George’s Journal’s fifth birthday party: fifty years of terrific talent (1950-99)

 

Purr-fect pals: Audrey Hepburn’s greatest animal chum in real-life may have been her Yorkshire Terrier Mr Famous, but in her guise as Holly Golightly, there was only ever one feline friend for her 

Can you believe it? Frankly, I can’t – the thought of it only reminds yours truly how time flies; how the present becomes the past (mind you, that whimsical, somewhat memorialistic thinking of what’s been is arguably what this blog’s all about). Anyway, yes, can you believe it? George’s Journal is celebrating its fifth anniversary. That’s right, it’s been around these parts for five years – a whole half-decade; a full semi-dectet. And such an occurrence requires suitably marking, doesn’t it? Well, forgive me, peeps, for this post is verily it.

Yes, following on from previous anniversary-acknowledging efforts (see here, here and here), this year offers up a pictorial saluting to oh-so ‘talented’ and lovely looking ladies of years past – across 50 years past, in fact: 1950-99, no less. Indeed, one for each of those 50 years. Now, the eagle-eyed among you (that is, those who are more than casual visitors to this blog) may notice this is a suspiciously similar idea to last year’s birthday blog post. My answer? Well, let’s be honest, this nook of the Internet’s never really been about reinventing the wheel, so why spoil the habit of a blog’s lifetime (so far)?

So, here we go then, let us, each and every one of us, welcome each and every one of the following new entrants into the ‘Talent’ corner of George’s Journal…

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CLICK
on the images for full-size

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1950 ~ Anita Ekberg

Making waves this year for: taking the Miss Sweden crown and, via the Miss Universe competition, gaining international exposure that will see her swiftly become a global film star and eventually lead to an unforgettable appearance in La Dolce Vita (1960)

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1951 ~ Vivien Leigh

Making waves this year for: taking on the second great screen role of her career – Blanche du Bois in A Streetcar Named Desire, which will see her cruise to Oscar victory the following year

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1952 ~ Cyd Charisse

Making waves this year for: becoming an overnight sensation thanks to her break-out role as the once-seen-never-ever-forgotten dancer opposite Gene Kelly in Singin’ In The Rain’s fantasy sequence

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1953 ~ Maria Callas

Making waves this year for: hitting her career high as she drops several pounds to take on the svelter figure that – by her own admission – improves her performances as the ultimate opera diva

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1954 ~ Judy Garland

Making waves this year for: fifteen years on from Dorothy, becoming a musical cinema icon all over again in A Star Is Born, featuring her indelibly memorable torch song The Man That Got Away

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1955 ~ Shirley Jones

Making waves this year for: bewitching audiences in her film debut as the female lead in the classic movie adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!

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1956 ~ Ingrid Bergman 

Making waves this year for: marking her return from the Hollywood wilderness by winning a Best Actress Oscar as the supposed Russian royal survivor Anastasia (1955)

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1957 ~ Suzy Parker

Making waves this year for: on top of becoming the first fashion model to earn $100,000 for a single gig, starring in Cary Grant comedy Kiss Them For Me and alongside Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire in hit musical Funny Face

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1958 ~ Mitzi Gaynor

Making waves this year for: hitting the Hollywood ‘A’-List by taking lead duties as Nellie Forbush in the big-screen adaptation of musical South Pacific, the year’s #1 movie at the box-office

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1959 ~ Marilyn Monroe

Making waves this year for: proving utterly iridescent in the role of her career – the ditsy but adorable jazz band songstress Sugar Kane in classic cross-dressing caper Some Like It Hot

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1960 ~ Jean Seberg

Making waves this year for: beguiling Jean Paul Belmondo and hipster film fans everywhere as his drop-dead gorgeous, bob-haired accomplice in Godard’s New Wave classic À Bout de Souffle

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1961 ~ Audrey Hepburn

Making waves this year for: besting the rats and super rats and beating the ‘Mean Reds’ by breakfasting at Tiffany’s, thereby creating the big-screen Holly Golightly, the role for which she’ll become synonymous for the rest of (and beyond) her life

