Glamour Icons!
Acting is glamour but writing is hard work, so I'm going to be an actress.
Every time I am in danger of believing the glamour of my own press, some incident inevitably brings me back to earth.
Jessica Savitch
Happy Thursday!
Today was a beautiful day here in New York after a very rainy yesterday and last night. It is October 20th and tonight will find us at the glamorous Feinstein's enjoying Betty Buckley. And then we're into the weekend. Remember to wear your glamorous purple tonight on behalf of bullying!
For every two minutes of glamour, there are eight hours of hard work.
Jessica SavitchGood packaging design creates the image, implies quality, builds consumer trust and increases profitability for the corporation.
Today, design is the new currency and impactful packaging can create the initial purchase.
The package is the silent salesman, attracting consumers from the shelf to pick up and purchase.
With twenty-five years of experience in the cosmetics industry, creating packaging for every level of sales distribution (specialty, department, mass and direct), Marc Rosen Associates has the know-how to create an ownable image for each brand to give it the competitive edge.
-Marc Rosen
Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion.
On Sunday afternoon, here in Piermont, at Ned Kelly's, we are going to a very special book signing. Our friend, and author, Marc Rosen, is celebrating the publication of Rosen's new book, "Glamour Icons: Perfume Bottle Design."
Package designer Marc Rosen made his mark with Revlon and Elizabeth Arden in the 1970s and 80s. Now at the helm of his own firm, he offers more than just packaging design.
Marc Rosen is not only an award-winning package designer, but also a marketing strategist, educator and writer.
After receiving a degree in design form Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Rosen found that he "was not prepared for a specific job after graduation", and enrolled at Pratt Institute. At the time, Pratt offered the first master’s degree in packaging. Rosen studied all types of packaging, but it was a cosmetics project, which led him to the beauty industry. One of his professors encouraged him to show his finished product to a company and Rosen took it to Seymour Kent at Avon. Kent promptly bought the project for $3,000. Rosen recalls, "At the time $3,000 was a lot of money and I thought to myself, ‘My God, I can get paid for this!’"
Thus began his career in cosmetics packaging.
After working for a handful of smaller companies, Rosen joined Revlon during the last four years of Revlon founder Charles Revson’s life. "It was an incredible opportunity because Revson was a huge fan of package design and respected it. He always used to say, "If the product, packaging and promotion are right, you can’t fail, I learned a great deal from him at a very young age." Rosen recalls. But he admits it was not always so easy. "Often my package designs would come back crumpled up from meetings with Charles. He could not always give direction and articulate what was right and wrong about a package. I was terrified when I attended my first meeting with him for a presentation of Christmas gift sets. At the meeting, he growled, "Who did this?" And then said, "It’s good!" After that, all the brand people wanted me to work on their packages because Revson liked my work". At the age of 29, Rosen moved to Elizabeth Arden as director of package design and ultimately became senior vice president, corporate design and communications for Elizabeth Arden Worldwide, where he stayed for 12 years. "My experience at Arden was an incredible opportunity," he explains. "It was a golden period at Arden and involved me in makeup, skincare and fragrance, as well as the designer fragrance subsidiary. I was part of a marketing team that did everything from product inception to launch.
Sadly, that type of team is non-existent in the market today." When Eli Lilly sold Arden to Fabergé in 1987, Rosen says, "The creative vision had changed and it was tie to move on."
Marc knows more than a little about glamour. He is married to one of the most glamour actresses to ever come out of Hollywood, Arlene Dahl. MGM star of the 1940s and 1950s best known for her "Technicolor red" hair.
Films range from the musical 'Three Little Words' (1950) to the noir 'Reign of Terror' (1949) to the sci-fi 'Journey to the Center of the Earth' (1959).
In 1952, she married Fernando Lamas (their son Lorenzo was born in 1958).
For more than 30 years, Rosen and Dahl, have lived in
an old Victorian called Treetops in Sparkill, we are neighbors.
