The Perfect Profile

Grace Kelly...

Via here

Golightly

Holly - from all-time fav Breakfast At Tiffany's...

Via here

Brigitte Bardot (II)

Ten minutes into Vadim's And God Created Women, it becomes clear. No one else could have played sex-starved Juliette better than Bardot. With sensuality oozing from every pore, and an unbridled appetite for pleasure, the young Juliette shakes up all of St. Tropez, much to the chagrin of her long suffering husband. Not surprisingly, Bardot would become an overnight sensation and the very definition of the South of France.

Poster pin-up beauty aside, she was also known for having caught the attention of French intellectuals, not excluding Simone de Beauvoir who made her the subject of the 1959 essay, "The Lolita Syndrome", in which she described Bardot as the "Locomotive of Women's History". She went on to pronounce her the first and most liberated woman of post-war France.

Today, Bardot continues making waves as a staunch animal welfare activist and outspoken critic on several pertinent issues. She has gone as far as to call vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin, "stupid" and a "disgrace to women", evidently deeply troubled by Palin's stance on global warming, gun control and her indifference to the protection of polar bears...

And the following lesser-known images of BB in her heyday, courtesy of Life...

Cannes, 1953

Cannes

Shopping in Rome

A young Bardot in 1956

Bardot watches Pablo Picasso at work in 1956 (Cannes Film Festival)

A scene from En Effeuillant la Marguerite.

Bardot and third husband Gunter Sachs leave Maxim's restaurant in Paris in 1967.

Images via Life, Piccsy, Escapade, Villainouslyvintage, Fabforgottennobility and Pinterest

Natalie Wood

If there was ever a true natural beauty, it was Natalie Wood. One of those effortlessly beautiful girls - the type that wakes up in the morning looking perfectly exquisite. Unlike moi, who needs a good hour of preening to rid myself of the just-been-punched-in-both-eyes look.

The case surrounding her 'accidental drowning' (surely one of the top googled stories of late) is being re-opened after 30 years. Regardless of the outcome, it is tragic that she died so young. In 1981, she famously remarked: "I've always been terrified, still am, of water - dark water or sea water, or river water or whatever."

Here are some touchingly candid, unpublished photos of Wood, as a child and later while shooting films like Splendor in the Grass and Rebel Without A Cause...

At 6 years old

Note - a photograph of Orson Welles on the piano

Photo by Ralph Crane

With Dennis Hopper and Nick Adams

Reading to Hopper and Adams

Inside a gallery at Warner Bros.

Hopper and Adams in the rafters

Possibly talking to Elvis...

Unrecognized in a skid row eatery, LA

1960, Beverly Hills

Getting ready for the Academy Awards, 1962

She was nominated for an Oscar for Splendor in the Grass

With Warren Beatty at the Oscars

1963, With Steve McQueen

Lighting up with Steve McQueen

With Warren Beatty, 1961

All images from LIFE

Marisa Berenson

Moving into territory somewhat more escapist - who knew that Marisa Berenson's grandmother was none other than Elsa Schiaparelli - "the Italian-born designer with Medici blood who transformed the fashion landscape with her antics and Surrealist designs." It is well worth reading the Hamish Bowles article about Berenson, describing the highlights of her career and personal escapades, which include being on the receiving end of Andy Warhol's Polaroid flash, and finding herself on a spiritual journey that took her to an ashram with the Beatles in the sixties...

 Images from Marisa Berenson: A Life in Pictures (Rizzoli) via Vogue

Jean Seberg

What do Jean Seberg and Baltimore have in common? As an expat living in Paris, she was deeply indebted to a girl in Baltimore who periodically sent her large jars of peanut butter... a commodity she longed for while in France.

A prolific actress (let me tell you, it is pretty impressive to have completed 37 films before one's 40th birthday), there is still much controversy surrounding her life and death - especially due to the fact that she become active in left wing political groups in the late 1960's. She, (along with Jane Fonda) especially supported the revolutionary leftist organization, The Black Panthers. This caught the attention of J. Edgar Hoover who considered her a genuine liability. In an attempt to have her 'neutralised', it is reported that the FBI ran a smear campaign - fabricating a letter which implied that the father of her child was not her husband, but rather a member of the Black Panthers. The resulting scandal caused her to give birth prematurely to a stillborn child. The story goes that at a press conference, she presented the flabbergasted reporters with her dead baby. The act, while extreme, put paid to the rumors. But the FBI continued to pursue her relentlessly, until she moved to Paris.

Tragically, Jean Seberg was prone to bouts of deep depression. She tried to take her own life on each subsequent anniversary of her infant child's death. She even threw herself in front of one of the trains in the Metro and just survived. Finally, in 1979, she went missing in Paris and was found eleven days later in the backseat of her car, allegedly having committed suicide. 

Seberg was buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris, her funeral was attended by the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, who now share a grave just metres away...

À bout de souffle, (Hôtel de Suède, Paris) taken by Raymond Cauchetier, 1959

Jean-Luc Godard, right, directing Jean-Paul Belmando and Jean Seberg in “Breathless.”

And one color photograph...

Images via here, here, here, here, here, here and The New York Times

Notes via here