The Beauty of Retrospect, November Model Edition: Claudia Cron

Claudia Cron is a model I've had the wonderful pleasure of meeting in person, at an art show at which she was one of the artists - she's a print artist these days. 😊

This picture of Claudia Cron is from 1978.  I last featured her here in July 2023.

The Beauty of Retrospect, November Model Edition: Alda Balestra

Alda Balestra began the seventies as a bubbly teenage beauty contest winner.  She ended that decade as one of the sexiest models in Italy.

As the 1979 photo above so clearly demonstrates.  😍

She also demonstrated in the late seventies with equal clarity that she could convey elegance with a little playfulness added in, as the 1978 photo for Christian Dior below shows.

I last featured Alda Balestra in December 2021.

The Beauty of Retrospect: November Model Edition!

Another special series.  Come December, I will feature beautiful dancers, as I do every other December, but for this month, I will look back on models I have featured before on this blog.

Back tomorrow with my first post.

The Beauty of Sport, Part Seven: the Walsh Sisters

A two-fer!

 

 

Alex and Gretchen Walsh are sisters from Nashville who are both competitive swimmers.  Alex, above, has competed in numerous races employing different swim strokes, having taken silver medals in medleys at the 2022 World Championships in Melbourne and won three golds at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru - in the 200-meter backstroke, the 200-meter medley, and the 4×200-meter freestyle relay.  Her sole Olympic medal is a 200-meter medley silver from Tokyo.

Her younger sister Gretchen (below) is just as tough a competitor in the pool. 

Gretchen Walsh holds the world record holder in the 100-meter butterfly, 4×100 medley relay, and mixed gender 4×100 medley relay. She won the silver medal in the 100-meter butterfly at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, and there she managed to set the Olympic record in the 100-meter butterfly in the semifinals with a time of 55.38.   And if that weren't enough, she won six gold medals at the 2019 World Junior Swimming Championships in Budapest - thw 4×100-meter mixed medley, the 100-meter freestyle, 4×100-meter mixed freestyle, the 4×100-meter freestyle, the "splash and dash" 50-meter freestyle, and the 4×100-meter medley.

That's it for this series of beautiful athletes.  Back soon.

The Beauty of Sport, Part Seven: Katie Moon

Katie Moon doesn't cross the line. She leaps over it.

The Ohio-born-and-raised Ms. Moon is a champion pole vaulter who has won Olympic gold in Tokyo and Olympic silver in Paris.  She also won back-to-back World Championships in Eugene, Oregon in 2022 and Budapest in 2023.

And she's obviously very happy about her success.

The Beauty of Sport, Part Seven: Kylee McKeown

Kylee McKeown is an Australian swimmer who has won five Olympic gold medals and a lot of medals in between.

She won back-to-back gold medals in both the 100m and 200m backstroke in the 2020 (no, 2021) Tokyo Olympics and the 21024 Paris Olympics, along with a fifth gold medal in the 4x100m medley in Tokyo.  

Among Ms. McKeown's other medals were golds in the 100m and 200m backstroke at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

The Beauty of Sport, Part Seven: Jasmine Jones

 Jasmine Jones is a track star whose specialty is the hurdles.

Ms. Jones, who turns 23 at the end of November, hasn't competed a great deal on the international level, but the University of Southern California hurdler got off to a good start at the 2024 Paris Olympics.  SHe came in fourth there in 400m hurdles with a time of 52.29 seconds - both a personal best and an American collegiate record.  She also won a gold medal in the 100m hurdles at the 2019 Pan American U20 Athletics Championships in San José, Costa Rica.

Fun fact: Jasmine Jones is the daughter of Henry Jones, a star football player for the Buffalo Bills.

The Beauty of Sport, Part Seven: Jessica Hull

Australian runner Jessica Hull is an up-ands-coming star in track and field.

 

Ms. Hull, who turns 28 this month, first earned notoriety in the 2023 World Cross Country Championships in her home country (in Bathurst, New South Wales)  by winning a bronze medal in the mixed-relay race.  She went on to win silver in the 1500m race at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The Beauty of Sport, Part Seven: Keely Hodgkinson

Keely Hodgkinson is a middle-distance track runner from Britain.

Her specialty is the 800-meter race, and she's won several gold medals in that event, both in the Olympics and in the European Championships. In addition to winning the 800-meter race at the European Championships in Munich in 2022 and in 2024 in Rome, Ms. Hodgkinson won that race at the 2024 Paris Olympics. 