They also have homes in Manhattan and
Palm Beach, Fla. "Perfume bottles have been so crucial to
my life," he says. "The book is about
an old Victorian called Treetops in Sparkill, we are neighbors.
They also have homes in Manhattan and
Palm Beach, Fla. "Perfume bottles have been so crucial to
my life," he says. "The book is about
extolling them as works of art.
It's also
about glamour over the last century, and
my involvement with it."
It's also
about glamour over the last century, and
my involvement with it."
Marc, himself, has had a long career as an award winning perfume bottle designer, including 10 years as a senior vice president at Elizabeth Arden.
His designs are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Musee de La Mode in Paris.
"It's something I've been thinking about doing for quite a while," Rosen says."Part of it is autobiograohical and part of the book talks about the process of design."
"It's not just a picture book", he adds, "although it does have the gorgeous photos that you would expect.
And its got wonderful gossipy stories about some of the people I've worked with over the years"
Some of those people include Revlon Founder Charles Revson.
Karl Lagerfeld...
the Fendi sisters...
Perry Ellis...
and Ellen Tracy...
Celebrities like Joan Rivers...
Celine Dion...
and Christina Aguilera take a red-carpet walk through
the pages, too.
"Glamour Icons" also looks at the last 100
years of perfume bottle design, and how
styles were affected by world events and
artistic movements.
The foreword is by the
late Fleur Cowles, the creative force behind
the much-admired but short-lived Flair
magazine in the early 1950s, and the
photos are by Vincent Ricardel and Rosen.
Rosen is donating all of his proceeds from
the book to the Marc Rosen Scholarship
and Educational Fund at the Pratt Institute
in Brooklyn, where he teaches a graduate
course in perfume bottle design.
After working for a handful of smaller companies, Rosen joined Revlon during the last four years of Revlon founder Charles Revson’s life. "It was an incredible opportunity because Revson was a huge fan of package design and respected it.
He always used to say, "If the product, packaging and promotion are right, you can’t fail, I learned a great deal from him at a very young age." Rosen recalls.
But he admits it was not always so easy. "Often my package designs would come back crumpled up from meetings with Charles. He could not always give direction and articulate what was right and wrong about a package.
I was terrified when I attended my first meeting with him for a presentation of Christmas gift sets.
At the meeting, he growled, "Who did this?" And then said, "It’s good!" After that, all the brand people wanted me to work on their packages because Revson liked my work". At the age of 29, Rosen moved to Elizabeth Arden as director of package design and ultimately became senior vice president, corporate design and communications for Elizabeth Arden Worldwide, where he stayed for 12 years.
"My experience at Arden was an incredible opportunity," he explains.
"It was a golden period at Arden and involved me in makeup, skincare and fragrance, as well as the designer fragrance subsidiary.
I was part of a marketing team that did everything from product inception to launch. Sadly, that type of team is non-existent in the market today." When Eli Lilly sold Arden to Fabergé in 1987, Rosen says, "The creative vision had changed and it was tie to move on."
GIVING THE CUSTOMER MORE THAN DESIGN
Rosen opened his own firm, Marc Rosen & Associates in 1989. Although his company’s activity began in package design, today it encompasses more than that. Rosen explains, "Very few clients ask just for package design. They want you to handle everything from naming and theming, fragrance selection, public relations, production and more. They are looking for full service, one-stop shopping. I don’t feel as though I am competing with other package designers because of the very unique services we offer". Although Rosen is best known for fragrance package design, which represents two-thirds of his business, his work covers all beauty categories. Outside the beauty arena he has designed battery and flashlight packaging for Rayovac and liquor packaging for United Distilleries, Rosen is currently collaborating with branding specialists Holland-Mark. The two firms believe in the importance of consistency in the project, its packaging and advertising.
