Actress Kiyo Takami

Kiyo Takami is an actress from Japan.

Though she has had supporting roles in a few English-language movies, she's better known for appearing in television series in her homeland, such as "Second Avenue" and "Hodo-Buzz."

Actress Zizi Strallen

Zizi Strallen is another successful British stage actress with a number of West End credits. 

She made her first big impression in London theater in 2018 as Fran in the musical Strictly Ballroom, in which she impressed a critic with her performance: "The best news, by far, is Strallen, who exudes a lightness and brightness even when a mere face in the dance studio crowd early on. Her acting and dancing is impeccable."

Ms. Strallen went on in 2019 to play the title role in the West End production of Mary Poppins, which solidified her place as a West End star.  In March 2025, she assumes the role of Glinda in the West End production of Wicked.  

Fun fact: Zizi Strallen has three sisters - all of whom are also actresses - and her sister Scarlett, like Zizi, also played Mary Poppins in the stage-version musical of the same title.  And yes, you can expect me to feature all three of them in the future. 😊 

Model Barbara Stiles

Barbara Stiles is a top model from the 1970s.

 

She was known for her elegant glamour and her striking profile. 😊

Biographical information on her is scant.

Model and journalist Kinga Rajzak

Kinga the world?  (Bad pun, I know . . .)

Kinga Rajzak is a Hungarian model who is represented by numerous agencies across Europe as well as IMG Models in New York.

Ms. Rajzak defies the old cliché that models are stupid.  Having studied sociology and politics at Goldsmiths University of London and earned a Master of Arts degree in contemporary social thought at the London School of Economics and Political Science, she holds a master's degree from Columbia University's Journalism School and currently works a financial journalist at Dow Jones covering markets.

Actress Gabrielle Parker

Gabrielle Parker is a young stage actress from England who's just getting her career started.

A graduate of the London Studio Centre, she has appeared in plays such as Bad Girls and My Positive Hour.

Ms. Parker has also been a dancer in the Disney/Hulu production of the novel History of a Pleasure Seeker. 

Actress Elise Neal

Elise Neal is well-known to fans of sitcoms of the late nineties.

She played the wife of D.L. Hughley, who played himself, in "The Hughleys," a domestic sitcom that ran from 1998 to 2002.  She then went on to play a kindergarten teacher in another sitcom, "All of Us," about a blended family.  

Ms. Neal also received accolades for her role as a teacher in Rosewood, a John Singleton movie about a prosperous all-black town in Florida that was terrorized by whites.

Among other TV series Ms. Neal has appeared in are "Law & Order" and "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper."   

Actress Ginna Claire Mason

Ginna Claire Mason is a fixture on the Hallmark Channel.

The Tennessee-born Ms. Mason's Hallmark Channel movies include two Christmas movies, A Heidelberg Holiday from 2023 and A Carol For Two for 2024.

She also played Glinda for a long period in the Broadway production of Wicked.

Model Arlene Kinney

Arlene Kinney is a commercial model from the seventies.

She did print ads for various products, including this ad for Sure deodorant. 

Model Kimi Kane

Kimi Kane is a model who was active in the late 1980s.

She appeared in fashion and beauty editorials.  The photo above is from the cover of a 1989 issue of Essence.

Biograhpical data on her is scant. 

Actress Renee Jones

Renée Jones is a retired actress known for daytime dramas.

 

Specifically, she's known for her time on the NBC daytime serial "Days of Our Lives."  She played the role of Nikki Wade on that show in the early 1980s, and she returned to the series in 1993, playing Lexie Carver, the wife of a local mayor who, unbeknownst to her, is the biological daughter of a crime boss and a psychic.

Renée Jones played Lexie Carver for nearly twenty years, but in 2012 she announced that she would retire from the show and get away from acting. 

Model Imaan Hammam

Imaan Hammam is a Dutch model who has appeared in several magazine and shows.

