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.

Choreographer Denise Faye

You probably never heard of Denise Faye, but you've likely seen her work.

She is a dancer and occasional actress who has choreographed dance sequences in movies and for pop concerts.  Among the movies she worked on as a choreographer are My Week with Marilyn, Chicago, We're the Millers, and Burlesque.

Ms. Faye has also choreographed Cher's 2014 concert tour as well as the 2013 Academy Awards. 

Model Martina Einstmann

Martina Einstmann is a model who was active in the 1970s and 1980s.

In New York, she was represented by the Elite modeling agency.

Ms. Einstmann did a lot of print work in both advertising and in editorials.  Among the publications she's appeared in are the Italian magazine Linea, Bride's, and numerous international editions of Vogue.

Actress AprilAnn Dais

AprilAnn Dais is another up-and-coming young actress with  big career ahead of her.

She's appeared in numerous small indie movies such as Adventure Harbor and Death of a Telemarketer, among other films. 

In her spare time, Ms. Dais also writes screenplays and does audiobook narrations.

Future Lifetime Achievement Oscar winner?  Could be . . . 

Model Debra Chevalier

Debra Chevalier is a model who was active in the 1980s.

She mostly did commercial work, mainly in catalogs.

 

Biographical data on her is scant.

Stage actress Suanne Braun

Suanne Braun is an actress originally from South Africa.

Ms. Braun has lived in London since 2002, where she has worked primarily in theater.  On the West End, she played Tanya in the ABBA musical Mamma Mia and has appeared in productions  of Noël Coward's Private Lives, Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, and the world premiere of I Have Life, a play based on the book about Alison Botha's rape and abduction in South Africa.

Ms. Braun is also a singer, and she even collaborated with the South African band Goldfish, singing lead vocals on their single "All Night." 

Actress Jade Anderson

Jade Anderson - not to be confused with the singer-songwriter of the same name who's also Yes frontman Jon Anderson's daughter - is an actress based in Brooklyn who has done a lot of theater in companies that are way, way, way off-Broadway.  

She appeared in original plays such as The New Bohemians, Weep for the Virgins, and the one-act work True Love.

Ms. Anderson has also done Shakespeare, playing Ophelia in a production of Hamlet and Lady Anne in  production of Richard III.  

She's also done some small films to further her career and her craft.  Jade Anderson definitely has a  future as an actress. With that smile, how could she not? 😊

Shaun Casey (1954-2024)

This is one of the most difficult obituaries I've had to report here. 

Shaun Casey, the fourth of many spokesmodels for the Estée Lauder cosmetics company and a staple of many a fashion magazine cover, died on June 27 at 70 years of age.  

I was one of her many friends on Facebook, and even though we had a nice rapport,  I never got to meet her, as we lived on opposite ends of the U.S.  She had had cancer for a very long time and she put up a brave but discreet fight against it, but she still succumbed to it. 😢 

My previous posts of Shaun Casey will remain but there will be no more posts of her going forward, per my rule of no deceased women on my blog. 

The Beauty of Retrospect: Anna Bayle, Yves Saint Laurent, 1983

I close out July with  look back at Anna Bayle, from 1983, in this divine Yves Saint Laurent number. 😗

Yves Saint Laurent was always a cutting-edge fashion designer (so I've been told), so who better to wear one of his dresses than Anna Bayle, whose East Asian background and her sultry fashion-show presence made her a cutting-edge model?  😊

I last featured Anna Bayle in March 2022.

Actress Jessalyn Wanlim

Jessalyn Wanlim is an actress from Canada who his best known for roles in her home country. 

She played the recurring role of Evie Cho in the 2016 Canadian sci-fi-drama "Orphan Black," about genetic human clones.

From 2017 to 2023, Ms. Wanlim played Jenny Matthews on the CBC sitcom "Workin' Moms," as a main role in for all but one of the series' seven seasons, but was demoted to a recurring role for the second season. She returned as a starring character afterwards.

Fun fact:  Americans best know Ms. Wanlim as a nanny on the ABC soap opera "All My Children," appearing in nearly fifty episodes of the series from 2006 to 2009.

Actress Aimee Teegarden

Aimee Teegarden is an actress best known for her television roles.

Her best known role was s Julie Taylor, the daughter of a football coach, in "Friday Night Lights," an NBC high-school football drama that ran for five years beginning in 2006.

More recently, Ms. Teegarden has appeared in Hallmark Channel films, having starred in the Hallmark movies Heart of the Matter, Autumn in the City, and Christmas Class Reunion - all in 2022.

TV newswoman Jasmine Styles

Jasmine Styles is an anchorwoman and general-assignment reporter at WCPO-TV, the ABC affiliate in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

 

 

A graduate of Florida State University, Ms. Styles had worked at the news departments of different TV stations in the South - KBTV-TV in Beaumont, Texas, WFTS-TV in Tampa (another ABC affiliate), and WLTX-TV in Columbia, South Carolina.  She has been based in Cincinnati since January 2022.

Asked what she likes best about living in the Cincinnati area, Ms. Styles says, "The people! Everyone here is so nice and is more than happy to help you."