Rosen opened his own firm, Marc Rosen & Associates in 1989. Although his company’s activity began in package design, today it encompasses more than that. Rosen explains, "Very few clients ask just for package design. They want you to handle everything from naming and theming, fragrance selection, public relations, production and more. They are looking for full service, one-stop shopping. I don’t feel as though I am competing with other package designers because of the very unique services we offer". Although Rosen is best known for fragrance package design, which represents two-thirds of his business, his work covers all beauty categories. Outside the beauty arena he has designed battery and flashlight packaging for Rayovac and liquor packaging for United Distilleries, Rosen is currently collaborating with branding specialists Holland-Mark. The two firms believe in the importance of consistency in the project, its packaging and advertising.
Rosen’s business is divided between custom design and stock design. Having identified a need in the market six years ago, he launched Pret-a-Porter, a line of specially designed interactive stock components. "Prior to Pret-a-Porter, what was available did not have the design or production quality of custom packaging and it was treated as a step-child. It was tedious to comb through separate bottle and cup catalogs trying to find compatible components," he explains. The Pret-a-Porter collection of bottles and caps can be mixed and matched to meet the client’s needs. "These stock bottles and caps look like custom components because they were designed by a custom designer. The advantage is that there are an infinite number of design combinations, no tooling charges and short lead times", Rosen remarks. Comedian Joan Rivers’ new fragrance, Now & Forever, and Guess’ fragrance use Pret-a-Porter designs. French glass manufacturers Saint Gobain Desjonqueres is the global distributor for Pret-a-Porter and will introduce a special collection catalog for the first time at the Luxe Pack show in October 2001. Rosen has been teaching a Package Design Workshop in the master’s degree program at Pratt Institute since 1984. Although the computer has become important in package design. Rosen insists that his students initially draw designs by hand. "The computer is a tool, not a designer. It is not as spontaneous as a real person. You use the computer to refine a design, not to create it", he explains.
For its 100th anniversary, Pratt Institute honored outstanding alumni who were successful in the field in which they studied, and established the Marc Rosen Scholarship for Package Design in 1989. US department store Nordstrom is highlighting fragrance bottle design and Marc Rosen in its 100th anniversary catalog this year. It will also contribute $15,000 to the Pratt scholarship fund. As a part of the program, Rosen will make in-store appearances. "I am proud to be able to elevate the awareness of package design so it is appreciated as an important marketing function." he says.
Has the industry changed? Rosen believes so. He recalls his early experiences when he was involved in final decision making. "At that time, CEOs in privately held companies were willing to make decisions and take risks. Today, with the increase of publicly held companies, people do not want to make decisions. They often use focus groups and market surveys to make decisions for them", he comments. A new global understanding is emerging concerning the needs of the US market. "Until recently, European companies did not understand that launching a fragrance in Europe is very different than a US launch. When a French fashion house launches a new fragrance, it is very big news there. However, Americans are not loyal in that way. Here, the name, fragrance and positioning are more important. I believe that the tremendous success of J’adore was not because it was a Christian Dior fragrance, but rather that the name, advertising and packaging all complemented a good fragrance." Rosen believes in the importance of watching trends to meet the market’s new needs. As a result, he says, "We reinvented the firm without consciously initiating it". And that is an ongoing process, which one expects will stand Rosen and his firm in good stead in the future.
(SOURCES: THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX YIELDS MORE THAN DESIGN (from Marc Rosen's website and Perfume Bottles as Works of Art by Bill Cary in the Lifestyle section of today's The Journal News)
But by the time I was 40, everything was winding down. It started after the war. On the plus side, there was more more products and technology.
But for me the nightlife was winding down, the glamour, the fun.
Recently, I wrote about the lack of glamour in our current culture and society. So, today, in honor of Marc's latest creation, his book...which I hope all of you will join me for on Sunday and buy it!...I am devoting today's blog to Glamour Icons.
So why not start with Marc's glamorous iconic bride, Arlene Dahl. On the occasion of Arlene's birthday a few months ago, I devoted a blog to Arlene.
I have been lucky enough to know Arlene for several years.
She also did my astrological chart years ago for my birthday. Someone once wrote that Arlene was born for technicolor and they are absolutely right.