  

She's not ethnically Dutch - she's half-Moroccan and haff-Egyptian - but she's still probably the biggest model from the Netherlands since Frederique van der Wal or Karen Mulder.

Ms. Hammam has appeared on the cover of Vogue in seven different countries - more than once in some of them - and she's the first model of Arab descent to be the spokesmodel for Chanel's beauty products.

Among the fasghion brands she's walked the runways for are Burberry, Alexander McQueen, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, Prada, Michael Kors, Moschino, Chanel, Ricci, Stella McCartney, Oscar de la Renta, Dolce & Gabbana, Ralph Lauren, Carolina Herrera, Valentino, Band many, many more.

Actress Kelli Giddish

Kelli Giddish is a television actress best known for law enforcement roles.

She is best known for playing police detective Amanda Rollins in "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," a woman from Georgia who moved north to work for the New York Police Department.

She also played Annie Frost, a deputy U.S. Marshal, in the one-season crime drama "Chase."

Ms. Giddish, a Georgia native like her "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" character, has also played one-shot roles in several other series. 

Model/actress Angie Everhart

Angie Everhart is unique in the world of modeling - an auburn-haired woman in a profession dominated by blondes and brunettes.

She appeared on the covers of Elle and Glamour, and she made numerous appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.  She then turned to acting, mostly taking roles in action movies but also appearing in experimental art films like Denial. 

Reporter Suri Crowe

Suri Crowe is a heroine in television news.

She was a reporter for WSET-TV in Lynchburg, Virginia, a prominent buckle hole in the Bible Belt, and she made it her business to report on the truth.

Unfortunately, Ms. Crowe worked for a station that, while it was an ABC affiliate, was still owned by the right-wing media conglomerate Sinclair Broadcasting. And after a report in which she laid out the facts about climate change and how it was affecting the Lynchburg area, the station owners scolded her for not including the other side of the story - the side that argued that climate change is a hoax.

Then they fired her.

Ms. Crowe has since become a freelance reporter, and she now does reports for the MeidasTouch Network, a fact-based, liberal-friendly YouTube channel that calls out Donald Trump and his right-wing allies.  Ms. Crowe is ready to be counted as a fighter for freedom of the press.

So how could I not feature her here? 😀 

  

Model and educator Debbie Colette

Debbie Colette is a model from the seventies who was a popular presence in Mademoiselle magazine. 

  

She appeared on a few covers of the magazine, and she even did photos for a few print ads, like the one below.

By 1976, though, she was already moving on.  She continued to model part time but had become bilingual schoolteacher in the New York City public school system, teaching gifted Hispanic kindergartners and first graders.  😊

 

So you still think models are dumb? 😛 

Model/artist Jodye Beard

Jodye Beard is a woman of many experiences.

She made a name for herself as a model in London and Paris, and she walked the runways in the latter European capital for the famed designers Yves Saint Laurent.

. 

Now living in Houston, Ms. Beard - who got married and is now known as Jodye Beard-Brown is an artist who works with materials that include paint to create mosaics.  She says she learned about texture and color from her days as a fashion model. 😊

You can find out more about her here.

French actress Axelle Abbadie

This is the first actress I am featuring in the year 2025.  In fact, it's the first actress I'm featuring in the nineteenth year of this blog! 😃 

Axelle Abbadie is a French actress born in pre-independence Algeria who is as well known for the theater as for the movies.  She has appeared in French plays such as Adele's Gift, My Father Was Right, and the comedy Don't Listen, Ladies!, as well playing Blanche a French-language production of Sweet Charity very early in her career.

As a film actress, Mlle. Abbadie has worked with famed French directors such as Diane Kurys (Birthday) and Claude Berri (A Housekeeper).

She is a graduate of France's National Conservatory of High Dramatic Art.

Not Necessarily the News

Before I begin new subjects for the new year, I have to focus my attention to a group of women I will mostly not be featuring from now on - women in the news media.