The Beauty of Sport, Part Seven: Becky Downie

British gymnasts don't fare too much in Olympic competition against the Americans, the Romanians, the Chinese, and the Russians.  That means most gymnastic fans outside Britain know about Becky Downie. 

 

She has won the gold medal in the uneven-bars competition at the European Championships, first in Sofia in 2014 and then in Bern in 2016. She also won the gold medal in the uneven bars and the team gold medal at the Commonwealth Games. 

Although Ms. Downie has never been an Olympic champion, she has been given a medal considered more prestigious in the U.K. - a medal as a Member of the Order of the British Empire, the same award the Beatles got in 1965.  And even thought the British Empire today is currently down to Bermuda, a few islands in the Caribbean, and the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic,  it's still a big deal.

Fun fact:  Ms. Downie's sister Ellie is also a gymnast and has also been given an MBE medal.

The Beauty of Sport, Part Seven: Rushell Clayton

Rushell Clayton is a Jamaican track star who specializes in the hurdles.

Her best race is the 400-meter hurdles.  She won the bronze medal in that event in the World Championships twice - in 2019 in Doha and in 2023 in Budapest - as well as at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru.  Ms. Clayton has also competed in the Olympics.  

The Beauty of Sport, Part Seven: Jasmine Camacho-Quinn

As Puerto Rico belongs to the United States but is not part of it because it hasn't yet been admitted to the Union (our country is called the United States of America, not the United States and Territories of America), the island territory sends its own team to the Olympics. And one of its recent stars is track star Jasmine Camacho-Quinn.

 

Ms. Camacho-Quinn, who was born in South Carolina to a black father and a Puerto Rican mother, specializes in the hurdles and competed for the University of Kentucky.   She became the first Puerto Rican athlete of African heritage to win a gold medal in the Olympics, in the 100-meter hurdles at he Tokyo Olympics in 2020 (no, 2021).  She won the bronze in the same event at the 2024 Paris Olympics. 

The Beauty of Sport, Part Seven: Simone Biles

Why is Simone Biles considered the greatest female gymnast of all time?

Maybe it's because she won 23 gold medals in the World Gymnastics Championships, six of them all-around medals and five of them team medals, the other twelve on various apparati, and because she won seven Olympic gold medals, two of them all-around and two of them team, with three apparatus medals.

Yeah, that must be it.

And she won three of those gold medals in Paris at the age of 27.  It is now truly "women's" gymnastics.

Oh yes, she's also married.  Football player Jonathan Owens of the Chicago Bears is the lucky guy. 

The Beauty of Sport, Part Seven: Julien Alfred

Saint Lucia is an island country in the Windward Islands that is a realm of the British Commonwealth.  It's smaller than the land area of the five boroughs of New York City,  and its population is slightly larger than that of Fargo, North Dakota.  So, in such a small country, it's little wonder that sprinter Julien Alfred looms large. 

Julien Alfred became the first Saint Lucian athlete in history to win an Olympic gold medal, winning it at the 2024 Paris Olympics in the 100-meter dash event, It was the first Olympic medal for Saint Lucia. Ms. Alfred then won a silver medal in the 200-meter race. 

 

To say that Ms. Alfred is a national heroine in Saint Lucia is like saying that Christmas is just another day on the calendar. 😊

New Series: The Beauty of Sport, Part Seven!

I don't normally start a new year on this blog with a special series, but as there were so many wonderful female athletes at the Paris Olympics this year, it made sense to start another series of beautiful athletes right now.  The first post in the series appears tomorrow. 😊

The Beauty of Retrospect: Catherine Roberts

These two pictures of Catherine Roberts, whom I last featured here in Marchj 2024, are from the more recent photos in her portfolio.

Bear in mind that Catherine Roberts has been modeling since the early seventies, so the fact that she is still going strong as a model says a lot about her enduring, classic beauty.

That's it for retrospectives . . . for now.  A new round of new photos is coming soon to kick off this blog's nineteenth year.

The Beauty of Retrospect: Lisa Moberg and Margrit Ramme

Lisa Moberg (now MacKenzie) and Margrit Ramme are two of the hottest models ever to come from northern Europe (Lisa is from Sweden, Margrit is from Germany).  Imagine if they worked together.

Well, they did.

Yes, they they are in a very steamy lingerie ad - or maybe that steam is actually dry ice.😄 That's Lisa on the left, Margrit on the right.

