Some Like it Sizzling

Another Filmposter Glenn Rivera made of me with Glenn and Ken!!!!!!

Demented Diva

This is a Filmposter my dear friend,Glenn Rivera made with a photo of me,thanks Glenn your the Best,Love You!!!!!!!

Jane Russell: a life in clips

We look back at Jane Russell's movie career, from The Outlaw through Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to her late-60s cameos.

As a 20-year-old and the object of Howard Hughes's attentions, Jane Russell was force-fed into a series of low-cut dresses for The Outlaw (1943).







She plays Doc Holliday's girl Rio, who falls in love with a wounded Billy the Kid when he hides out with her, on the run from Pat Garrett. Not remotely historically accurate, this blood-heat western is best remembered for the censorship squabbles over exactly how far Russell was allowed to lean over while tenderly ministering to the Kid. Hughes's legendary underwired cantilevered brassiere was designed during the shooting of the film, but Russell denied she ever wore it.

The Paleface (1948) was a real change of pace: a comedy western with Bob Hope as the useless dentist Peter Potter, who plays husband to Russell's deep-cover Calamity Jane. Songs, giggles and full Technicolor, it was a recipe for success that made a sequel, Son of Paleface (1952), inevitable. Here's Hope and Russell doing Buttons and Bows – so good they had to do it twice. Russell gets a bit more of a look-in in the second film.

Another profitable pairing for Russell was with lazy-eyed Robert Mitchum, opposite whom she played nightclub canaries in two successive noirs: His Kind of Woman (1951) and Macao (1952). In the former, she and Mitchum meet up in a sleazy Mexican bar, while the second, a globetrotting affair in the mould of Josef von Sternberg's pre-war Shanghai Express, has Russell belting out torch classics like One for My Baby. Von Sternberg, though, was fired during production after repeatedly clashing with Mitchum; Nicholas Ray was brought in to finish things up.

Russell's best-known film, and the one she'll always be remembered
for, is one in which, even though she had top billing, she pretty much
played second fiddle to emergent superstar Marilyn Monroe. The "two
little girls from Little Rock" in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) were perfect sweater-girl fantasy figures for the mid-1950s: Monroe blonde and ditsy, Russell dark and sassy. Russell's apparent acceptance of Monroe's bombshell superiority – and ability to parody it – won her lots of friends. She may not have got to sing Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, but she did have Ain't There Anyone Here for Love.

After this high point, Russell's star began to decline. Howard Hughes had her courting controversy once again in The French Line (1954), in
which she pranced around in a then-outrageous swimsuit with holes cut
in it. She made the epic cattle-drive western The Tall Men (1955) for director Raoul Walsh, opposite Clark Gable; her own production outfit made Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955), a sort of semi-sequel to Blondes, with Jeanne Crain in the Monroe role, and she played tough in The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956), as a hardboiled dancehall hostess who tries to make a go of it in Hawaii.

The truth was, though, that as the 1950s wore on, Russell's smouldering, tight-lipped charms seemed more and more out of place, and, after the failure of The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957), she more or less packed in movie-making. Her commitment to Christianity and rightwing politics – surprising, you might think, for such a censor-baiting figure – helped push her away from Hollywood. She made a few cameos in the late 60s – including a turn in biker exploitation flick The Born Losers (1967), the original Billy Jack movie – but nothing she was ever proud of.

Elizabeth Taylor's Jewelry Valued At $150 Million

"Good Morning America" took a look at Elizabeth Taylor's jewelry collection, reportedly valued at $150 million.
The icon once talked to Barbara Walters about her love for all-things-bling, explaining, "The beauty, the perfection, God's workmanship. They're all from the ground." Her affinity for gemstones began as a child and continued as she counted husbands. Walters asked her if it was awkward for her new men to see their predecessor's presents. "So I've been told," Liz remarked. What did she do about it? "Encourage them to give me more." Naturally.

The Taylor-Burton Diamond

The Taylor-Burton


Diamonds have no mercy... "They will show up the wearer if they can," says one character in The Sandcastle, an early novel by the famous British author, Iris Murdoch. Now this may be true of some women - usually wearing an outrageously large item of jewelry which imparts a degree of unwholesome vulgarity to themselves - but is it applicable to Elizabeth Taylor? Those well-publicized gifts which she received from her fifth husband, the late Richard Burton, certainly enhance her appearance and do not look out of place on her. A compatibility is established between the jewel and its wearer.
Richard Burton's first jewelry purchase for Elizabeth Taylor was the 33.19-carat Asscher-cut Krupp Diamond, in 1968. This had formerly been part of the estate of Vera Krupp, second wife of the steel magnate Alfred Krupp. Miss Taylor wears this stone in a ring. She has worn it in a number of her post-1968 films, during her interview on CNN's Larry King Live in 2003, and just about everywhere else she goes. Next came the La Peregrina Pearl for which Burton paid £15,000. The stone has a long and complex history. For Elizabeth's 40th birthday in 1972 Richard Burton gave her a heart-shaped diamond known as the Taj-Mahal. The stone is fairly large and flat, with an Arabic inscription on either side. It is set with rubies and diamonds in a yellow gold rope-pattern necklace. "I would have liked to buy her the Taj-Mahal," he remarked, "but it would cost too much to transport. This diamond has so many carats, its almost a turnip." Then he added, "Diamonds are an investment. When people no longer want to see Liz and I on the screen, then we can sell off a few baubles."
By the far the best known of Richard Burton's purchases was the 69.42-carat pear-shape, later to be called the Taylor-Burton Diamond. It was cut from a rough stone weighing 240.80 carats found in the Premier Mine in 1966 and subsequently bought by Harry Winston. Here there is a coincidence: Eight years before, another cleavage of almost identical weight (240.74 carats) had been found in the Premier. Harry Winston bought this stone too, commenting at the time, "I don't think there have been half a dozen stones in the world of this quality." This wouldn't be the first time the Premier Mine would have the last word because the 69.42-carat gem cut from the later discovery is a D-color Flawless stone.
After the rough piece of 240.80 carats arrived in New York, Harry Winston and his cleaver, Pastor Colon Jr. studied it for six months. Markings were made, erased and redrawn to show where the stone could be cleaved. There came the day appointed for the cleaving, and in this instance the usual tension that surrounds such an operation was increased by the heat and glare of the television lights that had been allowed into the workroom. After he had cleaved the stone, the 50-year-old cleaver said nothing -- he reached across the workbench for the piece of diamond that had seperated from it and looked at it through his horn-rimmed glasses for a fraction of a second before exclaiming "Beautiful!" This piece of rough weighed 78 carats was expected to yield a stone of about 24 carats, while the large piece, weighing 162 carats, was destined to produce a pear shape whose weight had originally been expected to be about 75 carats.



Elizabeth Taylor wearing the Taylor-Burton Diamond in a necklace
by Cartier featuring a number of smaller pear-shaped diamonds. The stone's first owner after Harry Winston wasn't actually Elizabeth Taylor. In 1967 Winston sold the pear shape to Mrs. Harriet Annenberg Ames, the sister of Walter Annenberg, the American ambassador in London during the Richard Nixon administration. Two years later, she sent the diamond to Parke-Bernet Galleries in New York to be auctioned explaining her decision with this statement: "I found myself positively cringing and keeping my gloves on for fear it would have been seen, I have always been an extremely gregarious person and I did not enjoy that feeling. It sat in a bank vault for years. It seemed foolish to keep it if one could not use it. As things are in New York one could not possibly wear it publicly." One might argue the stone was too large to be worn in a ring, let alone in public.
The diamond was put up for auction on October 23rd, 1969, on the understanding that it could be named by the buyer. Before the sale speculation was prevailing as to who was going to bid for the gem, with the usual international names being kicked around by the columnists. Elizabeth Taylor was one name among them and she did indeed have a preview of the diamond when it was flown to Switzerland for her to have a look at, then back to NYC under precautions described as "unusual".



An illustration of the Taylor-Burton set in a necklace containing
several hundred small round brilliants and a marquise shape. The auctioneer began the bidding by asking if anyone would offer $200,000, at which the crowded room erupted with a simultaneous "Yes". Bidding began to climb, and with nine bidders active, rushed to $500,000. At $500,000 the individual bids increased in $10,000 increments. At $650,000 only two bidders remained. When the bidding reached $1,000,000, Al Yugler of Frank Pollack, who was representing Richard Burton, dropped out. Pandemonium broke out when the hammer fell and everyone in the room stood up, resulting in the auctioneer not being able to identify who won, and he had to call for order. The winner was Robert Kenmore, the Chairman of the Board of Kenmore Corporation, the owners of Cartier Inc., who paid the record price of $1,050,000 for the gem, which he promptly named the 'Cartier'. The previous record for a jewel had been $305,000 for a diamond necklace from the Rovensky estate in 1957. A diamond, known as the Rovensky (actually thought to possibly be the Excelsior III Diamond), attached to the necklace weighed approximately 46.50 carats. It appeared in an article about diamonds in the April 1958 issue of National Geographic magazine, along with the Niarchos, Nepal, and Tiffany Yellow.



