Category: Beauty

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.

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.

I think I first saw Dolores Del Rio in the Astaire/Rogers pic Flying Down To Rio, but even though she only had a small part, I was captivated — and I have no idea why it’s taken me so long to feature her on these pages.

Pretty as a young starlet, she blossomed into an astonishing beauty, and remained so until her death in 1983.  Follow the link above to get her full story — it’s quite a ride.