More Sophia Loren

Sophia Loren made several movies with another Italian legend, Marcello Mastroianni. Yes, I suppose you could say they were the Hepburn and Tracy of Italy. :-)



The movies they did together include delightful diversions such as Yesterday Today, and Tomorrow and Marriage, Italian Style, along with serious fare like Blood Feud. Their last movie together was Robert Altman's Pret-a-Porte from 1994. Mastroianni died two years later.

One landmark movie of theirs was 1977's A Special Day, directed by Ettore Scola, with whom they worked many times. A Special Day concerned a housewife in Fascist Italy left alone in her apartment while her family goes to see Mussolini and Hitler during the Fuhrer's visit to Rome. She meets a charming, handsome middle-aged tenant who turns out to be gay, and their lives are changed as a result of their brief encounter.

Sophia Loren, Again

I'll be posting pictures of Sophia Loren all week, in honor of her seventy-fifth birthday this month (it's September 20).



Sophia Loren stunned many with her performance in the 1960 Vittorio De Sica film Two Women She won the Oscar an Academy Award for Best Actress, the first major Academy Award for a non-English-language performance.

International stardom brought her roles in the sixties with numerous leading men, from The Millionairess (with Peter Sellers), It Started in Naples (with Clark Gable), 1965's L (with Paul Newman), and the classic 1966 movie Arabesque (with Gregory Peck).

Actress Sophia Loren

Behold, Italy's greatest export.



Sophia Loren was the greatest Italian actress of the twentieth century, and remains one of the greatest living cinema actresses of all time.

Having started out in small roles in Italian movies, she set her sights on Hollywood at an early age and, with roles opposite Cary Grant in Houseboat, Anthony Perkins in Desire Under the Elms, and Charlton Heston in El Cid, became an international star. :-)

Rosaura Lezama

Rosaura Lezama isn't a household name - yet.



Originally from Mexico, she's an occasional model, film student, and filmmaker currently working her portfolio and working as a video producer at a marketing agency called Night Agency in New York. But cinema is her main love.

She's driven and passionate about what she does. She has a great future ahead of her as she lives out the American dream. :-)

This picture was taken by Arthur Eisenberg, an avid photographer and a friend of mine on Facebook, Flickr, and MySpace.

Supermodel Sheila Johnson

Like Beverly Johnson, with whom she shared a last name (but no relation), Sheila Johnson was a top black model of the seventies and early eighties and was fairly ubiquitous - not to mention drop-dead gorgeous. Also, like Beverly Johnson, Sheila Johnson even did a couple of iconic magazine covers.



There the similarities end.

While Beverly Johnson had a more athletic image, Sheila Johnson was more soft and alluring, as evidenced by the picture below, which she did for an ad for Napier jewelry.



This once high-profile model has kept a low profile of late, but she's still an iconic (there's that word again) figure in the modeling world. Those who remember her do so fondly.



Oh, Sheila. . . . :-)

Actress Janet Hubert

Janet Hubert is one of those women for whom the term "striking" was invented. :-)



The Chicago-born stage and television actress first became known for playing Tantomile in the original cast of the Broadway version of Cats, which did not allow her the opportunity to capitalize on her looks. (All of the cast members looked like Kiss's first drummer. :-O)

She achieved fame as Will Smith's Aunt Vivian in the NBC sitcom "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," in which she appeared for the first three seasons. She left when she became pregnant, apparently causing a violation of contract, yet her pregnancy was written into the show. In any case, she was replaced, and so the post-Boomer generation got its own equivalent to the "two Darrins on 'Bewitched'" syndrome.

Janet Hubert has worked steadily in television since, and she plans to publish a memoir in 2010.

Actress Heather Graham

It's hard to believe that Heather Graham has been a Hollywood golden girl since she was nineteen, especially since she's 39 at the time of this posting.



She first gained notice as Nadine in 1989's Drugstore Cowboy. Movies she's done since then include I Love You To Death, Boogie Nights, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Bowfinger, among others.

Not everything Graham touches turns to gold, however. In 2006, she starred in the ABC-TV series "Emily's Reasons Why Not," which should have been titled in the singular person. It only aired for one episode.

Currently she appears in The Hangover.