Classic Beauty: Lana Turner

After her very first movie role (in a bit part) at the age of 15, Lana Turner’s appearance in a sweater caused a critic to write that she “made a sweater look like something Cleopatra was saving for the next visiting Caesar”, and the nickname of “Sweater Girl” stuck.  And in the following decades, it was hard to find a movie that didn’t include her in the cast.  Here’s the look that started it all:

And the rest:

I think the reason for her popularity is understandable.

Classic Beauty: Rhonda Fleming

When your first serious movie role is that of a nymphomaniac at age 22, and you have to look the word up in the dictionary… that’s Rhonda Fleming for you.

And y’all know how much I love redheads.

It’s a good thing she came along when color became the thing in movies, or else we’d have lost that lovely red hair, and had to make do with pics like this:

Just… exquisite.

Classic Beauty: Danielle Derrieux

Here’s an actress we Murkins are mostly unaware of.  But in her native France she was, and remains, a national treasure:  Danielle Derrieux lived to over 100, and acted in well over a hundred movies.  She survived both WWII and one-time hsband Porfirio Rubirosa’s  (reputedly) elephantine manhood.  A hero(ine) of France indeed.  And as for her looks:

Oh yes, she had sensational legs.

And she looked just fine in color, too:

Call her France’s answer to Grace Kelly or Deborah Kerr, if you want;  I certainly wouldn’t argue the point.

Classic Beauty: Tallulah Bankhead

This post previously appeared last week, by mistake.  Sorry.  Put dead bats on my head.  Cover me with honey and roll me on the ant heap. — Kim


When asked why she was leaving the New York theater business for Hollywood, the languorous Tallulah Bankhead is reputed to have said:  “Fame, money and to fuck that divine Gary Cooper.”

Well. she achieved all three goals, and was scandalous in a time when scandal was assiduously avoided by the studio bosses.  And her life… oy, what a life.  (Read all about it here.)  And then there was her beauty.

Thise eyes… that heavy-lidded, sleepy look… yikes.  (And yes, she does resemble Bette Davis, and in more ways than one:  they played pretty much the same roles, Tallulah on stage, and Davis in the movie versions.)  And her posture?  Someone once said of her that she didn’t sit in a chair or on a couch;  she looked as if she’d been poured into it.

And let’s not even talk about what she did to a bed (both in pictures and in real life).

I find her fascinating, and I’m not the only one.

Exquisite.  And let’s not even talk about that voice.

Labor Day Break

It’s Labor Day so apart from the Funnies (below), I’m giving my brain a rest.  Enjoy all these beauties from the 1930s…

1938 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Spider

Kay Francis

1939 Aston Martin Lagonda V12 Rapide

Sylvia Sidney

1938 SS-100 Roadster

Maureen O’Sullivan

1938 Mercedes 540K Cabrio A

Frances Dee

1936 MG SA Tourer

Mary Brian

See  y’all tomorrow.