With that flaming red hair and piercing blue eyes, who could not agree?
My favorite Arlene Dahl film is Three Little Words.
I considered the years in Hollywood nothing but an interim. What I always wanted was to be was a musical comedy star.
Arlene Dahl
Arlene has starred in over 30 films, 100 television programs, Had her own series called Arlene Dahl's Beauty Spot for ABC; Arlene Dahl's Lovescope series , 17 plays (8 of them musicals including Applause on Broadway at the Palace theater}.
Arlene was President of an international advertising agency, designed a sleepwear line for 100 top stores in America and was extolled in a cover story in Life magazine.
She wrote an internationally syndicated Beauty column for the Chicago Tribune/New York news for 20 years and has written 15 best selling books on beauty and astrology.
She is now the President of The Broadway Walk of Stars Foundation to place Stars on the sidewalks of Broadway and Times Square to honor the Stars and Legends who have made Broadway what it is today.
Arlene has been busy and much more involved in the arts than any of the biographies give her credit for.
Oh yes, she was also one of the first Stars to be given a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Dahl was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the daughter of Idelle (née Swan) and Rudolph S. Dahl, a Ford motor dealer and executive.
She is of Norwegian descent.
After graduating from Washburn High School, she held various jobs, including performing in a local drama group and briefly working as a model for department stores.
Dahl's mother was involved in the theatre.
As a child she took elocution and dancing lessons and acted in local amateur theatre. She was active in theatrical events at Margaret Fuller Elementary School, Ramsey Junior High School and Washburn Senior High School.
Biographical details of this blog are from Arlene Dahl and Arlene's Wikipedia page.
My next glamorous icon is another Hollywood redhead. Unfortunately, the end of her life was tragic.
All I wanted was just what everybody else wants, you know, to be loved.
For three consecutive years, starting in 1944, Rita Hayworth was named one of the top movie box office attractions in the world.
In 1944, she made one of her best-known films, the Technicolor musical Cover Girl (1944), with Gene Kelly.
The film established her as Columbia's top star of the 1940s. Hayworth was adept in ballet, tap, ballroom, and Spanish routines.
Cohn continued to effectively showcase Hayworth's talents in Technicolor films: Tonight and Every Night (1945), with Lee Bowman, and Down to Earth (1947), with Larry Parks.
Her erotic appeal was most noted in Charles Vidor's black and white film noir Gilda (1946), with Glenn Ford, which encountered difficulty with censors. The role, in which Hayworth in black satin performed a legendary one-glove striptease, turned her made her into a cultural icon as a femme fatale [3]. Alluding to her bombshell status, in 1946, it was reported that her likeness was placed on the first nuclear bomb to be tested after World War II (at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean's Marshall Islands) as part of Operation Crossroads. However, recent research suggests all that was on the bomb was the word "GILDA".[11] [3] Hayworth performed one of her best-remembered dance routines, the samba from Tonight and Every Night (1945), while pregnant with her first child, Rebecca Welles (daughter with Orson Welles). Hayworth was the first dancer to partner with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly on film.
She delivered one of her most acclaimed performances in Welles's The Lady from Shanghai (1947).
Its failure at the box office was attributed in part to director/co-star Welles having had Hayworth's famous red locks cut off and the remainder of her hair dyed blonde for her role. This was done without Cohn's knowledge or approval and he was furious over the change. Her next film, The Loves of Carmen (1948), again with Glenn Ford, was the first film co-produced by Columbia and Hayworth's own production company, The Beckworth Corporation (named for her daughter Rebecca); it was Columbia's biggest moneymaker for that year. She received a percentage of the profits from this and all her subsequent films until 1955 when she dissolved Beckworth to pay off debts she owed to Columbia.
Born as Margarita Carmen Cansino in Brooklyn, New York, Hayworth was the daughter of Spanish dancer Eduardo Cansino, Sr.and Volga Hayworth, a dancer of Irish and English descent, who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies. The Catholic couple married in 1917 and had two boys after Margarita, Eduardo, Jr. and Vernon. Being part Spanish from her Father's side and Irish on her Mother's.
