Style Icons: Female »Anna May Wong

Hollywood’s First Chinese Film Star

Anna May Wong was a fashionable, determined and talented beauty who managed to forge a career as a Chinese American in a less than tolerant decade (“miscegenation” laws, which banned interracial marriage and sex – barred her from even having on screen kisses with non-Chinese actors).

While she was often only playing stereotypical roles of dragon ladies or demure obedient women, off screen she was daring and non-shrinking violet. She was a stylish and sophisticated woman who was called “The World’s best-dressed woman” to the public’s shock by the Mayfair Mannequin Society of New York. She was good friends with other independent women like Marlene Dietrich and the controversial Leni Riefenstahl.

One of her most famous films, Piccadilly received new attention and praise when it was re-released after a restoration by the British Film Institute. This week’s website pick, Refinery 29 has a gallery of images.

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Posted on October 13, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Asia Argento

Sexed Up

I seem to have a soft spot for husky voiced little tough girls of privilege. I used to enjoy an occasional game of Scrabble with one back in Austin.She was scrappy and beautiful in an asexual way and she was constantly getting on or coming off prescription drugs and always teetered on the edge of something.Her tattered, semi-dangerous existence and my safe, relatively boring one fit together oddly but nicely.

Frequently nude actress Asia Argento reminds me of that old friend. I saw her once on the subway and at first glace I thought she was just another French teenage boy until a fan boy began fawning over her father–the famed and formerly absolutely genius horror maestro, Dario. It was very exciting once I realized who she was and since then, she’s become more famous in the US so when I tell people about my brush with fame, they actually know who I’m talking about. Unfortunately she’s got the Vin Diesel vehicle xXx and The Land of the Dead to thank for that. And about seven thousand naked photos.

Aside from having a famous body and tattoos, she is a strikingly good actress, usually the only spark of vitality and fascination in an otherwise boring movie (Marie Antoinette, anyone?)?Right now she’s starring in The Last Mistress and, while it’s reported that she was a nightmare on set, word has it she gives an outrageously great performance.

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Posted on August 4, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Molly Ringwald

Oh So Pretty in Pink

Honestly who of my generation didn’t grow up relating to Molly Ringwald? She was a teen heroine we could relate to. She was awkward and imperfect but smart and funny. I don’t know if girls today really relate to the shallow porniness of a Paris Hilton or the ragged party hardiness Lindsay Lohan or even the kinder, gentler sluttiness of Miley Cyrus (oh, and I am not talking about the Annie Leibowitz photograph, but rather the tart teen pop star image she walks around as every day that no one seems phased by.)

It’s hard to say if a pale, realistic teen like Ringwald would find a place in today’s environment, and if not – is it executive decisions or have teen girls just changed? Who knows. Perhaps these are bigger questions than my style icon of the week entry deserves.

Let’s just remember the fabulousness of Molly Ringwald, Sam Baker, Claire Standish, Andie Walsh?The girl who made her own prom dress, who gave a nerd her panties, who could put her lipstick on without using her hands, the girl that always got the kind of kiss we as red blooded American teens and pre teens always wished and hoped would be in our future.

“Make a wish” “It already came true”. Sigh.

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Posted on June 30, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Bea Arthur

Maude, Dorothy Zbornak

Bea Arthur (born Bernice Frankel) is best known (and loved) for playing outspoken, ground breaking characters. Often described as “acidic”, “flippant” and “worldly, Arthur’s two primary television roles put the kind of women who rarely see the light of network TV (smart, cynical, over 40 and not desperate–sometimes with significant shoulder padding) in the spotlight.

Her extremely long and successful career began on stage with a hit adaptation of Threepenny Opera in 1954, not long after that she understudied the great Tallulah Bankhead in the Ziegfeld Follies. She worked as a night club singer and appeared in bit parts on tons of variety shows; Burgess Meredith directed her in an adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses–where she first met Carroll O’Connor; but her biggest Broadway hits came in the mid ’60s: as the matchmaker in Fiddler on the Roof and in Mame.

Norman Lear finally cajoled her onto All in the Family in 1971 as Edith’s cousin Maude. Her character was so well liked that Lear spun off a series (the same way he’d similarly spun-off the Jeffersons) based on her character. The show was wildly popular and extremely topical: in the most infamous two-episode plot arch, Maude decides to have an abortion. Arthur won an Emmy and the show ran for 6 years–Bea decided to call it quits, it was not cancelled.

Not much later she turned up in the notoriously ill-fated, Wookie-centric 1978 Star Wars Christmas Special as a singing canitna manager.

Bea came back to prime time television as Dorothy in the Golden Girls in 1985, a sitcom I’m so sure you’re familiar with, I’m not even going to describe the premise. After seven years of being a friend, Bea chose to leave to the show and since then she’s stayed fairly busy. Her one woman show, “And Then There’s Bea” came through Austin when we were living there in back 2001, both Jim and Mike really wanted to go, but tickets sold out pretty quickly.

