Penelope Cruz

Penelope Cruz

The greatest Spanish export since the guitar, Penelope always brings a zest for life into her performance, and has rarely done a film you can’t enjoy. Classic Mediterranean dark looks, pouty lips, terrific body she doesn’t mind exposing, she’s become one of the sexiest film stars alive – just ask former bf Tom Cruise and current bf Oscar-winner Javier Bardem.

Most first saw her with Cruise in the Cameron Crowe film Vanilla Sky, but this was a remake of the Spanish film Open Your Eyes that she starred in; the first actress to play the same part in a remake? I saw her earlier as the youngest daughter in Like Water for Chocolate (1993). However, I like her more (so do the critics) in the films of Pedro Almodovar, notably her Oscar-nominated role in Volver; and she did a great dance to Kung Fu Fighting in Don’t Tempt Me, so check out all her Spanish films as well. Let’s hope she gets the Oscar this year for Woody's Vicky Christina Barcelona.

Marlon Brando

Marlon Brando [Film God 1]

Brando burst into film and gave acting a new style (method) for the next half a century. He seemed to embody smoldering angst, threatening to burst open at any moment in a volcano of emotion, yet on the surface he appeared confident enough that he 'had the world on a string'. He became an icon to the nation in the biker movie The Wild One (1953), photo rt. and dig the high-heels, as leader of a motorcycle gang that takes over Hollister, Ca. When a local asks, "Hey, son, what are you rebelling against?", Brando replies "what cha got?". He then dazzled everyone in A Streetcar Named Desire, yet was the only cast member of four to NOT win an Oscar, which he got a couple of years later for On the Waterfront ("I coulda been a contenda.")


He aged quite well for awhile, as his next Oscar winning role in Frances Coppola's The Godfather (1972) proved. After that he became the unofficial taster for Haagen-Daas, and showed up for Apocalypse Now! in 1979 so overweight that Coppola had to shoot him at night and mostly just head shots. He did make a film comeback as a parody of his godfather role in The Freshman, a comedy in which he played a mafia don to Matthew Broderick's title role.


You get one actor of this magnitude in your lifetime, and you don't realize it until there's just no one as 'large' half a century later. It's almost as if he escaped from the big screen and descended into our lives like the characters in Woody's Purple Rose of Cairo, becoming part of the cultural lexicon. I suppose a lot of Brando's strength came from his good looks, and not from his script selection as his early career was never matched again for the power of those films.
He even did a musical about gangsters, Guys and Dolls (above rt.), with Frank Sinatra, and his singing wasn't too bad; then a pedestrian remake of Mutiny on the Bounty, which featured his Polynesian wife as his romance in the movie (see below).He later OD'd by "hoggin the daas" (as Apu said in the Simpsons), had to have his stomach pumped, and said "I'm beyond my art, and sex, all I have left is my gluttony."



The photo left is from The Godfather, during which Brando stuck marbles in his cheeks to help make that voice. The photo right is from his early days as an acting student in New York at Actor's Studio.

[After seeing the early Brando pictures, I decided to not ignore male beauty on this blogsite in spite of its title, so expect more film gods: Paul Newman, Burt Lancaster, Brad Pitt, Hrithik Roshan from India, maybe even Valentino!]

Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo

Perhaps the most popular and enduring screen goddess, the Swedish born Garbo had a timeless beauty that seems to transcend all eras. She has such a warm, friendly face that she seems to combine all the warmest qualities of friend and lover. She also had the grace to retire from the screen when young and beautiful.

This photo is a rare early one from the mid 20's. She started in silent films, with racy titles like Flesh and the Devil, then learned English when talkies came and was one of a few stars to successfully make that transition, and became the leading screen goddess of the 30's. She broke many hearts when she retired early in New York City, when a Garbo sighting was rare and a media event.

Dominique Sanda

Dominique Sanda

Dominique was born Dominique Marie-Françoise Renée Varaigne in Paris, in 1948. She appeared in some major award winning European films such as Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970), and De Sica’s Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971).
Unfortunately for us, she didn't make very many films, and for some unknown reason, finding info and pics of her is not too easy, she’s more unforgettable to some of us than the world at large apparently.

Catherine Deneuve

Catherine Deneuve

French actress Deneuve was born in 1943 to two actors, so the cinema came naturally to her and she started making films in the 60's. The most famous were Roman Polanski's Repulsion and Belle Du Jour,
(color photo) in which she played a bored housewife who spent her days in a high-class brothel.
She has aged very gracefully and is still quite beautiful, and became a much better actress over time, getting an Oscar nomination for best actress in Indochine (1992).
I just realized how much Elizabeth Montgomery of Bewitched resembles Deneuve.

Michelle Pfeiffer

Michelle Pfeiffer

Michelle started out stunning, but in a bad films. She then grew even more beautiful, began acting for real, and moved up to great films, like her Oscar-nominated performance as a moralistic preacher's wife in Dangerous Liaisons, and Scorsese's Age of Innocence.
Married to tv writer/creator David Kelly (L.A. Law, Ally McBeal, Boston Legal), she almost certainly influenced those shows. We can only hope that her career is not even half done, and that an Oscar awaits.

Kim Basinger

Kim Basinger

Kim was born in Athens, GA, and I lived there for 8 years – she was only three yrs younger, but I never saw her – bummer! At least I can claim her and Holly Hunter as “fellow Athenians”, two Oscar winners! (Georgia has many: Joanne Woodward, Julia Roberts, Geraldine Paige are others). She started as a model and cover girl, appearing in Playboy, before turning to a film career. She took acting classes, was once a “Bond Girl” (in Never Say Never Again, opposite Sean Connery), later as the romantic interest in Batman, and a very sexy woman in Nine ½ Weeks, with the most erotic food scene in film.

She later married actor Alec Baldwin, and eventually won an Oscar in 1997 for her role as a high-priced call girl in L.A. Confidential, where she purposely resembled 40’s movie queen Veronica Lake and fit the part perfectly. When older, she played Eminem’s mother in 8 Mile. She’s aged very well, in the photo from Bless the Child (2000, photo left), she’s 47 yrs young.
She and Alec were on the Simpsons, and when their cabin caught fire, Alec wanted to save his Golden Globe award, and she said “don’t worry about it, its not a real award”.