I'm not going to stop featuring women in the news media completely - in fact, I have one coming up in a few days, and for good reason - but I will be featuring a whole lot less of them than I used to.  The reason is quite simple - too many media figures of both sexes have normalized Donald Trump and have laughed off his extreme rhetoric as being bluster that provides harmless entertainment value.

Last week, Trump entertained us with threats to annex Canada and Mexico and acquire Greenland and the Panama Canal.   And CNN commentators, who apparently found it amusing, said that this would be the largest land acquisition by the United States since the Louisiana Purchase.

Some of you are probably thinking I'm going too far.  "Steve," you say, "why would you cut back so severely on featuring female news personalities because of Trump?"  I would posit that the more appropriate question to ask is, "Why wouldn't I?"  I can count all of the media personalities - again, men as well as women - who have stood up to Trump on one hand with fingers to spare.  Mika Brzezinski - whom I featured here way  back in 2008 - is the tip of the iceberg.  Because of all the women who have chosen, along with their male counterparts, to accept Trump as a normal evolution of American politics, I could not in good conscience celebrate them as journalists here.  Because, ultimately, their outer beauty doesn't matter here.  There has to be inner beauty to celebrate . . . and remember, there are actresses and singers who are considered beautiful that I will never feature here because I don't like them.

I might even decide not to post pictures of women who report for local newscasts.  Many female TV reporters work for stations owned by the right-wing Sinclair media conglomerate, which has its tentacles spread out across much of the nation.  When you see a reporter on a Sinclair-owned station telling you what happened, there is bias in favor of a right-wing, pro-business, pro-Trump perspective in that report.  Because that reporter has to worry about offending the boss, just like anyone else.       

So, I'll be featuring more actresses, models, and various entertainers.  To those of you who complain that I'm getting more insubstantial here, think about it for a moment . . . complaining that a blog celebrating people's looks is insubstantial is like complaining that water is wet.

You know who else is wet?  Mika Brzezinski, who apparently does not know her value as a woman,  and her husband Joe Scarborough.

And even though my original post of Kristen Welker is my most viewed post ever, I'm not happy that Kristen Welker, as the host of "Meet the Press," folded like a cheap suit when she began her current job with her face-palm-inducing interview with Trump.

Also, at this time, I regret to report the passing of model/actress Dayle Haddon, of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, at the age of 76.  My July 2009 post for her will remain online, but I will not post pictures of her going forward. 😭

Back soon with new subjects.

The Beauty of Dance, Part Ten: Seohoo Yun, Paris Opera Ballet

I earlier showed in this series a former member of the Paris Opera Ballet.  I close the series with a current member. 

Seohoo Yun is a Korean ballet dancer who joined the Paris Opera Ballet in 2015 as what the company calls supernumerary dancer.  She was promoted to the rank of "Coryphée" dancer in early 2024.

Her repertoire includes various roles in dances such as Giselle, Don Quixote, Raymonda, and Frôlons, among many others.

And so ends another series of beautiful women in dance - the next one is in December 2026.

The Beauty of Dance, Part Ten: Anne Souder, Martha Graham Dance Company, New York, NY

This is Anne Souder of the Martha Graham Dance Company.  See what I mean when I say that finding beautiful women in dance is like shooting fish in a barrel? 😍

She joined the MGDC in 2015 and has performed lead roles in dances such as Appalachian Spring, Cave of the Heart, Diversion of Angels,  Chronicle, and many others. Her repertoire also includes various commissioned works by Jamar Roberts, Annie Rigney, Hofesh Shechter, and Andrea Miller, among others

Ms. Souder began her training in Tennessee and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Fordham University through the Ailey/Fordham BFA program. A member of the American Guild of Musical Artists union, Ms. Souder at this writing currently serves as a union representative.

The Beauty of Dance, Part Ten: Jessica Robling, Pilobolus Dance Company

Jessica Robling is a relatively new figure in modern dance.