More recently, she played Larry David’s mother on Curb Your Enthusiasm–and she starred in this Sex and the City parody.

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Posted on June 16, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Jeanne Moreau

Gorgeous French Moviestar

The vision of Jeanne Moureau that I will always have in my mind is her graceful and gorgeous face in a mirror, teaching a hit woman how to apply make up. The movie is La Femme Nikita, and it is the first time I laid eyes on the glorious Moureau. Since then, I have become more familiar with her other work, though I have really only scratched the surface of a prolific and accomplished career.

It all began when Louis Malle cast this a rare and legendary beauty in the tense and taut noir Elevator to the Gallows. The moment her face was cast on the screen, she was a star. Every director wanted to work with her and Michelangelo Antonioni, Orson Welles, Francois Truffaut, Luis Bunuel, and Jean-Luc Godard all did. Malle and Truffaut also dated her as did Lee Marvin, Marcello Mastrioanni, Pierre Cardin, and William Friedkin.

I am most eager to see her in Truffaut’s adaptation of Cornell Woolrich‘s The Bride Wore Black, part of his “black” series which included Rendezvous in Black.

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Posted on June 9, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Caroline Munro

B Movie Goddess

Caroline Munro starred in the Italian Star Wars rip off (or more appropriately Star Wars unintentional parody) called Starcrash. It’s compared to Plan 9 From Outer Space and the French absolutely love it.

She plays interstellar hero, Stella who’s companions are a muppety looking floppy haired dude named Akton and a man in a mask meant to pass as a robot with, I swear, a foghorn leghorn accent. Not only does he posses said horrifying accent, but he talks incessantly throughout the movie, like a toddler mixed with a cartoon. One time he has to inform everyone that “oops, I’m stuck in my seat belt”. It’s meant to be comic relief, but I got the sneaking suspicion that even though this movie stole ideas from the original Star Wars, Lucas may have taken a few cues from here for the first trilogy of the saga. It’s worth checking out even if you see it while fast forwarding.

Still Munro rocks as Stella, she’s cheesy and fun and gorgeous. Just like she was as the Bond Girl, Naomi in The Spy Who Loved Me. She also has an impressive career as a Hammer horror girl. And as my friend Matthew learned when he had the opportunity to see her speak, she has a great attitude about her campy and fantastic career. She’s one of the greatest B Movie stars ever.

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Posted on May 19, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Rinko Kikuchi

Actress with Style

Like many current stars who’s style I admire, Rinko Kikuchi has sadly made the pages of Go Fug Yourself. I love those bitchy girls, but sometimes they just have no vision for quirky style.

And Kikuchi is constantly studded out in unique, odd ball ensembles that I adore. I also think she is one of the most beautiful actresses working today, despite never seeing her in a film. That’s right, I never saw Babel and I don’t ever want to.

She of the neon dresses and exquisite bone structure will be starring in The Brother’s Bloom written and directed by Rian Johnson (of Brick fame) so maybe soon I can become a Rinko Kikuchi fan on the big screen as well as the red carpet.

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Posted on May 12, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Renee Soutendijk

Verhoeven Muse

If you haven’t seen Rene Soutendijk as a hot French fry girl in Spetters, you just don’t understand how hot a French fry girl can be.

Any muse of Verhoeven is a muse of mine.

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Posted on April 28, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Isabelle Huppert

Daring Actress

Isabelle Huppert is one of the world’s most alluring and daring actresses. Not daring because she puts on a fake nose, or plays old with a grey streak in her hair (sadly, I can’t find the final scene of a Beautiful Mind on You Tube), but because she’s always choosing challenging and demanding roles with some of cinema’s most controversial directors.

It’s no surprise that she’s starred in two of Michael Haneke’s films, both with devastating pathos and quiet intensity–she’s is also phenominal in Bertrand Tavernier’s adaptation of Jim Thompson‘s Pop. 1280, Coup De Tourchon. In America, she has only starred in a handful of films, and those choices are just as oddbally as the rest of her career: among them is a role as a lover of Steve Guttenberg‘s (!) and her US debut was in Michael Cimino’s notorious bomb Heaven’s Gate.

She’s a fascinating and stunning woman.

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Posted on April 14, 2008

Style Icons: Female »Karen Allen

She and Mr. Jones

It’s no easy task to steal the show from a sweaty Harrison Ford with a whip, but Karen Allen managed to do it. Her tough shot drinking contest scene, and the one where he rips her dress to fend off the snakes are priceless.

She was the kind of heroine you could really get behind and admire. Fun, adventurous, intelligent, independent, cute and likeable, Allen is the type of actress that is ten times harder to find than the millions of carbon copy beautiful, thin, boring types you see all the time.

While she has been underused and often absent from the screen for a while, get psyched to see her return to the Indiana Jone franchise this summer. In the meantime, she’s gone all out on her passion for knitting and runs her own textile company.

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Posted on March 3, 2008