Birthday Girl: The Pre-Teased Superstar

Well, it's deepest gray and pouring rain here in Our Nation's Capital, and I have to admit that my seasonal funk continues. If anything, though, were to drive away the clouds, I think it would be spending some time, as I've done this afternoon, in the very personable company of today's Birthday Girl.

Medley Madness

It's hard to not to feel at least a little more cheerful in the presence of the divine Josephine, I find. Isn't she just too too too? If you're not grinning helplessly by the Big Finish, I'm not sure we can be friends...

Leave it to Joan, Joan, Joan

A moment with The Greatest Star, just because.

Goodnight, Lady

Ever since the sad news yesterday - that the lovely and gracious Miss Dina Merrill has sailed for Fabulon - I have been looking at and thinking about this picture.

In Her Easter Bonnet

A very happy Easter to all, from me and from this week's birthday girl, the original Star Lady herself, the inimitable and much-missed Miss Ann Miller. Who else would have gone along with this gag, let alone carried it off?

Woman of the World

I was thinking that it was about time for a Garbo moment, but then I heard (thank you, TJB!) that this remarkable creature would have turned 85 today. What better reason for an Elizabeth moment?

And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor!

Another fine consumer product in the people's paradise. Estée Lauderovna, now available in all the fashionable new hues for 1975 - dun, dung, dim, dank, and mauve.

Of Love and Broccoli, or, How I Spent My Tuesday

So not all that long ago, I was chatting cybernetically with the frenetically cultured, enormously soigné TJB (who really must be encouraged, sternly, to write more for public consumption), and he recommended a specific movie, available on YouTube, that I really must see.  I filed it away.

Or thought I did.

A Shady Dame Sings a Song

Because I am spending this weekend doing everything possible to avoid thinking about politics in any way, shape or form, here's a rich little gem from Peggy Lee, going Latin with a vengeance.

I... Like... Lucy?

America's best-loved redhead would have been 105 today.

Veiled Threat

So to cheer myself up, I've been reading about Diane Arbus.

Birthday Girl: It was a Party

We need a little cheering up hereabouts, and who better to take on that daunting task than today's birthday girl, the heavenly Miss Ann Miller?

Baubles, Bangles...

...and Swede.

For no good reason, other than that it's February-cold, midwinter-damp, and just generally a tad dreary, this seems like the kind of week that might require a Garbo moment. And so let's have one.

Meanwhile, in Morocco

This stunning image, Irving Penn's 1951 snap of model Lisa Fonssagrives at a palace in Morocco, appeared in this morning's throwaway free paper, in among the sports scores and banal headlines, and my whole day has been the better for it.

Portrait of a Lady

No, this one I didn't see at the National Portrait Gallery.  But, if the price is right, it could be yours - it's up for auction on e-Bay.

She May Have 99 Problems...

...but at least this year Joan Fontaine isn't one of them.  Many happy returns on her 99th to the one and only Miss Olivia de Havilland.  I hope that she's up for a little celebration; Paris, after all, is lovely this time of year.  As, I'm sure, is she.

Whatever Happened to Finnan Haddie?

Here to celebrate this festive day we have an old familiar number in what I imagine is a rather unfamiliar setting.  As Mr. Cole Porter rolls in his grave, the one and only Miss Violetta Villas and her Double-Knit Dancers give us their interpretation of "My Heart Belongs to Daddy."

Yesterday, When They Were Young

A swirling combination of furs, cigarettes, cocktails, mascara, and long, searching glances - this extraordinary combination of Pre-Code clips and the music of Florence + the Machine combines as well as anything I've ever seen to answer the question:  Why does one so love film?

Arrivederci...

2015 is really shaping up to be a bad year for legends, isn't it?  Miss Rainer would seem, as the old year passed, to have set the tone, and today we say goodbye to Miss Anita Ekberg, seen here defining "fierce" in a casual little snap by that sweet beacon of innocence and sunshine, Mr. Helmut Newton.

Let it Go

With the latest sad news from Los Angeles, it's clear that St. Zsa Zsa is a sort of modern-day Job.  One can only hope she doesn't know.