Harry Winston As well as Richard Burton, Harry Winston had also been an under-bidder at the sale. But Burton was not finished yet and was determined to acquire the diamond. So, speaking from a pay-phone of a well-known hotel in southern England, he spoke to Mr. Kenmore's agent. Sandwiched between the lounge bar and the saloon, Burton negotiated for the gem while continually dropping coins into the phone. Patrons quietly sipping their drinks would have heard the actor's loud tones exclaiming "I don't care how much it is; go and buy it." In the end Robert Kenmore agreed to sell it, but on the condition that Cartier was able to display it, by now named the Taylor-Burton, in New York and Chicago. He did not deny that Cartier made a profit, stating "We're businessmen and we're happy that Miss Taylor is happy."



The Taylor-Burton, with a label of 'the Cartier Diamond', being
displayed at one of the Cartier stores, in the brief period after
Richard Burton bought it but it had not yet been handed over to him. More than 6000 people a day flocked to Cartier's New York store to see the Taylor-Burton, the crowds stretching down the block. But an article in the New York Times was distinctly sour on the subject. Under the headline of 'The Million Dollar Diamond' appeared the following comment:
"The peasants have been lining up outside Cartier's this week to gawk at a diamond as big as the Ritz that cost well over a million dollars. It is destined to hang around the neck of Mrs. Richard Burton. As someone said, it would have been nice to wear in the tumbril [a farm cart for carrying dung; carts of this type were used to carry prisoners to the guillotine during the French Revolution] on the way to the guillotine."
Shortly afterwards on November 12th, Miss Taylor wore the Taylor-Burton in public for the first time when she attended Princess Grace's 40th birthday party in Monaco. It was flown from New York to Nice, Italy in the company of two armed guards hired by Burton and Cartier. In 1978, following her divorce from Richard Burton, Miss Taylor announced that she was putting the diamond up for sale and was planning to use part of the proceeds to build a hospital in Botswana. In June of 1979 Henry Lambert, the New York jeweler, stated that he had bought the Taylor-Burton Diamond for $5,000,000.
By December he had sold the stone to its present owner, Robert Mouawad. Soon after, Mr. Mouawad had the stone slightly recut and it now weighs 68.09 carats. Before the recutting, the curved half of the stone's girdle had a very round outline, it is now a little more straight at that end. It also had a small culet, which was made even smaller after the recut. Sources: Famous Diamonds by Ian Balfour and My Love Affair With Jewelry by Elizabeth Taylor.

Elizabeth Taylor in North and South 1987

Young Marilyn Monroe

Jessica Lange

Jessica Lange born April 20, 1949 in Cloquet, Minnesota) is an American screen and stage actress. Most recently, she debuted also as a photographer.
The actress may be most notable for her performance of Frances Farmer (ranked #85 on Premiere magazine's 100 Greatest Performances of All Time in 2006) in Frances, and Tootsie. Both from 1982, for which she was nominated on Oscars in two categories at the same time, becoming the first such female since Teresa Wright in 1942. Her other significant roles featured Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams (1985), Carly Marshall in Blue Sky (1994), Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1995), Irma Applewood in Normal (2003), and Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens (2009). Amongs other, she has won two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, and lately an Emmy Award.
After three decades in front of the camera, Lange has realized her dream of being on the other side of the lens, and published in 2008 her own collection of black-and-white photographs, simply entitled 50 Photographs (powerHouse Books). Their exhibition, along with series of her films, was presented at the oldest international museum of photography and film George Eastman House, to be awarded by the first GEH Honors Award in 2009. Since 1982, Lange has lived with the Pulitzer Prize-winner, Sam Shepard.

Early life

Lange, the third of four children, was born in Cloquet, Minnesota, the daughter of Dorothy Florence (née Sahlman) and Albert John Lange, who was a teacher and salesman.Her maternal grandparents were of Finnish descent, while her paternal grandparents were German and Dutch. She studied art briefly at the University of Minnesota before going to Paris, France, where she studied mime with Étienne Decroux. She returned to New York in 1973 and took acting lessons while working as a waitress and a fashion model for the Wilhelmina Models agency. She was discovered by the fashion illustrator Antonio in 1974.

Career

In 1976, Dino De Laurentiis cast her in his film motion picture remake of King Kong, which both started and almost ended her career. Although the film was a box office hit, critics were not kind to Lange and the film and Lange did not appear in another film for three years, when Bob Fosse cast her as the glamorous figure of death in All That Jazz (1979). The unfavorable reviews were devastating but critics took notice with her impressive turn in Bob Rafelson's remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981).
Her performance in her next film, Frances (1982), in which she portrayed actress Frances Farmer, was highly lauded and earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She received two Academy Award nominations that year, the other for Best Supporting Actress in the comedy Tootsie (1982), for which she won. She continued giving impressive performances through the 1980s and 1990s in films such as Sweet Dreams (1985) (playing country/western singer Patsy Cline), Crimes of the Heart co-starring with Diane Keaton and Sissy Spacek, along with Sam Sheppard (1986), Music Box (1989), Men Don't Leave (1990), and Blue Sky (1994), directed by Tony Richardson, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She portrayed the wife of the titular legendary Scottish hero in Rob Roy with Liam Neeson (1995).
Since 2000, Lange has mostly appeared in supporting roles on screen. In 2006, she appeared as part of the ensemble cast of Kathy Bates and Joan Allen in Bonneville. In her most recent film, she played Edith "Big Edie" Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens (2009), a film based in part on biographical information, and in part on the 1970s cult documentary. Her performance earned her an Emmy Award.