Originally from China and raised in Brooklyn, she began her training at the New York Chinese Cultural Center, where she learned traditional Chinese dance.  Ms. Robling received training in modern dance at Dancewave, performing works by choreographer such as Andrea Miller, Camille Brown, Kyle Abraham, and Larry Keigwin.

A 2019 graduate of the University of Wisconsin with a B.F.A. in dance, Ms. Robling joined Pilobolus in August 2024, so she's just getting her career started. 😊

The Beauty of Dance, Part Ten: Jada Pearman, Paul Taylor Dance Company, New York, NY

Of course, not all highbrow dance is ballet.  There's also modern dance. 

Meet Jada Pearman.

Ms. Pearman, originally from Bermuda, began dancing at the Motion School of Dance in the Bermudian capital of Hamilton, coming to the States to attend The Grier School in Pennsylvania, as a pre-professional dancer under the direction of Jocelyn Hrzic. 

After numerous training sessions with various dance institutions, Ms. Pearman earned her B.F.A. from the University of Arizona in the spring of 2019 where she performed works by Martha Graham, Larry Keigwin and others. She joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company that summer and has been a member of the company ever since.

The Beauty of Dance, Part Ten Marianela Nuñez, Royal Ballet, London, UK

The Royal Ballet of London looks for dancers in the farthest corners of the earth.  In Marianela Nuñez, they found one in just such a corner. 😊  

Marianela Nuñez came from distant Argentina to join the Royal Ballet's Upper School in 1997 at the age of fifteen, eventually becoming a principal dancer in five short years.  Among her roles with the Royal Ballet are Swanhilda in Coppélia, the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Lise in La fille mal gardée, Mitzi Caspar in Mayerling, Natalia Petrovna in A Month in the Country, and many, many more.

Fun fact: Ms. Nuñez has lived in Britain for so long, she's since become a British citizen. 

The Beauty of Dance, Part Ten: Nayara Lopes, Philadelphia Ballet, Philadelphia, PA

Nayara Lopes comes to Philadelphia by way of Brazil.

 

An alumna of the School of Theatre Dance Guaira in her home country of Brazil, she came to America and trained at the American Ballet Theatre's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School in New York.   She joined the Philadelphia Ballet for our 2016-17 season as a member of the corps de ballet, was promoted to soloist for the 2018-19 season, and was then promoted to first soloist for the 2019-20 season. It was in December 2021, at the near end of the pandemic - following a matinee performance of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker - that Ms. Lopes was promoted to principal dancer.

Among the roles she has performed since becoming a principal dancer in the Philadelphia Ballet are the Sugarplum Fairy in The Nutcracker and the title role in Ben Stevenson’s Cinderella.

The Beauty of Dance, Part Ten: Alexandra Huffman, Portland Ballet, Portland, ME

If you were expecting a new post in my latest series of beautiful dancers on this Friday the 13th, you're lucky! 😀

Alexandra Huffman is a company dancer with the Portland Ballet in Maine.  Her dance education includes training at the Carmel Academy of Performing Arts and the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington D.C. 

As a dancer with the Portland Ballet, Ms. Huffman has a long career ahead of her.

The Beauty of Dance, Part Ten: Olga Esina, Vienna State Ballet

Olga Esina is originally from Russia, but she's best known as a dancer in Austria.

Born and raised in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). she studied at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet in her hometown and was a member of the Mariinsky Theatre Ballet.  In 2006 - at the age of twenty - Ms. Esina she joined the Vienna State Ballet ballet of the Vienna State Opera and Volksoper as a soloist and was promoted to first soloist four years later.

Her repertoire in Vienna includes roles, such as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Princess Aurora in Peter Wright's version of The Sleeping Beauty," the  title role in ballets such as in Kenneth MacMillan's Manon, and Anna Karenina," Bella in Roland Petit's Die Fledermaus, and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, among many, many others.

Ms. Esina has also performed in France, Argentina,  Germany,  Spain, and the United States as well.  You might see her this coming January 1, when PBS airs the annual Vienna Philharmonic New Year's concert, along with performances from - you guessed it - the Vienna State Ballet.

