Tag: Classic Women

One of my favorite anecdotes about Ann Dvorak was a comment made by one of her male co-stars, who said:  “Whether on-camera or off-camera, she had a way of looking at you that was at once seductive and submissive.”  He went on to add that this made it almost impossible to concentrate when the camera started to roll.

I kinda see his point.

My favorite of her own quotes was explaining how to pronounce her last name:

“My fake name is properly pronounced ‘vor’shack’. The D remains silent.”

Here’s a bit of music from another Dvorak, this time Antonin Dvořák (his real name, but similarly pronounced).

She’s been around for so long, and had such a memorable early career, that it came as quite a shock to me that Winona Ryder is now in her early 50s.  It’s also no surprise that she is almost always better than any of the movies she’s appeared in, with the possible exception of Beetlejuice and The End Of The Innocence.  (Small surprise that she got an Oscar nomination for the latter, too.)

Nevertheless, you will find Winona in the dictionary under two headings:  Gamine Beauty and Haunting Beauty, because she qualifies under both — just at different times in her life.

She is, I think, one of the most beautiful women ever filmed.

Lessee… win a beauty competition at age 15, get your first starring movie role a year later  — playing the lover of Marcello Mastroianni. no less — and go on to become a legend in Italian comedy during the 1960s.

That’s Stefania Sandrelli for you.  And here she is, first in grainy black & white:

…and then in glorious Technicolor (or whatever they called it in Italy back then):

Have mercy.

Another one of those raving Italian beauties from the 1940s and -50s, Gianna Maria Canale first came to prominence as runner-up to Miss Italy in 1947, at age 20.  Then she went into the movies, making mainly Italian classics (a.k.a. “swords ‘n sandals” in studio jargon) and horror flicks.

Then, in 50s-vintage color:

..and when color film improved:

She retired from moviemaking at age 37, when this pic was taken.

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Now I mentioned above that Gianna Maria was the runner-up in the 1947 Miss Italy competition, leading of course to the question:  who was the winner, then?

Here’s Lucia Bosè:

Fair enough.  All I can say is that I’d hate to have been sitting on the Giuria  back then.  What a choice.