Ava Gardner #1

[scriptgirl]

Heritage Auction Galleries

 

[nmyngan]

topfoto

 

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zuma

 

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ebay

 

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ap

 

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ebay

 

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todos

 

[Harumi]

^how lovely!

 

[scriptgirl]

So glad you like!

lenin

 

[nel16]

A few stills from One Touch of Venus (1948), about a Greek statue come to life. Cute concept, poorly executed. But Ava was so lovely! (Her luminosity, wide-eyed innocence and comic sparkle reminded me of Marilyn Monroe. )

Source: my screencaps

 

[scriptgirl]

Never heard anyone compare Ava and Marilyn

bbc

 

[nel16]

Generally they seem pretty different (though they were both voluptuous 50's bombshells who didn't get enough respect for their talent) but Ava in that movie reminded me of someone, and I realized it was Marilyn in one of her sparkling comedic performances. But I'm not trying to compare or lump them together, anyway I meant it as a compliment to Ava whose presence lifted an otherwise silly movie.

Cute pic btw

 

[scriptgirl]

webshots

 

[scriptgirl]

inquirer.net
MANILA, Philippines—In the early ’50s, a widely circulated Hollywood magazine gathered a select panel of photographers, cinematographers and makeup artists to choose Tinseltown’s “Most Beautiful Actresses.”
Using bone structure, coloring, photogenic qualities and versatility of looks as criteria, the grand winner turned out to be Ava Gardner. A surprise No. 2 was another dark-haired beauty, the petite Ann Blyth, who was known for sweet roles in musicals. Elizabeth Taylor placed third, and red-haired, green-eyed beauty, Arlene Dahl, was fourth, followed by Mona Freeman, Loretta Young and Ilona Massey.
Sara Taylor, Elizabeth’s ambitious mother, wanted a separate title for her lovely daughter, so she convinced gossip doyenne, Louella Parsons, to declare the raven-haired, violet-eyed young star “The World’s Most Beautiful Girl.” Since the then 17-year-old actress was indeed gorgeous, no one questioned Parsons’ obviously concocted title.
Extramarital affair
By then, Ava was already a full-fledged woman and was a veteran of two stormy marriages (to Mickey Rooney and Artie Shaw). In fact, La Ava was involved in a torrid extramarital affair with Frank Sinatra. So, for Nancy Sinatra’s sympathizers, “vixen” was a more appropriate appellation for Gardner!
Not long after Ava was cast in “The Barefoot Contessa,” studio publicists who wanted to reinforce the actress’ position as Hollywood’s Most Beautiful thought up another title for her: “The World’s Most Beautiful Animal”—a title that left no doubt that the gorgeous Ava reigned supreme even over, uh, elephants, peacocks and rhinoceroses!
More than a decade earlier, Hollywood declared Hedy Lamarr “The World’s Most Beautiful Woman.” Indeed, at her peak, Hedy was truly beautiful beyond words! Her controversial nude swimming scene in “Ecstasy” displayed her physical assets au naturelle.
In the mid-’50s, Dino de Laurentis decided to produce “Helen of Troy.” Naturally, “the face that launched a thousand ships” had to have unquestionable beauty and allure, so a young Italian starlet, Rossana Podesta, was chosen for the role. The naturally dark-haired beauty was made to don a blonde wig, but it diminished her screen appeal.
Shapely figure
Alas, despite a shapely figure, Podesta didn’t possess a seductive personality to complement her beautiful face. Years earlier, the “exiled” Ingrid Bergman, post-“Stromboli” scandal, was considered to portray the legendary beauty, but by the time the Homeric epic was filmed, the Swedish beauty had matured and was no longer appropriate for the role. Hollywood’s preference for classic beauties ended with Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn.
These days, stars who matter in Hollywood are noted for their great personality more than their physical beauty: Julia Roberts possesses a mouth that’s too big by the old days’ standards. Angelina Jolie’s lips are too bulbous, and Reese Withersoon’s facial features would have looked ordinary decades ago. Only Michelle Pfeiffer and Jodie Foster would have merited the attention of meticulous cinematographers accustomed to the likes of Gardner, Taylor, Dahl, Garson and Dunne!

 

[scriptgirl]

reiten television
ENTERTAINMENT HISTORY !

On November seventh, 1951, Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner were married. She filed for divorce in 1954.