The Beauty of Dance, Part Ten: Aurélie Dupont, Paris Opera Ballet

Aurélie Dupont is a legend in French ballet.

She joined the Paris Opera Ballet at the age of sixteen in 1989 and and became a première danseuse i the company seven years later.  In 1998, after she danced the role of Kitri in the Paris Opera Ballet's revival of Nureyev's production of Don Quixote, she was promoted to star dancer.

Mme. Dupont would go on to dance leading roles in La Bayadère, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, and The Four Temperaments, among others, as well as the Paris Opera Ballet's revival of Nureyev's version of The Sleeping Beauty. 

Mme. Dupont formally retired from the Paris Opera stage following a performance of Kenneth MacMillan's Manon in May 2015, but in 2016 she became the director of dance for the Paris Opera Ballet, a position she would hold for six years.

The Beauty of Dance, Part Ten: Rania Charalambidou, Montgomery Ballet, Montgomery, AL

From Montgomery, by way of Nicosia.

 

Originally from Nicosia, Cyprus, Rania Charalambidou has found a sweet home in Alabama with the Montgomery Ballet.  Ms. Charalambidou is a graduate of Marymount Manhattan College in New York City with a bachelor of arts degree in dance education.

Having danced with numerous companies across the United States, Rania Charalambidou now dances with the Montgomery Ballet as a principal.  Among the roles she's danced, both as a principal and a soloist, are Princess Vasilissa in Firebird, the Summer Fairy in Cinderella, and the title role in Scheherazade.

Ms. Charalambidou is also co-founder of 35°33° Dance Company back home in Cyprus.  The company takes its name from the island's latitude and longitude, respectively.

The Beauty of Dance, Part Ten: Eva Burton, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Portland, OR

A member of the Oregon Ballet Theater company since 20210, Eva Burton became a principal dancer for OBT in 2020.

The Los Angeles-born Ms. Burton has a repertoire that includes ballets choreographed by George Balanchine, Helen Pickett, August Bournonville, and Jiří Kylián, among others.  Ms. Burton has performed the title role in Cinderella and made her OBT principal debut as Princess Aurora in Christopher Stowell’s production of The Sleeping Beauty. 

The Beauty of Dance, Part Ten: Coco Alvarez-Mena, Joffrey Ballet, Chicago. IL

Many people in Chicago eventually move to Miami. Coco Alvarez-Mena did the opposite.

Coco Alvarez-Mena is a first-generation Cuban-American who studied dance in her hometown and later at the University of Southern California's Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, being part of the inaugural graduating class.in 2019.

Ms. Alvarez-Mena joined the corps de ballet of the Oregon Ballet Theatre after USC, spending three seasons with the company. Her repertoire includes William Forsythe's In the Middle Somewhat Elevated and Trey McIntyre's In Dreams.

Ms. Alvarez-Mena has been with the Joffrey company since 2022.

New Series: The Beauty of Dance, Part Ten!

Once again, as I do at the end of every even-numbered year, I look at beautiful women in dance - ballet, modern, whatever.  And, as always, when it comes to looking for beautiful dancers, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. 😁

Dance itself is one of the loveliest forms of high art, as many people come to realize at this time of year when they go to see The Nutcracker.  And we need some high-art diversion at this time of year . . . especially this year, in light of last moth's election results. 😟 

Oh yeah, about that . . . even though I have tried to keep politics out of this blog since I stopped featuring female politicians here, I have to address a female news anchor I featured her way back in 2008 . . . I featured Mika Brzezinski, who had just joined MSNBC and become Joe Scarborough's morning-news cohost, and later his wife.  After she and Scarborough visited the President-elect - the man I prefer to call Dr. Sinister - at his castle in Florida, I should remove that post.  But, because it's from 2008, I won't.  I do want to stress, though, that I am pleased with what she did and I am not happy about the fact that I got her wrong.  Given the decline and possible fall of the mainstream media in this 203rd decade of Christendom, I am seriously beginning to question whether I should include women in the news media on this blog going forward.

