HOLLYWOOD DIVAS

"Don't look for or expect to find the faces of real people...They have neither scars nor imperfections of any kind. They don't even possess pores in their skin through which to breathe. After all, gods are immortal. Their skin, like marble, like alabaster, has a translucent sheen in which, as in a mirror, one can see reflected the fantasies of the beholder. The ideal only remains. When they made good in pictures, they didn't just change, they shed that coarse cocoon and emerged translucent, transformed.
The people who walked into the portrait galleries walked out again the same, unchanged. But they left a residue behind them, a residue not really their own but one which existed because of them, extracted by the photographers, captured by the cameras. It crystallized as an object d'art - Art Deco lines, Mount Rushmore dimensions - waved hair spilling over beds of white animal furs, glazed lips parting seductively, Vaselined lids lowered languidly, arms alluringly akimbo or entwined in hair, nonchalantly helping to expose breasts - creatures of light, of marble, of glass. This was the American dream on paper. These images are not subtle; they are, like icons, made to be adored; they are to be coveted, to be collected like works of art."
("Hollywood Glamour Portraits")

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• ava
• gardner
• greta
• garbo
• marlene
• dietrich
• lauren
• bacall
• rita
• hayworth
• marilyn
• monroe
• hedy
• lamarr
• jean
• harlow
• joan
• crawford
• louise
• brooks
• anita
• ekberg
• norma
• shearer
• loretta
• young
• jane
• russell
• carole
• lombard
• linda
• darnell
• gene
• tierney
• grace
• kelly
• audrey
• hepburn
• katherine
• elizabeth
• taylor
• veronica
• lake
• jayne
• mansfield
• vivien
• leigh
• lana
• turner
• dolores
• del
• rio
• natalie
• wood
• ingrid
• bergman

[Yaddaer]

Just consider.....there was no Photoshop at that time mates!

[gatabella3]

@Yaddaer There was a retouching.

[TZeveRe]

Who is the woman at 4:19, she´s very beautiful:)

Hey, I like the point of view you´re sharing with us, I´m descovering the classical actrices and I have to tell that they are the best and by far. I´m very dissapointed with the nowadays ones, there´s only one or two that I deeply admire., I mean, they are beautiful and have good figures, but seriously they don´t know how to be sexy without beeing a slut. I may be wrong and that would be the image that hollywood wants to sell us, I´m confused...

[gatabella3]

@TZeveRe 4:19 is Carole Lombard...Agree, I'm a fan of old Hollywood because these women were real Divas, had class, elegance and unsurpassed beauty, each one of them was a personality. No modern actress can be a role model for me and in many cases their looks are not natural, they come and go, no one would remember their names decades later.

[mikicazorla]

Good job. I would have liked to see more pictures of Mae West because she was the first major film femme fatale. What happened with Sophia Loren???, she was one of the most important figures of Hollywood and its beauty is incomparable.

[gatabella3]

@mikicazorla Well, Sophia is very beautiful, but for me she's European actress not Hollywood. I included her photos in my another video with many beauties "They Had Faces Then".

[nisiriti]

i love all these actresses and especially katharine hepburn. i wish there were such actresses nowadays too.

[Oreon207]

All of them like goddesses from the Olympus.

[MyRodyrody]

Very,very beautiful actresses ...amazing women !!!

[ThisIsRealMe16]

@gatabella3 Yeah but you couldn't make your nose look smaller or your breasts bigger.

[WeeWyllie]

@TZeveRe That all said, this is still an excellent montage!

[TZeveRe]

@WeeWyllie I meant the nowadays ones, I agree with your point of view.

[WeeWyllie]

@TZeveRe Certainly! But then, who wouldn't? These are pretty and beautiful women, with images carefully and skillfully curried for public consumption! All but Marlene Dietrich, whose appeal has always been a complete enigma for me! Lauren Bacall will probably always be my favorite Hollywood Golden Age beauty!

[TZeveRe]

@WeeWyllie But seriously, you like them?

[WeeWyllie]

@mikicazorla Very good list. Mae West is particularly interesting for she was actually very far from good-looking, and "owed it all" to her shameless adopted raucousness . She and Katherine Hepburn - together with Mary Pickford, perhaps - might be your list leaders, as they shamelessly marched to their own drummers. The rest used their breathtaking beauty in the all-too-familiar ways of getting ahead! BTW, where is the sizzling Lauren Bacall?

[WeeWyllie]

@TZeveRe Wow! You should hold fast to your illusions! Their not "being a slut" owed more to careful image-management and the relative lack, back then, of today's relentless media scrutiny. Two of the traditionally classiest were Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman, who were, in fact, notoriously far from classy! If I know anything of human nature, they were not particularly exceptional! "Real class" - as opposed to the appearance of it - was then as now, in very short supply! 

[mashkaNIKOLAEVNA999]

Vivien Leigh, Ava Gardner, Liz Taylor, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Lauren Becall, Norma Shearer, Katharine and Audrey Hepburn , Bette Davis and Ingrid Bergman..my favorite classical beauties...but where is the great Bette Davis?

[Vesman1]

what about a namelist?

[mikicazorla]

@gatabella3 Hello, I am writing an article about several celebrities and I'm focusing on ten actresses who inspired by their beauty, mystique, talent and because changed the female viewpoint, they are, Mae West, Mary Pickford, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard, Lana Turner, Jean Harlow, Sophia Loren and Marilryn Monroe. I would like to know your opinion of this list. Greetings.

[Sirgreaseflick]

Ava Gardner said to Veronica Lake: "With a face and figure like yours you could start a war." Lake replied: "I believe we are at war; the question is, can a face and figure like mine stop it?" Veronica Lake is said to have been so disarmingly beautiful that she looked as if she had been preserved on ice before each scene: her skin, hair, eyes - everything was perfect and peerless. She was whip-smart, could deliver lines with remarkable deftness...Lake all the way!!!

[SiisiiLovESMJ]

Elizabeth Taylor for me.

[TheDuckMuncher]

RIP LIZ TAYLOR! THE MOST CLASSY AND MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN WHO HAS EVER WALKED THIS EARTH.

[airwavestar]

Lovely photos. Not a big fan of the music though.

[kikiladoucette]

Where is Bette Davis?!