Why Don't You...

Go all out and embrace the caftan lifestyle?  Marisa Berenson certainly did!

Respect

Over at his intriguing little corner of the digital universe, dear Norma has of late been engaged in pointing out the sad results of poor decision-making by a onetime glamour girl. Yes, it's true: the divine Marisa Berenson, if Norma's snaps are to be believed, has vainly sought eternal youth in a doctor's office, and it's not really very pleasant.

Still, I think we can't forget what an extraordinary creature she was in her prime, as here, a vision in orientalische Halston with the whole world ahead of her. There have been few more lovely women in recent decades, and if her film career never went much beyond Cabaret and Barry Lyndon, both of those are in their own ways landmarks in which she is very, very effective.

Here at the Café, Miss B. holds a special place, having been responsible for one of the very first little traffic spikes back eons ago when all of us were mere cyber-tots. Much should be forgiven the fabulous, but the killer combo of trout pout and a forehead as flat and immovable as the Antarctic do try one's patience, if not one's admiration for all that went before...

Searchin'

Over in his part of the world, dear, sweet, demure Shirley will occasionally consult the oracles and review just how it comes to be that people drop on by - that is, what Google queries lead hapless gawkers into his domain.

There have been some classics ("amywinehouse is a strange cow" being about the cleanest one, not to mention one I can wholeheartedly endorse), but few will ever beat the classic simplicity - not to mention the unspoken, heartbreaking yearning on the part of one who would search for - "fat man ballet".

In any case, he has inspired me to rummage around, now that the Café's been up and running for a couple of months, to discover whence come my own Gentlemen Callers.

It's not pretty.

In fact, I would never have dreamed that there were so many people interested in seeing Marisa Berenson nude, which turns out to be the principal leitmotif of strangers popping by.

Other unexpected angles: "princess haya's diet plan" (girl does look good, but all I did was snark about her husband at Ascot), not to mention "history of the cairo rotary club" (sorry, just mentioned in passing that they meet at the divine Gezira Palace while far more characteristically chatting about a French Empress).

But then there's the one that opens up a whole potential world of Hollywood fetishism:

"Miss Colbert" paddle

I'm just not going there. What did poor Claudette ever do to you?

But I will gleefully lead future searchers utterly astray:

Here she is, boys! Here she is, world! Miss Marisa Berenson! Nude, nude, NUDE!

Yes! It's Schiaparelli's grand-daughter, Cabaret's Marisa Berenson!

Oh, yeah, I know it's a scam. But in that headdress, who cares if she's draped in a little chiffon?

Marisa Berenson

Her name just popped into my head this morning...

She wasn't Schiaparelli's grand-daughter for nothing...

It was a bigger career than I remembered...

Aging gracefully

If she had never done anything except this photo, she would still have been fabulous: