In Praise Of The Unknown Actress – Tami Erin

I never saw the U.S. version of Pippi Longstocking in the late 1980s, so I missed Tami Erin in the role:

Of course, she was a teeny back then, but she did grow up, oh yes she did:

…and more mature:

Now, like so many of them, young Tami seems to have lost her acting career (because age, whatever) and gone over to The Dark Side OnlyFans — no I don’t have access — and this seems to be the kind of thing she does now:

It’s a long way from Pippi, but there it is.

When The Girls Come Out To Play

Earlier this week there was some silly awards thing (which nobody cares about) called the “Pride Of Britain”, which as far as I can see is just an excuse for showbiz houris  to show off their boobs.  You’ll recognize some but not others, but I simply couldn’t be bothered with names because, as I said above, nobody cares.  Here’s a sample:

 

 

 

 

 

You have to know things are bad when Carol Vorderman (#1) is the most restrained of the lot.

Classic Beauty: Mistresses (1)

We’re moving away from the movies today, and looking at a few women who were the mistresses of various kings and emperors. First up:

Emperor Alexander II of Russia and Catherine (Katya) Dolgorukova

Next, Britain’s Charles II and…

Barbara Villers Castlemaine Palmer

Hortonse Mancini

Moll Davis

Nell Gwynn

Louise de Kérouaille

Phew… it’s a wonder the old boy had any time left over to do any ruling.  Anyway, now it’s the turn of:

King Frederick William II of Prussia and Wilhelmine Rietz

Back to Britain for some King Georges.

George I and Sophia Kielmansegg

George II and Henrietta Howard

George IV and Mary Robinson

And lastly for today, from Austria-Hungary, Emperor Franz Joseph I and:

Katharina Schratt

Anna Nahowski

(who, by the way, was all of fifteen years old when FJ started bonking her;  then again, she was already married and thus by law no longer a minor)

More next week.

Retrospective

Sometime ago, a commenter asked:  “What happened to Nigella Lawson?  You used to be so sweet on her”  (or words of that nature).

Simple answer:  she lost a whole bunch of weight, and along with that, Nigella got all gaunt ‘n stuff.  (It’s all okay to lose weight;  but sometimes, something essential is lost along the way.)

I thought I’d illustrate the point with (what else?) a couple of pics.  Here’s Our Girl in years gone by:

And magnificently tousled:

Then she started to lose weight:

And had she stopped there, I think we can all agree that this would have been fine.  But she didn’t:

I mean the basics are still there, but…

And a couple more reminders of days gone by:

See what I mean?

I know;  she’s got older, too — but the gaunt, “skinnier” Nigella just doesn’t do it for me anymore.  And that’s a Sad Thing.

In Praise Of The Fish-Bellied

As a Registered White Person Of Severely Anglo-Saxon Heritage, I have a very pale skin.  When newly born, my hair was actually white-blonde, but later darkened to ash-blonde and then tawny-blonde in my twenties and thirties (and thence to gray, but we all know about that part).  My eyes:  blue.  My skin has remained stubbornly pale — suntanning, in my case, is actually a brief period of ow-ow-ow burn red, followed by (if I’m lucky) a couple days of sorta-tanned, and then it reverts to its habitual color of white.

That’s me;  but what it means is that as a paleface, I have no problem with light-complexioned women — in fact, in most cases I find pale white skin unbearably sexy.  The old (Victorian?) attitude of “pale skin means ladylike, dark skin means farm worker” must somehow have wormed itself into my psyche — I have no idea if this is even possible, but who cares? — because my belle idéal  has always been a pale, even fish-belly-white skin.

Hence of course my adoration of redheads.  Here’s Julianne Moore, for example:

 

(I know she’s an insufferable liberal twerp, but I don’t want to talk politics to her;  my discussions would preferably be more of a Ugandan nature.)

All this came to me when I read this little piece:

Angela Scanlon has revealed that while she’s embraced her glitzy Strictly [Come Dancing] makeover, there’s one show tradition that she won’t be adhering to. The presenter, 39, has revealed she’s drawn the line at having a spray tan during her time on the show after refusing to cover her naturally pale skin.

Angela, who is partnered with pro dancer Carlos Gu, previously admitted it’s taken her 15 years to accept her complexion, sharing the insight during an appearance on Michael McIntyre’s The Wheel, where her specialist subject was redheads.

Young Angela has featured on these pages before, so Loyal Readers will know of whom I speak.  Here’s a reminder, for the forgetful / ignorant ones among you:

…and here she is in the aforementioned show:

And for those interested in such things, here are her legs, without fake tan:

I think I may need another Breakfast Gin.  Or a cold shower.