French actress Clotilde Courau

Clotilde Courau got a great deal in her native France at the age of 22 for her acting in Le petit criminel in 1991. She won a César award (the French equivalent of an Oscar) as Most Promising Actress.

Today she goes by another title: Clotilde, Princess of Venice and Piedmont. She married Emanuele Filberto di Savoia, Prince of Venice and Piedmont, in September 2003. Emanuele Filberto is a grandson of the last king of Italy. So Clotilde Courau - not Catherine Deneuve - is technically the French Grace Kelly. ;-)

Courau's movies from the nineties included Map of The Human Heart (1993) and Milk (1999, not to be confused with the Harvey Milk bio of the same name). She has continued working since becoming a real-life princess, with suich films as 2008's Modern Love.

American audiences know of her best - if they know of her at all - as Katie in the Hollywood film Deterrence.

Minnesota State Senator Tarryl Clark

Tarryl Clark, an accomplished Minnesota politician, is Mary Richards incarnate, a bright and eager woman with heartland charm and appeal. But that's not why I'm featuring her here.

She represents District 15 in Minnesota's state Senate. But that's not the reason I'm featuring her here.

She's involved with many charities and community activist groups. But that's not why I have her on this blog.

No, the reason I'm featuring Ms. Clark, a distinguished gentlewoman from the Land of 10,000 Lakes, is because she is the Democratic candidate opposing the Republican representing Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District in the House of Representatives . . . the horrible Michele Bachmann!

The Democrats are expected to lose a bunch of seats in the House this year and possible control of the House altogether. But if Tarryl Clark can unseat Bachmann in the meantime - if she can arrange it so that at least the Democrats, if they must go down, can take Bachmann with them - that would be more than great.

It would be beautiful. Just beautiful. :-)

Go here for more information about her campaign.

Supermodel Elsa Benitez

In a television commercial for some fast food chain - does it really matter which? - Mexican model Elsa Benitez walks by a group of teenage boys and says, "Hi, guys!" The boys swoon.

Believe me, they weren't acting. :-D

Elsa Benitez came from Hermosillo, the capital of the Mexican state of Sonora. There aren't many women's magazines she hasn't appeared on the covers of - among those whose covers she has graced are Vogue, Elle, Glamour, and Marie Claire - and she also appeared in Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, causing many more teenage boys to swoon. :-)

Actress Bess Armstrong

In a perfect world, Bess Armstrong would be having a distinguished acting career and have a trophy case full of Oscars. At least that's the impression I got from her performance as a trophy wife in the 1981 Alan Alda movie The Four Seasons. I thought it would lead to such a career.

However, fate - or the Muses or some Hollywood executive or whoever the heck guides these things - dictated that she merely be an ubiquitous character actress rather than a star. Too bad. People don't realize how much talent she has.

While Bess Armstrong has done several movies since 1981 - the adventure movie High Road to China and the comedy-drama Nothing In Common are two of her better-known ones - she's mostly been on television, most notably as Sara Sheffield on the sitcom "The Nanny" and as Patty Chase on the critically acclaimed but low-rated "My So-Called Life." She's also been in several TV movies, as well as the 1997 version of Walt Disney's That Darn Cat.

The Latest Numbers

As of now, I have posted pictures of 367 different women on this blog.

Of course, the number of pictures is much bigger. I lost count of that long ago! :-D

More are to come. Soon.

The Beauty of Retrospect: A Very Special Catherine Deneuve Post!

Only a fashion designer whose father is one of the greatest rock stars of all time could have made this photographic opportunity possible.

That's right, that's French actress and cinematic and fashion icon Catherine Deneuve at right with Paul McCartney and his daughter Stella. The most beautiful woman in the world got her picture taken with a Beatle. :-)

Oh yeah, the Beatles song "Michelle" - about a Frenchwoman - was Paul's. :-D

Photographers live for opportunities like this! My hat's off to the celebrity photographer who got this one.

The Beauty of British Song: Kim Wilde

Wilde about Kim? :-)

Kim Wilde, the daughter of British 1950s rock and roller Marty Wilde, first came to people's attention with her single "Kids In America," a song that's regrettably been turned into a commercial jingle of late. It hit number two in the United Kingdom in 1981 and reached number 25 in the United States a year later. With the release of her second album, Select, in the U.S., the pop press predicted a bright future for her with the very kids in America she sang about, but that didn't happen for reasons that boiled down to a single-named Yankee pop tart stealing her thunder.

Major success in America finally came for Wilde in 1987 with a cover of the Supremes classic "You Keep Me Hangin' On," a song she later admitted she wasn't familiar with - generation gap, perhaps - but that lack of familiarity allowed her to put her own spin on it. (Not as good a spin as on Vanilla Fudge's cover, though. ;-)) It hit number one in the U.S.

Although her 1988 album Close gave her four big hits in Europe - "Hey Mr. Heartache," You Came," "Never Trust a Stranger," and "Four Letter Word" - she was unable to repeat her success in the States. She remains active in pop music, though, and her eleventh studio album, Come Out and Play, is being released in August 2010.

And so we leave the little town of London, as this concludes my series on beautiful female British pop singers. :-)