But enough of that for now.   I'll back tomorrow with my first post of this new dance series.  First, though, I have to acknowledge the passing of dancer and choreographer Judith Jamison, who died last month at 81 and whom I featured in an earlier Beauty of Dance series.  RIP.     

The Beauty of Retrospect, November Model Edition: Trifecta!

Behold, three of the most beautiful women of the modeling profession in the 1980s.

 

Together here, in this moody (and lovely) picture are, from left, Wanakee Pugh, Eva Voorhees and Beverly Lee.

I found this picture in social media just as I was finalizing my choices for this retrospective month.

I last featured Wanakee Pugh in August 2023;  Eva Voorhees in June 2020; and, Beverly Lee twice earlier this year. 

The Beauty of Retrospect, November Model Edition: Roshumba Williams

While Roshumba Williams has never tried to put her reputation as a model behind her, she has gone on to a lucrative media career as an on-camera host for numerous cable TV shows about style and design and as a red-carpet interviewer.  And she still models from time to time. 

In fact, this picture of her posing in a strapless outfit - which I knew I had to save once I saw it - is from a recent photo session.  😍

I last featured Roshumba Williams in February 2023.

The Beauty of Retrospect, November Model Edition: Margrit Ramme

Margrit Ramme was never a household name; she began her modeling career before 1980, and the sixties and seventies were a time when very few models were known by name.  That hasn't stopped me from finding numerous examples of her portfolio. 

And so once again here are two pictures of Margrit Ramme, whom I last featured here twice before this year.  The color photo below is from a 1969 Helena Rubenstein makeup ad.

The black-white photo above is a headshot from, it appears, the early seventies.  I think it was Peter beard who took this picture.

I'm sure I'll be featuring Margrit Ramme again in 2025. 😊 

The Beauty of Retrospect, November Model Edition: Rosemary McGrotha

Rosemary McGrotha was one of my major model crushes back in the eighties, and she remains one of my favorite cover girls.  Here she is again in a headshot from December 1986. 

I think this picture is from an issue of New Woman magazine.

I last featured Rosemary McGrotha here in April 2023.

The Beauty of Retrospect, November Model Edition: Beverly Johnson

Extraordinary, ethereal, eternal (pardon the alliteration) beauty.  Beverly Johnson is just that.

And she knows how to display her beauty, as these various photos show. Never the same hairstyle twice, no diminishing of her loveliness.

 And did you notice what these three pictures have in common?

In each one, she's sporting outfits that emphasize her broad, beautiful shoulders! 💕

This blogger got to see Beverly Johnson in person in February 2024, when she did her one-woman show about her life and career.  Sadly, I didn't get to meet her afterwards.

I last featured Beverly Johnson in August 2023.

The Beauty of Retrospect, November Model Edition: Maria Hanson

Maria Hanson is best known for her Maidenform undergarment ads, of course, but she's just as attractive when she's fully clothed. 😊 

 

And, unlike the picture of Dawn Gallagher that I just featured, I know that this picture is from a JC Penney catalog - from a 1981 catalog, to be more precise.

I last featured Maria Hanson on this blog in August 2023. 

The Beauty of Retrospect, November Model Edition: Dawn Gallagher

I've gotten to know Dawn Gallagher as a result of 1980s models discovering me and my blog.  Her career goes all the way back to the early part of that decade, and this picture is one of the earliest examples from her portfolio.

As I recall, this is from a JC Penney catalog.

I last featured Dawn Gallagher on this blog in January 2017.

The Beauty of Retrospect, November Model Edition: Juli Foster

One of these days I'm going to find a picture of Juli Foster smiling.

I'm sorry . . . 

. . . this isn't the day. 😄

The black-and-white picture of Juli Foster is from March 1980, while the color photo is undated.

I last featured Juli Foster in July 2023.