The vinyl hunting continues; I am currently having most luck in East Anglia, so thank you very much East Anglia! Six quid seems steep for a 12inch, unless you know who Noosha Fox is. In case you have never heard the song before, here’s a rare Noosha performance:
Scanned from the back cover
Rosalind Russell wore this soft grey georgette evening dress with cross-draped bodice, for The Velvet Touch.
[Proving that nostalgia is nothing new…]
You are forgiven if you think the pictures on these pages are fashion circa 1971. In a sense, they are; but in fact, these are original Hollywood – the clothes of the stars, people like Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Olivia de Havilland, Jean Seberg, Shirley Temple — worn in their films, coming up for a gala auction at Sotheby’s Pantechnicon in Motcomb Street at 7pm on December 1.
The man who made it possible is Michael Fish — Mr Fish, no less — who bought the whole collection of 30s, 40s and 50s creations from Max Berman & Son of Hollywood, and is putting them to auction in aid of Immigrant Community Services. So you could help to provide a new children’s playground in Brixton, say, while treating yourself to a great fashion original . . . like Jane Russell’s navy pleated chiffon coat over crepe culottes ; Bonita Granville’s pink chiffon dress with Alencon lace and fine pleating; not to mention the original mini worn by Betty Hutton in Annie Get Your Gun.
Patrick Procktor is contributing to the programme for Mr Fish’s ‘frock fantasy’. Ossie Clark’s sensational model, Gala, will wear some of the clothes, as she did for us in company with Barbara Trentham. Make-up here by Barbara Daly; hair by Smile; location, Mr Paul Hamlyn’s house.
Square-shouldered 40s suits, as worn by Maureen O’Hara and Ginger Rogers.
Agnes Moorehead starred in this vampy black crepe dress with sequins and a matching shoulder cape fastened with jet.
Spotting old Joanna Lumley modelling shots could become an addictive pastime, and yet I keep forgetting to scan them in when I see them. No longer! From October 1968.
I’m not sure I know anyone who has inhibitions about jersey, but perhaps it was a big social problem in the 1960s?
…were born on exactly the same day, in exactly the same year. When I first discovered this factoid, I was genuinely taken aback. Natalie Wood seems like she comes from an entirely different era to Diana Rigg. But I now realise this is more of a perception problem on my part, mainly because Wood died so young and became famous much earlier; some of the similarities in these photos are seriously spooky.
Happy birthday ladies, you deserve a picture spam!
Michel Piccoli and Brigitte Bardot in Le Mepris (1963)
Brigitte and companion in Cannes, circa 1953
Brigitte rocking the headscarf look here, in an unusual candid shot.
I can’t help but love her as a brunette. Her very early period (seen here) and her later Sixties, early Seventies looks are my favourites. I resisted the Bardot love for a long while because it seemed such a cliché. I mean, who doesn’t cite her as an inspiration? But she’s a hard one to fight…
Scanned from Woman’s Mirror, May 1962
Years ago, in my hardcore Diana Rigg-memorabilia-collecting phase, I noticed and coveted a copy of Woman’s Mirror from 1966 with La Rigg on the front cover. I’ve only seen it this one time, on eBay, and it went way out of my price range. And considering I paid £30 for the Sunday Times magazine which featured John Bates’s designs for Diana, it must have been very steep for me to have not won it.
I mentioned it to Mr Brownwindsor a few weeks back, for some reason I can’t recall. I say mentioned, it may have been more like a moan. Wahhhh, poor me, I want this magazine, blah blah. The only difference now was that I am considerably more interested in the John Bates article it contains, than the Rigg one!
A few days after this, he mentioned having seen some copies of Woman’s Mirror in Snooper’s Paradise in Brighton. Spooky! No sign of the coveted issue (what would be the chances?) but definitely worth having a look in case there might be other interesting articles. So we mooched along on the Bank Holiday Monday. Had a look at some other issues of Woman’s Mirror, Woman’s Realm, Woman, Women!, Womanly, Women’s Troubles….etc etc. Then M noticed there were some more magazines in a glass cabinet. I look up, and there it is. Diana Rigg, with cut-out dotted line. THE issue. All other issues had been £3, surely this would be much more. But no. £3 it was.
I am a very happy lady, and I will be scanning/writing up the John Bates interview in due course.
My most recent Lovefilm rental was a film I’ve been dying to see for years: Two for the Road starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney. I can safely say that it did not disappoint and I remain baffled as to why it wasn’t more successful at the time, or why it hasn’t been re-evaluated as a classic in the years since. I suppose it is mainly a lack of familiarity; when was the last time it was shown on’t’telly?
One reviewer explained the possible contemporary drawback that Audrey Hepburn was a much more established Hollywood star in 1967, and someone like Albert Finney would have seemed a terrible upstart to have equal billing opposite her. It doesn’t help that his character is a dominant, aggressive, opinionated Alpha male, and she is as delicately beautiful and softly spoken as always. That isn’t to say that her character is a washout, far from it, but in analysing a marriage across its entire lifespan, you will certainly see the worst sides of both parties. And the phrase ‘a bit of an arse’ was created precisely for a man like Mark Wallace.
The rhythm of the film is deliciously undulating and swervy, which is dictated by the fact that it is a road movie and that it switches between several different time periods through its entirety. You see how the couple first meet, how they fall in love, how they survive youthful poverty, pregnancy, the changing fortunes of their lives (and how these, perversely, make them unhappier), their dalliances, how they seem to be falling out of love. In fact, it shows every nuance of a complex relationship in snippy vignettes from several holidays, each involving a long journey across France. You never see their home, but you really don’t notice and certainly don’t need to.
It is also notable for Hepburn’s wardrobe, which is provided by a host of swinging young designers (Foale and Tuffin, Mary Quant, Paco Rabanne, Ken Scott etc…) and perfectly places each time period. You know where you are when her hair is long, and her beatnik jumper is red, or when her hair is perfectly coiffed into a Vidal Sassoon cut and her clothes are mod perfection.
You’ll laugh, if you’re anything like me you’ll cry, and you’ll fall ever more in love with Audrey and Albert. There’s even an early Jacqueline Bisset appearance. Definitely a ‘must see’, in my opinion.
Marianne Faithfull in Ossie Clark, by David Redfern 1973.
She looks so sad here, and this contrasts in a perversely beautiful way with the most exquisite Ossie Clark dress she’s wearing. I’ve been listening to her a fair bit lately and she often makes me snivel in public. A feat managed only by a handful of people…
Judy and Sally Geeson
…never were there such devoted sisters…. I only have brothers so I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have a sister. I always wanted one when I was younger, mainly because my brothers seemed like a pain in the backside a lot of the time (as I’m sure I was to them). Although I love them both dearly, they always had each other and I felt deprived of such a partner in crime. But I guess I’ve also benefitted from never having that kind of competitiveness. This post is pretty much just an excuse to post pictures of a few glamorous famous sisters…
Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac
Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave
Loretta Young, Sally Blane and Polly Ann Young
Patricia and Rosanna Arquette
Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave
Loretta Young and Sally Blane
Jackie and Joan Collins
Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac
Jenny and Pattie Boyd
Lillian and Dorothy Gish
Olivia De Havilland and Joan Fontaine
Joan and Jackie Collins
Jenny and Pattie Boyd
Joan Fontaine and Olivia De Havilland
Liz Eggleston 