that she was addicted to relationships in a way not talked about in  mainstream society.  Since I try to be discreet on this blog, I'll simply post this link to her Web site. that explains her addiction in greater detail.  There you will learn about, among other things, the memoir she's working on. :-)

TV weatherwoman Vanessa Murdock

Vanessa Murdock, one of the meteorologists at WCBS-TV in New York, grew up in Long Island but made it to New York City television by way of Virginia.

After earning a master's degree in meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, she became an on-camera weather forecaster at various stations in the Old Dominion, eventually settling in at CBS affiliate WTKR-TV in Norfolk.  She eventually made it back to New York and joined WCBS-TV, the CBS network's home station on the East Coast, where she handles the weekend news broadcasts.

She joined the station in the middle of October 2011.  Less than three weeks after she started at WCBS-TV, the "October Surprise" autumn snowstorm hit New York and caused numerous blackouts and other problems throughout the metropolitan area.  Talk about baptism by fire. 

Vanessa Murdock has remained unflappable through Hurricane Sandy, numerous nor'easters, and record cold during her tenure at WCBS-TV.  

Jamaican model Jaunel McKenzie

When she was growing up in Kingston,  Jamaica, Jaunel McKenzie found herself in modeling school at her mother's urging - not to be a model, but to learn how to be more ladylike. She was enrolled in the school's grooming class to learn how to be less of the tomboy that she was.

She ended up becoming a model when an agent discovered her, and by all accounts, she's been a success at it.

Well, what do you think? :-D

Jaunel McKenzie has numerous credits in her portfolio,  She's done eleven spreads for the U.S. edition of Vogue, and with one spread each for the German, French, and Italian editions of that magazine. She's also done ads for Victoria's Secret, Tommy Hilfiger, Nordstrom, and Banana Republic, and she's strutted on many a catwalk in fashion shows for numerous clients - too many to list here. :-) 

She's also started FACE, a model development company, whose mission is to educate women entering the modeling trade on how to manage their finances and to provide them with all kinds of support - as well as the knowledge of how modeling works as a business.