Here they are in opposite poses, in which they've slipped into something more presentable. 

 

Gorgeous.  But then, you already knew that.

I last featured Lisa in February 2021, and I last featured Margrit in March 2024. 😊 

The Beauty of Retrospect: Beverly Lee

After featuring two pictures of Beverly Lee  in March 2024, I am featuring four pictures of her here today.  😀

Above is Beverly sporting a casual look.  Below, she turns on the full glamour in an elegant Adolfo number in a fashion show. 

 

And you thought she just modeled for catalogs and advertisements! 😀

Below, Beverly goes on location, apparently to a charming small town with historic buildings that house boutiques, and poses in this photo by Tony Palmieri.

Finally, I have this photo of her modeling a Givenchy outfit. I'm going to guess from the staircase railing that this was taken in Givenchy's hometown of Paris. 😁

Beverly Lee looks great in any pose, under any circumstances.

Beautiful Women: Eighteen Years

This time last year, I said I was unlikely to come up with a hundred new subjects for the eighteenth year of this blog, but guess what - I managed to come up with a hundred subjects after all.  Go figure.

I'm not going to make any promises for how many subjects I will or will not have going into my nineteenth year here, but I just might make it to that magic number of 100.  For now, though, here's a list of the women I've featured in the past year, and the same standards apply; I identify their vocations, and where I don't know their nationalities, I leave that blank.  A new round of A-Z subjects for the next year of this blog begins in October.  I plan to close out September with retrospective posts.