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1962 ~ Ursula Andress

Making waves this year for: quite simply becoming a sex symbol icon for all-time by emerging from the sea Botteceli’s Venus-like in the first ever Bond film Dr No

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1963 ~ Jackie Kennedy

Making waves this year for: enduring the tragic assassination of her US President husband with elegant dignity and grace, thus passing into legend as the ultimate glamorously aspirational First Lady (these carefree images were captured mere days before her fateful ordeal)

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1964 ~ Diana Ross,
Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard

Making waves this year for: going stratospheric as The Supremes, surely the greatest girl group of all-time, thanks in no small part to sensational US and UK #1 hit Baby Love

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1965 ~ Marianne Faithfull

Making waves this year for: taking up with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger and releasing on the same day both a folk album (Come My Way) and an eponymous album of covers

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1966 ~ Twiggy

Making waves this year for: becoming an icon of the Swinging Sixties as she’s named the ‘Face of 1966’ and the ‘Woman of the Year’ – not bad for a former Woolworths till girl from Neasden

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1967 ~ Diana Rigg

Making waves this year for: proving beyond any doubt she’ll be a feminist icon for all-times thanks to her second and final series as The Avengers’ heroine du jour Mrs Emma Peel

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1968 ~ Mia Farrow

Making waves this year for: divorcing Sinatra, schlepping with The Beatles to Rishikesh and getting a snip from Vidal Sassoon for a megastar-making turn in Rosemary’s Baby

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1969 ~ Janis Joplin

Making waves this year for: becoming an essential figure of late ’60s counterculture and an undeniable rock legend by pretty much headlining Woodstock

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1970 ~ Tina Moore

Making waves this year for: underlining her status as the ultimate WAG as the glamorous focal point in the lead-up to the Mexican World Cup defence by husband Bobby’s England

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1971 ~ Britt Ekland 

Making waves this year for: finally emerging as the movie star she’s threatened she’d become for years by providing the looks to Michael Caine’s Michael-Caineness in Get Carter

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1972 ~ Roberta Flack

Making waves for: coming out of nowhere to kill us all with the biggest chart hit of the year Killing Me Softly With His Song

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1973 ~ Jane Seymour

Making waves this year for: hypnotising new 007 Roger Moore and red-blooded males everywhere with her gracious plummy tones and aristocratic beauty as Bond Girl extraordinaire Solitaire in Live And Let Die

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1974 ~ Sylvia Kristel

Making waves this year for: providing a centre-piece to mid-’70s porn chic as the, er, titular lead in the sexily exploitative Emmanuelle

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1975 ~ Donna Summer

Making waves this year for: simultaneously becoming a disco diva and sex siren for her irresistible vocals on the incredibly hot (in more ways than one) hit Love To Love You Baby

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1976 ~ Chris Evert

Making waves this year for: winning the Wimbledon and US Singles titles, serving as the Women’s Tennis Association’s President and continuing her (eventual) unbroken five-year reign as World #1

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1977 ~ Carrie Fisher

Making waves this year for: stepping out of mother Debbie Reynolds and dad Eddie Fisher’s collective shadow by debuting as Star Wars’ bagel-bun-haired but adorably sassy Princess Leia

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1978 ~ Kate Bush

Making waves this year for: establishing her curious, nay vaguely bizarre brand of art-pop as an instant mainstream success, not least in the shape of the wonderful Wuthering Heights

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1979 ~ Persis Khambatta

Making waves this year for: going bald to conquer sci-fi sirendom and give Captain Kirk the horn in Star Trek: The Motion Picture – she’ll become the first Indian to present an Oscar a year later

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1980 ~ Sharron Davies 

Making waves this year for: literally making waves, if you will, by wining a silver medal at the Moscow Olympics in the 400m Individual Medley behind a self-admitted East German drug cheat

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1981 ~ Sheena Easton

Making waves this year for: following up her major chart hit of the previous year – 9 To 5 (Morning Train) – with the opening titles theme to 007 movie For Your Eyes Only – and becoming the only Bond singer to actually appear in the titles 