She took her mother's maiden name for her film career.
Such a Beauty!
Rita and her Father, Flamenco dancer Eduardo Cansino. Before hitting the major pictures Rita and her father danced together in films. Rita's father's aspirations for his daughter was to become a dancer, and from her mother an actress.
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| Actress Rita Hayworth, who was born in Brooklyn, is seen here with her second husband, Orson Welles. The dancing beauty was one of the most popular pin-up girls during World War II. AP |
She did both beautifully.
Rita Hayworth (October 17, 1918 – May 14, 1987) was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars.
She appeared in 61 films over 37 years and is listed as one of the American Film Institute's Greatest Stars of All Time. Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on Oct. 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, to an old and respected family who were proud of their heritage as artistic Spanish dancers.
Her parents were “The Dancing Cansinos” and her Spanish grandfather had danced in Madrid at King Alfonso’s court.
Her childhood years were spent in Brooklyn and later in Jackson Heights, when she wasn’t on the road with the troupe.
“The Dancing Cansinos” were in a short subject on folk dancing filmed by Vitaphone’s New York studios in Brooklyn.
The film was utilized as one of several prologue short subjects at the New York premiere of Warner’s first talkie Don Juan in August, 1926. It was here that Rita Hayworth actually made her film debut by coming on at the conclusion of her parents’ performance and doing a few flamenco twirls and clicking a pair of miniature castanets.
I don't think I could live without hair, makeup and styling, let alone be the performer I am. I am a glamour girl through and through. I believe in the glamorous life and I live one.
It was indeed a most obscure film debut for an 8-year-old girl who would eventually become the screen’s foremost sex symbol.
Rita's father wanted her to become a professional dancer while her mother hoped she would become an actress.
Her grandfather, Antonio Cansino, was the most renowned exponent in his day of Spain's classical dances; he made the bolero famous.
His dancing school in Madrid was world famous.
Rita recalled, "From the time I was three and a half,... as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons.
I didn't like it very much,... but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood."
She attended dance classes every day for a few years in a Carnegie Hall complex under the instruction of her uncle, Angel Cansino, performing publicly from the age of six.
In 1926, she featured in La Fiesta, a short film for Warner Brothers.
With the coming of sound films and the fact that vaudeville virtually died, the family moved to Hollywood where her father became dance director at Fox Studios.
Often cast as the exotic foreigner, she appeared in small roles in 1935 Dante's Inferno, with Spencer Tracy and Paddy O'Day, in which she played a Russian dancer.
Rita commented, “From the time I was 12 I was dancing for bread and butter, but in my heart I was always an actress.”
In 1927, when Hayworth was eight years old, her father moved the family west to Hollywood, convinced there was a great future for dancing in the movies and that his family could be part of it. He established his own dance studio.
I don't think tennis is a glamour game, not at all.
Hollywood luminaries, including James Cagney and Jean Harlow received specialized training from him. During the Great Depression the family's investments were wiped out. Musicals were no longer in vogue and commercial interest in her father's dancing classes waned. Hayworth partnered with her father to form "The Dancing Cansinos". Since Hayworth was not of legal age to work in nightclubs and bars according to California state law, she and her father traveled across the border to the city of Tijuana in Mexico, a popular tourist spot for Los Angeles citizens in the early 1930s.
Due to her work schedule, Hayworth did not complete high school but completed ninth grade at Hamilton High, in Los Angeles. She took a bit part in the films Cruz Diablo (1934) which led to another in In Caliente (1935) with Mexican actress Delores del RioHayworth danced in such nightspots as the Foreign Club and the Caliente Club and was at the Caliente Club where she was seen by the head of the Fox Film Corporation, Winfield Sheehan.
A week later, Hayworth did a screen test for Fox. Impressed by her screen persona, Sheehan signed her for a short-term six-month contract, under the name of Rita Cansino.