Jade Anderson, American actress   

Margareta Arvidsson, Swedish model  

Carol Asmann, fashion model  

Marianne Assouline, French actress  

Paula Atherton, American jazz saxophonist and vocalist  

Shirley Bassey, British singer  

Shari Belafonte, American actress  

Sophie Bell, American actress  

Cheryl Bentyne, American jazz singer  

Suanne Braun, South African stage actress

Deborah Brener, fashion model  

Andrianna Brown, American media personality  

Dasha Burns, American broadcast journalist  

Ana Cabrera, American broadcast journalist 

J.C. Cadena, American actress  

Erin Cahill, American actress  

Debra Chevalier, fashion model  

Melanie Collins, American sportscaster  

Alanna Dachille, American actress  

AprilAnn Dais, American actress  

Emily DiDonato, American fashion model  

Carol Duboc, American jazz and R&B singer  

Anny Duperey, French actress  

Lauren Egan, American journalist  

Martina Einstmann, fashion model  

Karlee Eldridge, American actress  

Denise Faye, American choreographer and dancer  

Rebecca Ferguson, Swedish-British actress  

Cathy Gallagher, fashion model  

Anna Getaneh, Ethiopian fashion model 

Lily Gladstone, American actress 

Debra Halley, fashion model  

Celia Hammond, British fashion model  

Inger Heindl, fashion model  

Nicole Henry, America jazz and soul singer 

Helen Hogberg, Swedish fashion model 

Autumn Hurlbert, American stage actress  

Melanie Jarnson, Australian actress  

Sharon Jordan, American actress  

Bianca Kajlich, American actress  

Minka Kelly, American actress  

Yunjin Kim, American/Korean actress  

Dani Kind, Canadian actress  

J.J. Kinnersley, American model and actress  

Petra Kvapilova, Czech model 

Nancy Lemenager, American stage actress  

Laura Lenee, model and actress  

Kathy Loghry, American fashion model  

Lauren London, American actress  

Otmara Marrero, American actress  

Jes Macallan, American actress  

Keiko Matsui, Japanese jazz pianist  

Maura McGaghey, fashion model 

Jane McNeill, American actress  

Sophie Milman, Canadian (Russian-born) jazz singer 

Dani Minnick, American actress, model and film director 

Jessie Mueller, American actress and singer  

Karen Mulder, Dutch model  

Lara Naszinsky, European model and actress  

Diane Neal, American actress  

Chris O'Connor, fashion model  

Karla Otis, runway fashion model  

Mary Padian, American television personality 

Brandi Passante, American television personality  

Jane Perry, British-Canadian actress  

Kelley Poling, American actress and model  

Megyn Price, American actress  

Anges Pure, Latvian (U.K.-based) stage actress  

Allie Raffa, American TV news reporter  

Jana Rajlich, American model  

Tracy Reed, American actress  

Desiree Ross, American actress  

Hayley Seat, American actress 

Raushanah Simmons, American actress  

Jaclyn Smith, American actress 

Susan Smith, beauty model 

Yvonne Sporre, fashion model  

Sheila Stainback, American news anchorwoman, actress, and voice-over artist  

Christiana Steidten, fashion model

Michelle Stevens, American fashion model  

Jasmine Styles, American broadcast journalist  

Micaela Sundholm, Swedish fashion model  

Sydney Sweeney,  American actress  

Aimee Teegarden, American actress  

Linda Thompson, British folk-rock singer  

Madison Thompson, American actress

Tamara Tunie, American actress  

unidentified Land's End model

unidentified Olay model  

unidentified Sears catalog model 

Cecilia Vega, American broadcast journalist 

Lauren Vélez, American actress  

Jessalyn Wanlim, Canadian actress  

Lindsey Webster, American jazz singer  

Valerie Weitz, American fashion and beauty model 

Karen Williams, Canadian fashion model

Traci Wolfe, American actress  

Janice Wu, Chinese actress  

ZaoZao Yu, Chinese (U.S.-based) actress  

Danielle Zinaich, American fashion model  

The Beauty of Anonymity: Land's End model

This lovely young woman appears in the Fall 2024 Land's End catalog.

She's sporting a trench jacket for the brand.

As she's a current catalog model, I don't know her name.  If anyone can identify her, please comment below.

Actress ZaoZao Yu

 ZaoZao Yu is another actress from China.

She came to America, where she's done some artistic-video work, mainly for the sort of videos that appear on YouTube.  Biographical data on her isscant, but she seems to be pretty determined to make in the U.S.  And she seems to be pretty . . . pretty. 😊

Actress Janice Wu

You've likely never heard of Janice Wu. Unless, of course, you've seen Chinese cinema.

 

Janice Wu, also known by her Chinese name, Wu Qian, is an actress known for her roles in Chinese movies such as the romance film Love O2O and the drama Lighting Up the Stars.

She's better known in China for her television roles in various series, among them "A Life Time Love" and "The Brightest Star In the Sky."

Model Karen Williams

  Karen Williams is a Canadian model from the 1980s.

First scouted by a modeling agent when she was 13, Ms. Williams signed with with the Ford agency in 1983 and appeared on the covers of magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Ebony, among others, and she did a bunch of fashion editorials.  After a quarter century away from modeling, she returned to the profession to promote the beauty of aging women.

The photo of Ms. Williams below is a recent picture. 

Fun fact: A graduate of Brown University, Ms. Williams pursued postgraduate studies at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).  

Actress Madison Thompson

Madison Thompson is a well-known presence from Netflix.

She played Erin Pierce, the daughter of a female attorney representing a drug cartel, in the crime-drama series Ozark, about a family where moves to the Ozark region from Chicago when their money-laundering work on behalf of the drug cartel goes bad. 

Currently, she plays a recurring role on the soap opera The "Young and the Restless."

Model Christiana Steidten

Christiana Steidten is a model from the 1970s.

She worked with many famous photographers of the time, such as Oliviero Toscani, Chris Von Wangenheim, and Giampaolo Barbieri. 

Ms. Steidten was apparently very popular in Italy, as she regularly appeared in as well as on the cover of the Italian edition of Vogue. 

Model Susan Smith

 Susan Smith is a beauty model from the early 1980s.

As you can gather, she modeled hairstyles as well as cosmetics.  She was known back in the eighties for having really thick hair, which of course is an asset in modeling hairstyles.

The sepia photo above is from a 1983 Bloomingdale's salon ad.   

Actress Raushanah Simmons

Raushanah Simmons is an actress who has appeared in numerous movies and TV shows. 

She has been on TV series such as "Person of Interest," "The Blacklist,"  and Sex and the City,"  as well as "Greenleaf" on the Oprah Winfrey Network.  Ms. Simmons has also been in movies such as The Challenger and A Brother's Honor.

Actress Tracy Reed

 Tracy Reed is a familiar face to anyone who remembers the seventies.

A one-time model, she made it as an actress in appearing in episodes of the anthology sitcom "Love, American Style" and got her movie break in Train Ride to Hollywood, a 1975 pop musical starring the Kansas City R&B/rock band Bloodstone.  The movie was meant to be the seventies-soul equivalent of the Beatles' movie A Hard Day's Night. 