Actress/model Hayley Seat

 Hayley Seat is another young actress who appear to be on the rise.

She has already appeared in small films such as Wildflower, The Secret of Her Smile, and Small Town Saturday Night.

Ms. Seat has also done modeling for print ads, and she's done several commercials as well.  

TV newswoman Allie Raffa

 Allie Raffa is one of the latest addition to NBC News.

The southern Florida native, a 2014 graduate of Florida International University, was a general assignment reporter for KNSD-TV, NBC's San Diego affiliate, and became NBC News' White House correspondent in 2022 after a stint as the network's Capitol Hill correspondent. 

Actress Megyn Price

Megyn Price is a television actress known for two major sitcom roles.

On the early 2000s sitcom "Grounded For Life," she played Claudia Finnerty, a Roman Catholic mom from Staten Island who has four children and works as a restaurant hostess.

And in the CBS sitcom "Rules of Engagement," Ms. Price played Audrey Bingham and assertive wife who had her own career as a magazine editor.  That series ran for six years beginning in 2007.

Model/actress Kelley Poling

 Kelly Poling is an actress who started out as a model. 

Originally from Cleveland ,Ohio.  Ms. Poling was a top athletic model, doing ads for brands such as Hawaiian Tropic, Nike, Yamaha, and Harley Davidson. .

 

Today she works primarily as an actress, albeit in small, independent films.  You may not know her name, but you are certain to see her in a movie sooner or later.

Faun fact: Ms. Poling is  also a firearm marksman and is trained in martial arts techniques as well as a classical fencer.  So if you ever need a bodyguard - a black-belt judo expert with a machine gun - she's the one to call. Just don't make an indecent proposal at her. 😃 

Model/actress Lara Naszinsky

 Lara Naszinsky is a model and actress with an interesting backstory.

Partially of Polish origin, she was born in France, grew up in Germany, became a popular actress in Italy and Germany, and created a production company in Spain.

She's pretty much the whole European Union! 😃

One of her best known movies is the 1987 horror film Aenigma, in which she plays the spirit of a comatose teenage girl who possesses another girl's body to get back at the girls who caused her condition.

These days, Ms. Naszinsky is credited as Lara Lamberti, the surname coming from her Italian relatives.

Model Maura McGaghey

 Maura McGaghey is one of those models whose name isn't well known.  But her face is. 

 

In addition to appearing on several magazine covers and in many fashion editorials, she was also the face of Clinique cosmetics for any years. She was mostly active in the 1980s and 1990s.

Actress Jane McNeill

Jane McNeill is a latecomer to acting.

The North Carolina native, long interested in in theater since childhood, taught drama in the Chicago area before returning to her home state and working in a company's personnel office.   She auditioned for a small role in the TV series "The Walking Dead," when she was 45 years old, and got the part.  Soon, she was filming a movie - Hornet's Nest, a cable TV movie based on the Patricia Cornwell novel of that title.  

Ms. McNeill has made a career of playing supporting roles in movies and television.

Stage actress Nancy Lemenager

As a New York City native, Nancy Lemenager was literally born to be on Broadway.

She has appeared in numerous revival productions of famous musicals, including Guy and Dolls, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and Kiss Me Kate, and she's also in original productions of the Johnny Mercer musical Dream and the Billy Joel musical Movin' Out. 

Ms. Lemenager's off-Broadway credits include A Connecticut Yankee and Other Desert Cities. 

Actress Dani Kind

 Dani Kind is an actress better known in her native Canada than in the United States.

She is best known for the Canadian TV series "Workin' Moms," which ran from 2017 to 2023.  The show was about four working mothers in their early thirties living in Toronto.  Ms. Kind played working mom Anne Carlson.

Actress Melanie Jarnson

Melanie Jarnson is an Australian actress who has been both in Hollywood movies and Australian  television.

Of mixed Thai and Australian heritage, she was born in Thailand and moved to Sydney when she was seventeen, where she began her acting career.

Ms. Jarnson has starred in dramas Down Under such as "Harrow" and "Between Two Worlds," and her Hollywood movies include Mortal Kombat and Backlight.

Model Helen Hogberg

Helen Hogberg is a model from Sweden who was active in the seventies and eighties.

She was based in London and Paris and was represented by the Laraine Ashton in the former city and by Paris Planning in the latter.

Ms. Hogberg appeared in fashion editorials for Vogue, Elle and Harper's Bazaar, and she's also done a few print ads.

And it's easy to see why she was in such big demand. 😊 

Journalist Lauren Egan

Lauren Egan is an up-and-coming member of the Washington press corps. 

She is the White House reporter for the Washington-based online magazine Politico.  She also edits that publication's West Wing Playbook.

A former White House reporter for  NBC News, Ms. Egan also covered the war in Ukraine and the 2020 presidential campaign.

Actress Alanna Dachille

Alanna Dachille is an actress who is originally from Staten Island.

She received her training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and has played numerous roles in productions of familiar plays.  Her credits include Peaseblossom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Cecily in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, and Amy in Little Women.

At this writing, Ms. Dachille pays the bills by appearing in commercials, but don't be surprised is she becomes a big star some day.