Model Regina Mumme

Mumme's the word! :-) 

Regina Mumme is yet another model from the 1980s, which, of course, was the golden age of modeling.

Originally from Germany, she was represented by the City agency in Paris in the early eighties.  She came to America in the latter half of the decade, where she modeled through the Name agency; she's lived in the U.S. ever since.

Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Elaine! Elaine!  :-D

But of course - Julia Louis-Dreyfus is best known as Jerry Seinfeld's ex-girlfriend and still-platonic friend Elaine Benes,  on the classic nineties  NBC sitcom "Seinfeld."  Elaine was a savvy presence contrasting with Jerry's sour cynicism, Kramer's hipster-doofus persona, and George Costanza's self-absorption.  She first came to people's attention when she was a "Saturday Night Live" cast member for three years (1982 to 1985). 

She's been on top since "Seinfeld" went out on top in 1998, having starred in the hit sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine" (about a first wife competing with a second wife of the same name) and the HBO series "Veep," as a female U.S. Vice President who doesn't get any more respect than her male predecessors.  She has also appeared in the hit movie Enough Said with the late James Gandolfini.

Fun fact: Julia Louis-Dreyfus met her husband Brad Hall when they were both in "Saturday Night Live"'s repertory company.

TV newswoman Brianna Keilar

Brianna Keilar is a senior White House correspondent for CNN.

She's worked in various positions at CNN, having also been an intern and production assistant at KTVU-TV in Oakland, California and a general assignment reporter at CBS affiliate KIMA-TV in Yakima, Washington. She was also a reporter for CBS in various positions before joining CNN.

Fun fact: Born in Australia, about as far as you can get from everywhere else in the world, she was raised in Orange County, California, which may be as far southwest as you can be and still be in the continental United States. 

Televsion actress Tamala Jones

If you're a fan of ABC's show "Castle," you know who Tamala Jones is.

She plays medical examiner Lanie Parish, an upbeat young woman who helps mystery writer Richard Castle and New York police detectives solve cases of copycat murders based on those in Castle's novels.  Lanie has an on-again / off-again relationship with Detective Javier Esposito.

She has also had several roles in TV shows and movies.

Journalist Nia-Malika Henderson

Nia-Malika Henderson is a familiar face to TV news viewers.

The Washington Post political reporter appears regularly on various MSNBC shows as a commentator, as well as on PBS's "Washington Week."  She has reported for the political news site Politico, and she also covered politics for Newsday, as well as having written for the Baltimore Sun.   

Fashion model Simonetta Gianfelici

Simonetta Gianfelici is an Italian fashion model whose career has straddled the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first.

More specifically, she did a lot of fashion shows in the nineties and two thousand zeroes.  She's obviously been very popular with designers.

She's been managed by the Elite offices in both Milan and Paris.

Actress Katie Finneran

Katie Finneran has been getting a lot of attention for playing Leigh Henry, the sister of Michael J. Fox's character on his eponymous TV show, But theater audiences had been following her long before "The Michael J. Fox Show" debuted in September 2013.

She's appeared in revivals of The Iceman Cometh and the musical Promises, Promises (for which she won the 2010 Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Musical), and she was part of the original cast of the Nora and Delia Ephron play Love, Loss, and What I Wore.  She is also widely known for playing Sally Bowles in the 1998 Broadway revival of Cabaret.

The New York Times theater critic Peter Marks once described her as an actress who "has played barflies and rich girls, giggly ingénues and world-weary lowlifes."

Discontinued Link Announcement

It figures.  

Earlier this year, I finally got links to the photography sites of fashion model turned photographer Louise Vyent up on this blog after having only included links to them on posts devoted to her.  I have since had to take them down for one simple reason - the sites are no longer available.  When I clicked the link to her main site recently, all I got was the host site for the Web pages of photographers like herself.  Same thing for her auxiliary site, TeenPortrait.com; that's gone too.  Apparently, Ms. Vyent's photographic ventures are undergoing a rethink on her part, though I'd rather not speculate any further on why her sites are gone.

Loyal followers of this blog will remember that I met Ms. Vyent at a farmers' market in Montclair, New Jersey in 2011, where she was recruiting subjects for a planned monograph book of multiracial people.  To the best of my knowledge, it's never materialized.  Because I love her work as a photographer as much as I loved her work as a model, I hope her photography career regains momentum soon, and hopefully her site(s) will be back up.  And if I find any more photos from her career in front of the camera, I will indeed posted them.

Right, another blog entry is coming soon . . ..      

Nina Davulari, Miss America 2014

This post is a protest against bigotry. Actually, all of my posts honoring women of races other than my own are protests against bigotry, but this post is especially called for.

Here she is, Miss America 2014 - Nina Davulari of New York.  When she was crowned Miss America in September 2013, Miss Davulari was the victim of a barrage of racist and xenophobic reactions, with many people upset that a foreign-born Arabic Muslim could receive such an honor, especially so soon after the 9/11 anniversary.

In fact, Miss Davulari is a native-born American of Indian descent and a Hindu.  Though, to be honest, the latter two facts would also cause bigoted Americans to discredit her and to disqualify her from winning the Miss America pageant.

I don't normally care about or for beauty contests, but I'm happy to make an exception here and express my solidarity with and admiration for Miss Davulari.  The beautiful medical student took all those nasty comments calmly and coolly, like the civilized human being she so obviously is.  She's a winner in my book.

And that's why I'm featuring her here. :-)     

Model Geri Carranza

Geri Carranza is a model who was active in the late seventies and the eighties.

Her clients included Jacques Cohen (an ad for which the photo above was used) and Danskin (an ad for which the photo below was used).

She was represented by the Paris Planning Women agency (located in Paris) and by the Wilhelmina agency's Los Angeles office, Wilhelmina West. 

Actress Jacqueline Bisset

Jacqueline Bisset is one of the lovelier icons of Swinging London.

The British actress emerged in 1966 as a promising newcomer and has fulfilled her promise . . . repeatedly.  In movies such as Bullitt, The Thief Who Came To Dinner, Murder On the Orient Express, and the Truffaut classic Day For Night, she's never failed to amaze moviegoers.

And she keeps on going today.  Jacqueline Bisset recently appeared in the BBC miniseries "Dancing On the Edge," about a black jazz band in thirties London, and, as of this writing, she is slated to appear in the film Vivaldi. 

CNN reporter Zain Asher

Zain Asher is a reporter who has literally been around.

Born in London, she's worked in Mexico and France as a broadcast reporter, as well as in the New York area on local cable news, and she's written for Forbes.com and The Guardian.   In February 2013, she joined CNN as a financial reporter.

She's fluent in four languages: English, French, Spanish and the Nigerian dialect of Ibo. Ms. Asher is of Nigerian descent.