During her time at Fox, Hayworth appeared in five pictures, in non-notable roles roles.
By the end of her six-month contract, Fox had now merged into 20th Century Fox, with Darryl F. Zanuck serving as the executive producer.
Dismissing Sheehan's interest in her, Zanuck decided not to renew her contract.
Studio head Harry Cohn signed her to a long-term contract, casting Hayworth in small roles in Columbia features.
Recognizing her possibilities, studio executives gave her roles in Under the Pampas Moon (’35), Charlie Chan in Egypt (’35), Meet Nero Wolfe (’36) and about 25 other films up to a starring role in The Lady in Question (’40), followed by such hits as The Strawberry Blonde (’41), Blood and Sand (’41), You’ll Never Get Rich (’41), My Gal Sal (42), You Were Never Lovelier (dancing with Fred Astaire,’42), Cover Girl (’44), Gilda (’46), Salome (’53) and Pal Joey (’57)
She was an Argentinian in Under the Pampas Moon and an Egyptian beauty in Charlie Chan in Egypt.
In 1936 she took her first starring role as a 'Latin type' in Human Cargo.
Cohn argued that Hayworth's image was too much of a Mediterranean style, bringing stereotypically 'exotic' roles. In 1936, at 18 years old Hayworth married businessman Edward C. Judson, a salesman who was twice her age, who acted as her promoter.
Under the tutelage of Cohn and Judson, she began to undergo electrolysis to broaden the appearance of her forehead and raise her hairline.
She transformed into a redhead and changed her name to Rita Hayworth, using her mother's maiden name, so leaving behind the exotic image and becoming a reflection of the classic American pinup.
The marriage lasted until 1942.
Rita was one of Hollywood’s greatest sex symbols and one of America’s favorite pin-up girls during World War II. After her success in Gilda one reviewer compared her to a “bombshell with a delayed-action fuse.” The U.S. Air Force fliers took note and pasted her Life magazine bed pose shot onto one of the test atomic bombs dropped on Bikini Atoll.
Rita was not too pleased with this action.
Along with other examples of 20th century Americana, her film Down to Earth (’47) was placed in a time capsule to be opened in the year 2047.
In 1937, she appeared in five minor Columbia pictures and three minor independent movies.
The following year, Hayworth appeared in five more Columbia B Films.
In 1939, Cohn pressured director Howard Hawkes to use Hayworth for a small but important role as a man-trap in the aviation drama Only Angels Have Wings, in which she played opposite Cary Grant and Jean Arthur.
A box-office success, fan mail for Hayworth began pouring into Columbia's publicity department and Cohn began to see Hayworth as his first and official new star.
The studio had never officially had stars under contract, except for Jean Arthur, who was trying to break out of her Columbia contract. Cohn began to build Hayworth up the following year, in features such as Music in My Heart, The Lady in Question, and Angels Over Broadway. He loaned Hayworth out to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to appear in Susan and God, opposite Joan Crawford.
On loan to Warner Brothers, Hayworth appeared as the second female lead in The Strawberry Blonde (1941), opposite James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland.
A big box-office success, Hayworth's popularity rose and she immediately became one of Hollywood's hottest properties. So impressed was Warner Brothers that they tried to buy Hayworth's contract from Columbia, but Harry Cohn refused to release her.
Her success led to a supporting role in Blood and Sand (1941), opposite Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell, with Fox, the studio that had dropped her six years before. In one of her most notable screen roles, Hayworth played the first of many screen sirens as Doña Sol des Muire. This was another box-office hit. She returned in triumph to Columbia Pictures and was cast in the musical You'll Never Get Rich (1941), opposite Fred Astaire in one of the highest-budgeted films Columbia had ever made.
So successful was the picture that the following year, another Astaire-Hayworth picture was released You Were Never Lovelier.
In 1942, Hayworth also appeared in two other pictures, Tales of Manhattan and My Gal Sal.