Train Ride to Hollywood was a love letter to Old Hollywood and movies of the 1930s and 1940s, in which one of the members of Bloodstone dreamed of being on an LA-bound train with movie stars and characters of the early days of Hollywood, along with a sheik and seven wives.  As you can gather, given the dearth of black women in leading roles of the movies that came out when Franklin Roosevelt was President, Ms. Reed did not play a Hollywood star but one of the wives of the sheik . . . with the other six played by extras.

In fact, Ms. Reed was one of only three women with major supporting roles in Bloodstone's movie, the other two being Roberta Collins (as Jean Harlow) and Ms. Reed's fellow "Love, American Style" alumna Phyllis Davis (who played Scarlett O'Hara as played by Vivien Leigh).  Of three, Ms. Reed, who turns 75 this October, is the only survivor.

From there, Ms. Reed's career took off, as she played Mona in the 1976 comedy Car Wash and also had a role in the third of three comedies starring Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier, 1978's A Piece of the Action.  She also had a small role in the Billy Crystal/Gregory Hines buddy comedy Running Scared, from 1986.

She also played numerous television roles, especially Charlotte Anderson in the 1990-91 season of "Knots Landing."

Actress Jane Perry

Jane Perry is a British-born Canadian actress known for her work on both sides of the Atlantic. 

She has appeared in numerous films in Britain and America, such as the parenting comedy-drama Foster and the British comedy How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.  Her TV credits include roles on "Ransom" and "The X-Files."

Ms. Perry is currently based in London and now does a lot of voice-over work for video games. 😊

Actress/model/director Dani Minnick

Dani Minnick is possibly the cutest girl ever to become a spokesmodel for Virginia Slims cigarettes.

 

She started out as a model but soon gravitated to acting, playing small roles and walk-ons.  She became a spokesmodel for the pseudo-feminist, carcinogenic product known as Virginia Slims for about four years beginning in 1983.

Her acting career blossomed when she played Rebecca Morrison in the soap opera "Days of Our Lives," and she even appeared in obscure horror films like 1989's From the Dead of Night and 1990's The Sleeping Car.

   

More recently, Ms. Minnick has moved fro macting in films to directing them, having made the award-winning independent 2001 movie Falling Like This.  She's currently working on The Needs of Kim Stanley, about a famous actress of the 1950s.

Actress and model Laura Lenee

Laura Lenee is an actress and model, having modeled for Yves Saint Laurent. 

Her motion picture work includes many short films, such as A Fair Price and All the Same.  She also had  a bit role in the 2007 film adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III, which was set in contemporary Hollywood as a crime drama.   

Actress Yunjin Kim

Yunjin Kim is an American actress who became known as a movie star in her native South Korea and as TV star in her adopted homeland. 

In the Republic of Korea, Ms. Kim has starred in crime thrillers such s Seven Days and The Neighbors, while in the U.S, she's known as Karen Kim in "Mistresses," a mid-2010s drama series about four female friends and their involvement in numerous complex relationships.  

She my be best known, though, for her role as Sun-Hwa Kwon in the ABC castaway drama series "Lost."

As of this writing, her most recent movie is the 2024 Korean comedy-drama Dog Days.

Model Celia Hammond

Celia Hammond is a British model from the Swinging London period in the sixties.

 

She was favorite of photographer Norman Parkinson, and she also worked with another well-known photographer, Terence Donovan.  Interestingly, Ms. Hammond was contracted to fashion magazines rather than, say, a cosmetics brand or designer. She first modeled for Queen magazine and later worked at British Vogue, where she met Terence Donovan.  

Today, Ms. Hammond - an obvious cat lover - runs the Celia Hammond Animal Trust, which she founded in 1986.  The truest mission is to neuter animals to keep the feral population down.   In addition to running neutering clinics, the trust helps to rescue and find homes for cats.  

So you still think all models are vain?

Fun fact 1: Ms. Hammond had a long-term relationship with rock guitarist Jeff Beck, who died in 2023. 

Fun fact 2: The folk-rock singer Donovan wrote the song "Celia Of the Seals" for her. 

Model and entrepreneur Anna Getaneh

Anna Getaneh is a former international model from Ethiopia.

 

She mostly worked as a runway model, and her career took her between New York and Paris.

Ms. Getaneh has since returned home to Ethiopia and founded and now runs the African Mosaique Design Center, and Manufacturing Hub which creates clothes and accessories based on local designers nd locally sourced material.  She mentors and promotes fashion talent in Ethiopia as a way of contributing to her homeland.  Go here for more information.