Leap Day Post: Four Beautiful Women!

It's Leap Day, and I've fallen a little behind in adding new subjects to this blog. I've featured about a hundred different women a year since this blog started, but if I want to keep up that average, and if I went to have featured a thousand different women by the time of this blog's tenth anniversary in September 2016, I have to pick up the pace. So, on this February 29, a day that occurs once every four years, I'm leaping ahead and featuring a picture of . . . four women! :-)

This is one of those classic Revlon "Unforgettable" ads from the late eighties and early nineties that showed well-known models in groups of three or four - mostly groups of four - with their names and their country or U.S. state of origin. None of the high-profile models in this photo have ever been featured on my blog before.

In case you can't read the credits . . ..  Pictured above are, from left, Claudia Schiffer of Germany, Rachel Hunter of New Zealand, Paula Abbott of the United States (specifically, Alabama), and Rachel Williams, also of the United States (specifically, New York).

The Beauty of Anonymity: Revlon "Fabu-Laxer" Model

The picture of the model below is taken in a mid-1980s ad for "Fabu-Laxer," a hair care product for black women made by Revlon.  It's designed to relax hair texture.  This woman certainly has great hair, but she also has a beautiful face and lovely eyes, and that's why I'm featuring her on this blog.     

Unfortunately, I cannot identify this woman by name. This is the third time I've featured an anonymous model. As of this writing, I still haven't been able to identify the first two.

But, if anybody can identify this model (or even the first two; type in "The Beauty of Anonymity" in the search field to view those posts), please write me at vwgolfman2000@comcast.net. Thank you for any information you can provide.

MSNBC newswoman Alex Witt

Alex Witt has been on MSNBC almost as long as MSNBC itself has been on the air.

The Los Angeles-born broadcast journalist was a TV news reporter and producer in her hometown, working at the Los Angeles stations of three of the four major networks (Fox is the exception). She joined MSNBC in January 1999, less then three years after the channel first went on the air.

Though she's been a presence on MSNBC almost as long as Chris Matthews, Alex Witt is not a pundit. Her weekend news show, "Weekends With Alex Witt," airing from 12 noon to 2 P.M. every Saturday and Sunday, mostly reports the news, and Ms. Witt leaves what commentary there is to her guests.

She turned fifty in April 2011, and like CBS's Lesley Stahl, she isn't going to let age get in her way of continuing her career. :-)

Journalist Cynthia Tucker

Cynthia Tucker is one of the big (and shining) stars of American journalism and punditry.

Best known for both her reporting and her column at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ms. Tucker is highly respected and sought out for her opinions, which she gives on television (mostly on MSNBC and the PBS Newshour) on a semi-regular basis.

She now teaches at the University of Georgia.

Stage actress Lara Seibert

Lara Seibert is another up-and-coming talent in the theater.

She has performed in various regional productions, including one of A Funny Thing Happened To Me On the Way to the Forum, as well as the touring company of the musical version of the Mel Brooks movie Young Frankenstein.

She was also part of the supporting cast of Australian actor Hugh Jackman's Broadway show in the fall of 2011.

Actress Krysten Ritter

Krysten Ritter is an actress who has appeared in numerous television shows and movies since launching her career in 2001.

Her TV credits include "Veronica Mars" and "The Gilmore Girls," and her movies include 27 Dresses, What Happens In Vegas, and Confessions Of a Shopaholic.

In the summer of 2011, she appeared in actor/writer Zach Braff's play All Good People, with Anna Camp, David Wilson Barnes, and Justin Bartha, at New York's Second Stage Theatre.

Whitney Houston: 1963-2012

It is with great sadness that I report tonight the death of Whitney Houston, whom I've featured on this blog.  She is the second person I have featured on this blog while still alive who has since died.  (Groundbreaking model Naomi Sims, who died in 2009, was the first.)

I know that Whitney Houston, who was born and raised in Essex County, New Jersey, was dealing with drug abuse, but I had every reason to believe she was finally on the mend.  She was both acting in and producing a remake of the 1976 movie Sparkle.  And when I last featured her on Christmas Day of last year, I wrote this:

"Whitney Houston continues to try to get her performing career back on track after years of derailings caused by her personal destructive behavior. Never mind that - let's hope for happier times for her in the future."