It was during this period that Hayworth posed for a famous pin-up in Life Magazine, which showed her in a negligee perched seductively on her bed.
When the U.S. joined World War II in December 1941, Hayworth's image made her one of the top two pin-up girls of the war years, the other being blonde Betty Grable. In 2002, the satin nightgown she wore for the picture sold for $26,888.
Hayworth was called the "Love Goddess" (One biopic and one biography used the moniker in reference to her). "Everybody else does nude scenes," Hayworth said, "but I don't. I never made nude movies. I didn't have to do that. I danced. I was provocative, I guess, in some things. But I was not completely exposed."
Rita was five times married, to Edward Judson (’37), Orson Welles (’43), Prince Aly Kahn (’49), Dick Haymes (’53) and James Hill (’58). In later years Rita remarked, “Honey, I’ve no regrets, I made mistakes, and I paid for them.
But I wouldn’t change one hour of my life, because it’s made me what I am.”
Fate was not kind to Rita Hayworth. She was stricken with Alzheimer’s Disease, and during the last six years of her life she was cared for by her daughter Princess Yasmin Aga Khan.
Eventually she seemed to have no memory of herself, her family or friends, or her incandescent triumphs. She died on May 14, 1987.
Actress Lynda Carter portrayed Hayworth in the television movie Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess. Actress Veronica Watt also portrayed her in the film Hollywoodland (2006).
The details of the Rita Hayworth portions of this blog come from an articlewritten by Vernon Parker (1923-2004) and Wikipedia.
I don't enjoy public performances and being up on a stage. I don't enjoy the glamour. Like tonight, I am up on stage and my feet hurt.
Our next Glamour Icon exuded Glamour to the very end! "Darling, the legs aren't so beautiful, I just know what to do with them." Marlene Dietrich
Was there anyone as glamorous as Marlene Dietrich? Indeed, the very word may have been invented for her. Perhaps she really was nothing more than a figment of our collective imaginations, an impossible creature with a husky voice, fabulous legs, astonishing eyebrows, and a way with a cigarette that could make the thing actually seem alluring.
Marlene Dietrich once said she did “not dress for the public, not for the fashion and not for the men.”
Dietrich, like much of the fashion of the 1940s, was all for empowering women.
Glamour is what I sell, it's my stock in trade.
I had the pleasure of meeting our next Glamour Icon in 1980.She was in New York for a special question and answer session. Afterwords, when I told her how much I loved her body of work. She grabbed me and hugged and kissed me and said, "My dear young man, without YOU there is NO Gloria Swanson!"
Gloria Swanson (March 27, 1899 – April 4, 1983) was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the Best Actress category.
She had also produced her own films such as the controversial Sadie Thompson and The Love of Sunya. In 1929, Swanson successfully transitioned to talkies with The Trespasser.
However, personal problems and changing tastes saw her popularity wane during the 1930s when she moved into theater and television. Today she is best known for her role as Norma Desmond, a faded silent film star, in the critically acclaimed film Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Gloria Swanson started out in the silent film era of motion pictures and made over sixty films to her credit before talkies came to light. What a busy woman even turning out nine films out in one year!
"I have decided that when I am a star, I will be every inch and every moment a star."
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Josephine May Swanson was born in a small house in Chicago, Illinois in 1899 to Adelaide (nee Klanowski) and Joseph Theodore Swanson, a soldier.
She attended Hawthorne Scholastic Academy. Her father was from a strict Lutheran Swedish American family, and her mother was of German, French, and Polish ancestry.
Although born in Chicago because of her father's attachment to the Army, they moved frequently and she ended up spending most of her childhood on the island of Puerto Rico and in Key West, Florida.
It was not her intention to enter show business, but on a whim one of her aunts took her to a small film company in Chicago called Essanay Studios for a visit and Swanson was asked to come back to work as an extra.
After a few months as an extra working with among others, Charlie Chaplin, and making $13.50 a week, she left school to work full time at the studio. Soon though her parents separated and she and her mother moved to California.
