Classic Beauty: Scilla Gabel

“Who she?” you may well ask.  Consider this pic first, of someone we all know and love:

…and then know that Scilla Gabel was Sophia Loren’s stand-in and body double for many years on movie sets, when the production crew would be setting up the lighting, position marks and what-have-you before the cameras started to roll with the actual Sophia in the lens.

Later on, Scilla established her own movie career.

So all that having been said, here she is:

And I hate to say it, but Mary Poppins never looked this good:

And finally:

I do believe I can see the resemblance.  Certainly, she’s Sophia’s double in terms of height, coloring and skin tone.

Which makes her stunningly gorgeous and alluring.

Secret Crush

When I moved Over Here in the Great Wetback Episode of 1986, one of the things I immersed myself into (as part of my ahem acculturation program) was morning TV programs — pretty much enforced, as I was waiting for my work visa to be approved.  Anyway, not knowing which TV program to watch, I chose ABC’s Good Morning America, more or less at random.

Which is where I discovered the velvety voice and MILFY looks of Joan Lunden.

Of course, GMA (then and still) was the most appalling pablum and Lefty agitprop, but somehow none of that mattered because I was quite smitten with Miss Lunden (okay, Mrs., as I later learned, to much disappointment).  That voice and her occasional dirty chuckle got me going, let me tell you.

It became worse when I discovered that she had freckled boobs (!):

…which led to several naughty fantasies.  (Sadly, she later developed breast cancer, so I have no idea what happened to her girls.)

She’s a granny by now, of course, but then I too am an Olde Phartte, so none of it matters.  But for several months back there in the mid-80s…

Classic Beauty: Colleen Moore

Silent / talkies star Colleen Moore, I think, typifies both the look and the ethos of that most interesting era.

And when she moved away from the “flapper” look:  still more beautiful.

One last note about Colleen Moore:  unlike so many actors and actresses of her (or any) era, she actually learned how to keep and grow her income through careful investment.  She even wrote a book about it.  Gorgeous and intelligent, by golly.

It’s just a tragedy that most of her movies, like so many of the early stars, have been lost so we can’t appreciate them fully.

Acceptable Substitute

So one day you’re strolling among the highways, byways and no-ways of Teh Intarwebz, when you discover this little piece:

Cute, huh?

Only she’s not real;  she’s an AI creation with her own website, even, where morons errrr people converse with her like she’s a real person and not something created by someone else.  [cue outrage]

Frankly, I don’t see her as much different from a modern-day Playboy centerfold, given how “retouching” has become so pronounced nowadays.

Modern Playboy model:

Classic Playboy model:

Anyway, it’s all becoming academic as women become less and less real thanks to surgery and “body sculpting”.

I don’t want to live in this world anymore, because unfortunately I prefer reality, in all its ugliness and beauty.