 

[scriptgirl]

the guardian
Tennessee and I got on like a house on fire – and he nearly burnt the house down once with his cigarettes. We were friends and neighbours in London in the late 70s. I met him through Ava Gardner, who had a balcony flat in Kensington. I was doing a portrait of Ava, which I sadly never finished. Tennessee said that he and I were kindred spirits and wanted us to work together.
Painting was a passion for him. He did it as a second profession. It started around the 60s when his career as a playwright had a bit of a dip. The famous plays were behind him then. He was dedicated to painting and found it very therapeutic. Tennessee was always doing something. He was like a precocious child, really.
We painted together every day. He presented me with half a dozen of his works, which are going to be in the exhibition. They've never been seen in public. I think they're little treasures. There's a self-portrait and one of me bare-chested. I said, "I don't like taking off my shirt, Tennessee." He said, "Oh go on, I want to learn anatomy." I said, "All right but put the fire on – it's mighty cold." So there I sat like a complete dolt with my shirt off. But I loved the portrait. It's a little bit of history for me. He did it in pencil, with an oil wash - diluting the oil paint in turpentine and spreading it over a canvas-type paper. It came out like a watercolour.

Portrait of Tennessee Williams by Michael Garady
I love his self-portrait in the exhibition. It's inscribed "Le Vieux TW" which stands for "the old Tennessee Williams". On the back, he quoted F Scott Fitzgerald: "It's always three o'clock in the morning." It was an ironic gesture: I'm always under the weather, he wanted to say.
Tennessee didn't know too much about classical music, which has always been important to my painting. I played Kathleen Ferrier to him and he was so overwhelmed he couldn't speak. He said "We don't have anything like that in America". He listened to jazz and blues – Deep South music.
As we painted, I asked Tennessee for advice on writing. He gave me a lot of hints and I ended up writing three novels. He said keep everything very simple and straightforward: be honest to yourself. Although he didn't speak very much, Tennessee noticed everything and felt everything. I think that's what I learned from him: how to be an observer.
I did three big portraits of Tennessee. It was fascinating to sit there with a man whose feelings were all sealed in. You had to somehow distill those feelings. Gradually, I started to understand him. He always wanted us to exhibit our work together – and now we are.
• Paintings by Tennessee Williams and Michael Garady are on display at the Saint Giles Street Gallery in Norwich until November 27 2008

 

[scriptgirl]

oc register
Angelina vs. Halle vs. Ava

Readers choose the world's most beautiful woman.

By COLIN STEWART

Comments 12| Recommend 4

Actresses Halle Berry and Ava Gardner are challenging Angelina Jolie for the title of the world’s most beautiful woman.
That’s the showdown set up by readers participating in two surveys on the “In Your Face” cosmetic-medicine blog.
To see a slide show of those three actresses before you cast your vote, click on MORE PHOTOS.
In the first survey, 37 percent of readers said “Yes” to the question, “Is Angelina Jolie the world’s most beautiful woman?” while 63 percent said “No.”
In a follow-up survey, Halle Berry was the top vote-getter, closely followed by Ava Gardner. The survey question was “If not Angelina Jolie, who is the most beautiful woman?”
Here's the final survey in the series: "Who's the most beautiful -- Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry or Ava Gardner?"

 

[scriptgirl]

nyt
In 1964 George Hamilton appeared in a bit part on a television series about three suave con-men cousins. The leading men of “The Rogues” were David Niven, Gig Young and Charles Boyer, and they kept busy trying to upstage one another. The cocked eyebrow, the attention-getting cough, the scornful sneer: Mr. Hamilton learned those debonair tricks from the experts and has spent a lifetime putting them to sneakily good use. When it comes to trade secrets, he also likes to ask himself, “What would Gloria Swanson do?”
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Robert Sebree
George Hamilton

DON’T MIND IF I DO


By George Hamilton and William Stadiem
Illustrated. 305 pages. Touchstone. $26.