Sadly, happier times are not to be.  A tremendous vocal talent has been lost forever. R.I.P.

In keeping with the established practice of my blog, I will keep the pictures of Whitney Houston that I already posted here.  I will not, however, post any more pictures of her going forward.

I'll be back on Monday with a new pictorial post.   

Musical actress Meredith Patterson

Meredith Patterson is a ubiquitous presence in musical theater.

She's appeared in various Broadway and regional and touring productions.  They include the stage version of White Christmas, as well as Lady On a Carousel and The Green Bird, among other shows. She also played Ruby Keeler in a stage version of the 1927 movie The Jazz Singer.

Her television work includes guest appearances on "Law And Order: SVU" and "Personal Interest."

Canadian actress Meghan Ory

Meghan Ory is an actress who has appeared in some movies - 2006's John Tucker Must Die, about three teenage girls being played by the same guy in high school, is probably her best known film - but has garnered even more television credits in a career that began at the turn of millennium.

She's appeared in every TV show from "Pysch" to "Smallville" and was a regular in the short-lived show "South Beach." More recently, she has appeared as Red Riding Hood in the ABC fairy-tale drama "Once Upon a Time."

She's originally from Victoria, British Columbia.

Model Kim Neblett

Kim Neblett is another model from the late seventies and the early eighties.

She did several beauty editorials, and she also worked in France and Germany.

Actress Elizabeth McGovern

Elizabeth McGovern was perhaps the cutest and most adorable actress to emerge in the 1980s. :-) At the beginning of the decade, her performances in 1980's Ordinary People and and 1981's Ragtime (in which she played Evelyn Nesbit, the onetime lover of architect Stanford White, and got a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for), made her America's sweetheart, as well as a star to watch.

Alas, not too many people bothered to watch her in 1982's Lovesick (co-starring Dudley Moore), the 1984 pictures Once Upon a Time In America and Racing With the Moon (the latter co-starring Sean Penn), and the 1987 Hitchcockian thriller The Bedroom Window (co-starring . . . Steve Gutenberg??) By the early nineties, Ms. McGovern was an answer to a trivia question.

The Illinois-born actress married British film director and producer Simon Curtis in 1993 and moved to the U.K., where she focuses on acting in television productions.  (They have two children.)  Ironically, the move eventually made her America's sweetheart once again. She stars as Cora, Countess of Grantham in the ITV series "Downton Abbey," a period drama about aristocrats in early Windsor England (the late 1910s and early 1920s) that has become a huge hit on American public television. (She's also worked in American commercial television.)

Elizabeth McGovern is also a singer-songwriter. In 2008, she joined the band Sadie and the Hotheads, who play a regular gig at The Castle pub venue in London's Notting Hill section.

Fun fact: She was briefly engaged to Sean Penn, whom she met while working on Racing With the Moon. He went on to marry an entertainer who fancied herself as an a actress and a singer/songwriter but completely failed (artistically, anyway) at both professions.

P.S. I once had a crush on a girl in college because she looked a little like Elizabeth McGovern.

Model/actress Martha Longley

Martha, my dear. :-)

Martha Longley was a fairly ubiquitous presence in fashion editorials and beauty ads in the late seventies and the eighties (the picture above is from a 1987 Cover Girl ad). She didn't quite become a household name on the level of Carol Alt or Christie Brinkley, though. It may have been because her "all-American" look became less of an asset as time went on and as modeling clients sought women with more "exotic" looks.

Ironically, she got her start with the Karins agency in Paris.

Martha Longley also tried her hand at acting. She appeared in the 1985 TV movie "California Girls" about a New Jersey auto mechanic (played by Robby Benson) who goes to the Golden State and woos a bikini model there (played by our heroine) while trying to get away from his overbearing mother. But it couldn't have been as entertaining as the real-life story of Bruce Springsteen marrying Julianne Phillips that same year, to the chagrin of his overbearing fans back home in New Jersey.