Humanitarian work and political views

She is a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). She has also been a public critic of former U.S. President George W. Bush, once calling his administration, "a self-serving regime of deceit, hypocrisy and belligerence."

Personal life

Lange was married to photographer Paco Grande from 1970–1981. Since 1982, she has lived with playwright/actor Sam Shepard. She has three children, Alexandra (born 1981) from her relationship with dancer/actor Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Hannah Jane (born 1985) and Samuel Walker (born 1987) with Shepard.

Filmography

Cinema

Cinema
Year	Title	Role	Director
1976	King Kong	Dwan	John Guillermin
1979	All That Jazz	Angelique	Bob Fosse
1980	How to Beat the High Co$t of Living	Louise Travis	Robert Scheerer
1981	The Postman Always Rings Twice	Cora Smith	Bob Rafelson
1982	Tootsie	Julie Nichols	Sydney Pollack
	Frances	Frances Farmer	Graeme Clifford
1984	Country	Jewell Ivy	Richard Pearce
1985	Sweet Dreams	Patsy Cline	Karel Reisz
1986	Crimes of the Heart	Margaret Magrath	Bruce Beresford
1988	Far North	Kate	Sam Shepard
	Everybody's All-American	Babs Rogers Grey	Taylor Hackford
1989	Music Box	Ann Talbot	Costa-Gavras
1990	Men Don't Leave	Beth Macauley	Paul Brickman
1991	Cape Fear	Leigh Bowden	Martin Scorsese
1992	Night and the City	Helen Nasseros	Irwin Winkler
1994	Blue Sky	Carly Marshall	Tony Richardson
1995	Losing Isaiah	Margaret Lewin	Stephen Gyllenhaal
	Rob Roy	Mary MacGregor	Michael Caton-Jones
1997	A Thousand Acres	Ginny Cook Smith	Jocelyn Moorhouse
1998	Hush	Martha Baring	Jonathan Darby
	Cousin Bette	Cousin Bette	Des McAnuff
1999	Titus	Tamora	Julie Taymor
2001	Prozac Nation	Mrs Wurtzel	Erik Skjoldbjærg
2003	Masked and Anonymous	Nina Veronica	Larry Charles
	Big Fish	Sandra K. Bloom	Tim Burton
2005	Broken Flowers	Dr Carmen Markowski	Jim Jarmusch
	Don't Come Knocking	Doreen	Wim Wenders
	Neverwas	Katherine Pierson	Joshua Michael Stern
2006	Bonneville	Arvilla Holden	Christopher N. Rowley
2011	The Big Valley (in post-production)	Victoria Barkley	Daniel Adams
2012	The Vow (in post-production)		Michael Sucsy

Television

Television
Year	Title	Role	Director
1981	The Best Little Girl in the World	?	Sam O'Steen
1985	Cat on a Hot Tin Roof	Maggie	Jack Hofsiss
1992	O Pioneers!	Alexandra Bergson	Glenn Jordan
1995	A Streetcar Named Desire	Blanche DuBois	Glenn Jordan
2003	Normal	Irma Applewood	Jane Anderson
2004	Peace by Peace: Women on the Frontlines	Narrator	Lisa Hepner
2007	Sybil	Dr Cornelia Wilbur	Joseph Sargent
2009	Grey Gardens	Big Edie	Michael Sucsy
Documentaries
1981	Notre Dame of the Cross	Herself	Daniel Schmid
1994	A Century of Cinema		Caroline Thomas
1997	Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's		Shari Springer Berman Robert Pulcini
2003	XXI Century		Gabriele Zamparini
2005	The Needs of Kim Stanley		Dani Minnick

Stageography

In 1992, Lange made her Broadway-theatre début in New York City opposite Alec Baldwin in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire. She appeared in the West End in London, United Kingdom, in 2000, as Mary Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. In 2005, she returned to Broadway in another Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie with Christian Slater.

Theater
Year	Title	Role	Director
1992	A Streetcar Named Desire	Blanche DuBois	Gregory Mosher
2000	Long Day's Journey into Night	Mary Cavan Tyrone	Robin Phillips
2005	The Glass Menagerie	Amanda Wingfield	Rupert Goold