Related

An Excerpt From 'Don’t Mind if I Do' (simonsays.com)

Filmography: George Hamilton




One thing Ms. Swanson did was publish a memoir (“Swanson on Swanson”) equally devoted to image burnishing and indiscretion. It was in the tradition of “My Wicked, Wicked Ways” by Errol Flynn, another member of Mr. Hamilton’s personal pantheon. Now 69, at a point in his career where a stint on “Dancing With the Stars” qualifies as a recent triumph, Mr. Hamilton is ready to spill some beans of his own.
He’s not about to give up his best secrets. You won’t learn much about either his taxidermist or his “handsome cinnamon brown” tan. Nor will you be entirely privy to the maneuvers that kept him fiscally afloat and Rolls-Royce-ready as he squired some of the world’s most fabulous, maternal divas from camera to camera. There are certain details about Imelda Marcos, Elizabeth Taylor, Lynda Bird Johnson, Merle Oberon and Princess Soraya of Iran that he will never, thank goodness, reveal.
But his book, “Don’t Mind if I Do,” goes a long way toward explaining Mr. Hamilton’s flashy charm. And the life he has created, in the flesh and now on the page, can be better than fiction. How do we know? Because another of the women on that long list of wealthy conquests was Danielle Steel, the nonstop romance novelist. Mr. Hamilton spent time with her between husband No. 4, a Napa Valley vintner, and husband No. 5, a Silicon Valley financier. “I hope I was a peak,” he says, while also noting that Ms. Steel used him as material and treated him like homework. Here, after all, was a jet-setting, lady-killing, martini-shaking, devilishly handsome Hollywood luminary of the sort Ms. Steel usually makes up.
But nobody outdoes Mr. Hamilton in milking his life story. Amid an onslaught of pretty-boy memoirs (including books by Tony Curtis and Robert Wagner, both of whose stories overlap Mr. Hamilton’s), his is the one with the most flair, partly because of his writing collaborator, William Stadiem. Mr. Stadiem has moved seamlessly from the ring-a-ding-ding of “Mr. S.,” a memoir he wrote with Frank Sinatra’s loose-lipped valet, George Jacobs, to the savvy Mr. Hamilton, who briefly hired Mr. Jacobs but soon figured out that a swinging, tattletale employee was the rare luxury he couldn’t afford.
Propelled by Mr. Stadiem’s ear for dishy anecdotes and casual regard for the truth (there are some glaringly obvious exaggerations here, particularly one involving a frozen 35-pound turkey), “Don’t Mind if I Do” begins by explaining the Hamilton family pathology. The actor’s father was a bandleader whose footloose good times impressed his middle son mightily and led to a divorce. His mother, nicknamed Teeny, was a much-married, gold-digging Southern glamour girl who contributed greatly to what the actor calls his case of “plantation syndrome.” Teeny and their three sons were constantly on the move, bouncing from Beekman Place to Beacon Hill to Beverly Hills, teaching Mr. Hamilton the importance of living far beyond his means. He now ascribes his showy, clotheshorse style to a way of attracting his mother’s wayward attention.
Sample Hamilton family story: Mr. Hamilton once walked into a Spanish brothel to find his mother at the bar, drinking with Ava Gardner. “What in the world are you doing here?” he asked her in astonishment. “I should ask the same of you,” his mother replied.
“Don’t Mind if I Do” is remarkably mum about the ways in which the young Mr. Hamilton’s devastating good looks caught the notice of male directors when he hit Hollywood. (Vincente Minnelli, described by Mr. Hamilton as effete, did see in him “the quality of a privileged but sensitive mama’s boy.”) In any case, Mr. Hamilton parlayed his mother’s social connections and his own wiles into an inexplicably enduring film career. He now freely acknowledges that there were plenty of rich, aristocratic thrill-seekers eager to finance films, and that he appealed to them. But he was both lucky and smart. He knew that making outrageous demands signaled Hollywood status, and he played that trick to the hilt. “Five hundred a week is nothing,” he told MGM, in one ploy to double his salary. “My mother makes that.”
Mr. Hamilton’s book also describes his strategic eagerness to be the youngest, most impeccably polite actor in the room and a tame alternative to the James Dean types who dominated Hollywood in the late 1950s. His skills as an escort (and, he says, a Don Juan) were just as carefully honed. Glamorous women liked to be listened to and appreciated, and he had been brought up with those skills. Some women also sought his advice when it came to beauty secrets. This was something about which Mr. Hamilton knew a lot.
Caddishness was part of the formula, too. (As a teenager Mr. Hamilton had sex with his stepmother. Put that in the circular more-than-we-need-to-know file.) There is a sleaze factor to some of his stories, like the suggestion that an emissary for the jeweler Harry Winston used high-class prostitutes to create matrimonial guilt and sell guilty husbands gifts for their wives. But the reigning mood of this book, like Mr. Hamilton’s approach to turning Dracula (“Love at First Bite”) and Zorro (“Zorro, the Gay Blade”) into camp classics, is self-deprecating good humor. And its stories are star-studded and wild, offering hearty proof of its chief claim. Mr. Hamilton always wanted more than mere Hollywood glamour. He wanted to learn “how to really milk it to the max.”