Swanson made her film debut in 1914 as an extra in The Song of Soul for Essanay.
While on a tour of the studio, she asked to be in the movie just for fun. Essanay hired her to feature in several movies, including His New Job, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin.
Swanson auditioned for the leading female role in His New Job, but Chaplin did not see her as leading lady material and cast her in the brief role of a stenographer.
Swanson moved to California in 1916 to appear in Mack Sennett's Keystone comedies opposite Bobby Vernon, and in 1919 she signed with Paramount Pictures and worked often with Cecil B. DeMille, who turned her into a romantic lead in such films as Don't Change Your Husband (1919), Male and Female (1919) with the famous scene posing as "the Lion's Bride" with a real lion, Why Change Your Wife? (1920), Something to Think About (1920), and The Affairs of Anatol (1921).
In the space of two years, Swanson rocketed to stardom and was one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood.
Swanson later appeared in a series of films directed by Sam Wood. She starred in Beyond The Rocks (1922) with her long-time friend Rudolph Valentino. (Long believed to be a lost film, Beyond the Rocks was rediscovered in 2004 in a private collection in The Netherlands and is now available on DVD.)
Loretta Young (January 6, 1913 – August 12, 2000) was an American actress.
Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953. She won the 1948 best actress Academy Award for her role in the 1947 film The Farmer's Daughter, and received an Oscar nomination for her role in Come to the Stable, in 1950.
Young then moved to the relatively new medium of television, where she had a dramatic anthology series called The Loretta Young Show, from 1953 to 1961.
The series earned three Emmy Awards, and reran successfully on daytime TV and later in syndication. Young, a devout Catholic, later worked with various Catholic charities after her acting career.
She was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, as Gretchen Young. At confirmation, she took the name Michaela. She and her family moved to Hollywood when she was three years old.
She and her sisters Polly Ann and Elizabeth Jane (screen name Sally Blane) worked as child actresses, but of the three, Loretta was the most successful.
Young's first role was at the age of three, in the silent film The Primrose Ring. The movie's star Mae Murray so fell in love with Young that she wanted to adopt her. Although her mother declined, Young was allowed to live with Murray for two years. During her high school years, Young was educated at Ramona Convent Secondary School.[citation needed] She was signed to a contract by John McCormick, husband of Colleen Moore, who saw the young girl as having potential.[5] The name "Loretta" was given to her by Colleen, who would later explain that it was the name of her favorite doll.
Young was billed as "Gretchen Young" in the 1917 film, Sirens of the Sea.
It was not until 1928 that she was first billed as "Loretta Young" in The Whip Woman.
That same year she co-starred with Lon Chaney in the MGM film Laugh, Clown, Laugh.
The next year she was anointed one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars.
In 1930, Young, then 17, eloped with 26-year-old actor Grant Withers and married him in Yuma, Arizona. The marriage was annulled the next year, just as their second movie together (appropriately titled Too Young to Marry) was released.
During the Second World War, Young made Ladies Courageous (1944; reissued as Fury in the Sky), the fictionalized story of the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. It depicted a unit of female pilots during WWII who flew bomber planes from the factories to their final destinations.
Young made as many as seven or eight movies a year. In 1947, she won an Oscar for her performance in The Farmer's Daughter. The same year she co-starred with Cary Grant and David Niven in The Bishop's Wife, a perennial favorite. Young has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; one for motion pictures, at 6104 Hollywood Boulevard, and another for television, at 6141 Hollywood Boulevard.
Our next Glamour Icon is the only male in this group (other than Marc Rosen, of course!). And according to Hollywood gossip, Gable and Young had a tempestuous love affair even though she was a devout Catholic. Allegedly, Loretta's "adopted" daughter is their love child!
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Meet Marc Rosen on Sunday at Ned Kelly and Company, 458 Piermont Avenue. 845-359-4480
Thank you, to all the stars mentioned in this blog! I love you ALL!!
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Richard Skipper, Richard@RichardSkipper.com
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