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1982 ~ Meryl Streep

Making waves this year for: delivering perhaps the performance of her career as a haunted Auschwitz survivor in Sophie’s Choice, which will win her the first of her (so far) two Best Actress Oscars

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1983 ~ Sara Dallin, Siobhan Fahey
and Keren Woodward

Making waves this year for: solidifying their status as the truly irresistible tom-boyish sexy-pop-trio-next-door by hitting the UK’s top 10 with debut album Deep Sea Skiving, featuring the hits Really Saying Something and Cruel Summer

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1984 ~ Sade Adu

Making waves this year for: as the velvet-voiced lead of neo-soul-cum-smooth-jazz outfit Sade, playing a pivotal role in shifting millions of units of Smooth Operator and Your Love Is King

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1985 ~ Cybill Shepherd

Making waves this year for: rapidly rising to small screen superstardom by generating sparks of crackling chemistry with Bruce Willis in comedy drama par excellence Moonlighting (1985-89)

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1986 ~ Mia Sara

Making waves this year for: playing the hottest girl in high school any of us can remember (real or not) as she skives off for the day with Ferris Bueller

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1987 ~ Whitney Houston

Making waves this year for: hitting the album chart top spot in 13 countries with sophomore long-player Whitney, which spawns the world-conquering singles I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me), Didn’t We Almost Have It All and Where Do Broken Hearts Go

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1988 ~ Carly Simon

Making waves this year for: bestowing yuppie-endorsing romcom Working Girl with the awesomely epic tune Let The River Run, which will go on to win her an Oscar for Best Original Song

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1989 ~ Michaela Strachan

Making waves this year for: proving a perfect Saturday morning hangover cure for male students up and down the land as the chirpy, lovely co-host of TV-am’s Wide Awake Club (1984-89)

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1990 ~ Julie Delpy

Making waves this year for: earning the tag of Euro cinema’s latest overnight sensation thanks to a scintillating supporting role in her debut movie Europa Europa 

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1991 ~ Jennifer Connelly

Making waves this year for: leaving adolescence and Labyrinth (1986) behind by taking grown-up, glamorous love interest duties in Hollywood-based comic book adventure hokum The Rocketeer

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1992 ~ Joanna Lumley

Making waves this year for: showing ingenues how it’s done by, in her mid-40s, daringly going totally against type, nay trashing her own persona in portraying solipsistic lush Patsy Stone in sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (1992-2012)

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1993 ~ Milla Jovovich

Making waves this year for: taking the leap from international catwalk model to globally admired cinema icon by appearing in Richard Linklater’s classic flick of ’70s US teendom Dazed And Confused

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1994 ~ Jennifer Aniston

Making waves this year for: becoming the hottest sitcom star since Michael J Fox and a small-screen sex symbol thanks to out-of-nowhere TV ratings blockbuster Friends (1994-2004)

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1995 ~ Izabella Scorupco

Making waves this year for: contributing sizzling sex appeal to glorious renaissance Bond movie GoldenEye – every bit as appealing as Pierce Brosnan and far better looking in a bikini

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1996 ~ Sheryl Crow

Making waves this year for: conquering charts everywhere with her eponymous second album, from which comes the singles Everyday Is A Winding Road, A Change Would Do You Good and the awesome If It Makes You Happy

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1997 ~ Geri Halliwell

Making waves this year for: encapsulating ‘Cool Britannia’ (for good or bad) by appearing at the BRIT Awards wearing a Union Jack miniskirt – and not looking half bad doing so

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1998 ~ Kate Winslet

Making waves this year for: being seen at the cinema surely at least three times by most of the world’s population in Titanic, in which she does far more than just getting, er, ‘painted like a French girl’

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1999 ~ Gwyneth Paltrow

Making waves this year for: providing the adorable heart of quirkily sunny Elizabethan romcom Shakespeare In Love, a role for which she’ll tearfully and oh-so memorably capture an Oscar

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