 

[scriptgirl]

the independent
Glamour's golden age: Fashion returns to the high-maintenance Hollywood look

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It was a time of high glamour – and high maintenance. And now the Golden Age of Hollywood – the 1940s and 1950s – is making a comeback on the catwalk, reports Bethan Cole
Saturday, 25 October 2008

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Veronica Lake with her trademark waved hair in 1945

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Every decade has its retro fixation, but it's the Golden Age of Hollywood, in particular the 1940s and 1950s, that has really captured our imaginations during recent years. Not only do we have celebrities such as Dita von Teese, Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera who have based their whole fashion and beauty aesthetic on the period, but there are also youth subcultures of burlesque and rockabilly girls who emulate the looks of the era too. Agent Provocateur's sales assistants tend to have the pencilled brows and perky fringes of Bettie Page. And it's on the runways too.

For autumn/winter 2007 Valentino's hair and make-up was heavily influenced by Veronica Lake: big voluptuous waves falling down one side of the head and deep ruby lipstick, it was the epitome of old-school glamour. The autumn/winter 2008 shows followed suit. At D Squared the inspiration was 1950s pin-ups, at Roland Mouret, hair and make-up was a modern take on Ava Gardner, and at Roksanda Ilincic the reference point was Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's.
If you want to style your hair and make-up in similar fashion, it helps to have the right accoutrements to get you in the mood. That's why retro fetishists will delight in the new West Coast US range Besame, which has recently arrived at Selfridges in London. Not only do they have a fabulous range of shades faithful to the era, but the packaging is delectably nostalgic: in ladylike gilt and embellished with scrolling flowers.
"I collect many vintage products since they provide ideas and inspiration for new products," says the 43-year-old founder Gabriela Hernandez, who launched the range in 2004. "I have Max Factor ... Hazel Bishop, Harriet Hubbard-Ayer, Houbigant, Lucien Lelong, Princess Pat, Richard Hudnut, Yardley and many others. I have most of the reds manufactured during the 1920s to the 1950s, and I chose the best to include in the Besame Collection." Hernandez is fascinated by the women of that period. Her favourite stars from the time are Rita Hayworth, Dolores Del Rio, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn. "I love their sense of style, their strength of character, and the fact that they embodied the feminine ideal that is still current today."
Some of the Besame products are direct replicas of the ones those women used. "The cherry red and noir red are from the 1920s, based on Theda Bara and Colette, and many silent film stars. Red Hot Red is based on Marilyn Monroe's Some Like it Hot red lipstick. Besame red is based on colours used in the 1940s by many MGM and RKO stars." Hernandez, a former graphic designer and illustrator, believes that women back then, especially movie stars, spent a lot more time on hair, make-up and general grooming.
Looking pristine and elegant was considered more of a social obligation, unlike the more relaxed attitude many women have to their appearance today. "There was definitely more upkeep," she explains. "Women were more aware of personal grooming and would do it religiously. It was common to visit the hairdresser once a week to set your hair. Nails were kept clean and manicured. Clothing was pressed and accessorised with gloves and hats. I think women paid more attention to details, that now with our busy schedules we seem to forget."
The make-up artist Alex Box has also studied the Golden Age of Hollywood era closely. For Gareth Pugh's autumn/winter 2008 catwalk she created a look she dubs "Garborg": Greta Garbo high-arched, pencilled brows coupled with bold, coloured lips all executed in a nuclear winter or cyborg-blue tone. "For those old black-and-white films they would paint make-up on in purple and yellow and blue to create different tones of grey. They often had dark blue lips. That's what the Gareth look was about – it was like someone from black and white stepping into colour – RKO's Colorama."
Box feels that modern make-up artists can learn a lot from that era. "People were a lot more craft-based and a lot cleverer about what they did," she suggests. "They would really mould somebody with make-up. Plastic surgery was in its infancy then so the reliance on make-up was heavier and they even used prosthetics. Looking back at those images you can learn so much from the shading. People like Max Factor were amazing." A new biography, Max Factor: The Man Who Changed the Faces of the World (Arcade, £15.99) by Fred E Basten, is essential reading for anyone interested in the era.
The make-up artist Val Garland, who created a look based on Marilyn Monroe for YSL's Rouge Volupté ads says, "to achieve this look yourself and still keep it modern, ditch the blush: it's all about brows and lips. Eyeliner moves away from Amy Winehouse. This time around it's the superfine line with the thinnest of ticks, more straight and sharp – no bat wings. Try YSL Easyliner for eyes in black and keep mascara to the upper lashline only with emphasis on the outer corners for a film noir flick."
Well-defined brows are the cornerstone of the look. Garland suggests using an angled brow brush by Suqqu or Mac, and sweeping on a colour like Laura Mercier's Brow Powder. "The trick to getting a superb shape is to draw individual lines that arch upwards and outwards," she says.
The leitmotif of a retro face is red lipstick. "Keep it simple and apply the colour straight from the bullet," advises Garland. "For the faint-hearted, a stain is a good introduction – pat it on with a fingertip. My essential Hollywood lips come in the form of YSL Rouge Volupté n16 or Chanel Fire. To make it last longer, blot with a tissue and reapply. The hardcore Hollywood heroine uses MAC Cherry lip pencil all over her lips for that dense matte pantone pout."
Samantha Hillerby, who created the Marilyn Monroe meets Ava Gardner hair for YSL's Rouge Volupté adverts, asserts that 1940s and 1950s hair, like the make-up, takes a lot more time and effort. "We wanted to achieve that glamour, that richness, that expensiveness that women back then gave off, via painstakingly groomed hair." According to Hillerby, a lot of tools are required to create the look. She lists rollers, heated rollers, old-fashioned scalloped rollers and hot tongs as just a few of the things you might require to create the right look, and cites the return of old-fashioned techniques such as barrel curling and pin curling.
"To create a pin curl, curl the hair around your fingers to whatever size wave formation you want then sit the curl flat on the head, then pin with an old-fashioned pin clip," advises Hillerby, who explains that to set the hair you can use setting lotion or styling spray or even hairspray for a modern look.
However, creating truly polished hair is incredibly difficult, and ultimately you might wish to visit a salon. "Unless you are very clever with hair, to get the full retro look you really need a hairdresser to do it," says Hillerby. "Back then women went to the hairdresser once a week and [the hair-do] would last the whole week too."
The problem with a lot of modern salons is that the hairdressers have not been trained in older techniques. But there are specialist retro salons springing up. If you are based in London, pay a visit to Nina's Hair Parlour (ninasvintageandretrohair.com) in Alfie's Antiques Market where a 1940s or 1950s cut and set will cost only £45 and they also teach lessons in doing your own 1950s hair and make-up. Pimps and Pinups in Spitalfields Market also do a retro hair service, payable by the hour. "This sort of hair is more time-consuming and takes more skill," confirms Hillerby.
The drawback with sporting a retro aesthetic, is that it's much more labour intensive and high maintenance than merely popping into Topshop or getting a bob cut at Toni & Guy. However, the satisfaction comes from achieving a classic, sophisticated kind of glamour.

 

[scriptgirl]

portsmouth news
OGUNQUIT — The Classic Film Series, sponsored by Ogunquit Performing Arts, continues its eighth season with the showing of the third presentation "Seven Days in May" at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 12, at Great Hall of the Dunaway Center in Ogunquit.
Admission is free.
As in previous years, there will be discussion about the film before and after the showing by Ogunquit Performing Arts member Norman Wilkinson, professor emeritus of theater, University of Maine, and authority on theater history and film history.
"Seven Days in May," a cold war thriller starring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Fredric March and Ava Gardner, is about a fictional attempted military plot to take over the government of the United States.
As the story begins, the president faces a wave of public dissatisfaction with his decision to sign a treaty with the Soviet Union, an agreement that will supposedly result in both nations simultaneously destroying their nuclear weapons.
But both his political opposition and the military oppose the move, believing the Soviets cannot be trusted.
Essentially, the film offers a gripping melodramatic account of the steps taken by the president when he is advised of a secret suspicion that the top Air Force general, who is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is heading a plot to take over the government on a certain Sunday in May. The general, a highly popular hero, is moved to this traitorous enterprise because he fears the consequences of a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Russians that the president has negotiated.
Political intrigue ... a nation's future ... conspiracies ... conflicts between the government and the military ... all combine and interact to produce a gripping evening with the viewing of "Seven Days in May."
The film is shown on a full wall-size screen with quality projection equipment provided to Ogunquit Performing Arts by Kennebunk Savings Bank.
Mark your calendars for the second Wednesday of each month, September through May, for the showing of a new film at 7 p.m. in the 2008-2009 Classic Film Series. There's plenty of parking.