Hollywood glamour photography
August 26, 2011 7:48 PM   Subscribe

 
Are these supposed to be pd?
posted by Ideefixe at 7:57 PM on August 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


Holy eyebrows, Batman!
posted by phunniemee at 8:04 PM on August 26, 2011 [2 favorites]


NSFNetbook either. ;)
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:09 PM on August 26, 2011


Holy couture, Batman!

(that Marilyn Monroe, she looks good)
posted by the mad poster! at 8:10 PM on August 26, 2011


Ummm...is Marilyn's head five feet closer to the camera than the rest of her?
posted by NoMich at 8:10 PM on August 26, 2011


Daaaaaaaamn, Liz Taylor.
posted by kenko at 8:20 PM on August 26, 2011 [3 favorites]


Ok, I'd never heard of it before, but now I've got to run out and see the film that starred Baroness Schräder and Ronald Reagan.
posted by lesli212 at 8:51 PM on August 26, 2011


Boom.
posted by swift at 8:53 PM on August 26, 2011


And now I just got to the massive Greta Garbo section - yay! She's amazing. Great post.
posted by lesli212 at 8:54 PM on August 26, 2011


So when I was in Maine, I read Valley Of The Dolls, which puts all these Golden Age Beauties in a different, but not unsympathetic light. Add it to Hollywood Babylon and you could see how the studio system could literally kill someone.

Best story. Judy Garland was set to play the role of Helen Lawson, a thinly disguised Ethel Merman in the movie adaptation. In the book, Nelly O'Hare is a thinly disguised Judy Garland, prone to fits, walking out, benders, and getting thrown off sets and replaced by more stable actors. While working on the movie, Judy threw a fit, was prone to benders, and got thrown off the set and replaced with a more stable actor.
posted by The Whelk at 8:56 PM on August 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


That Ingrid Bergman shot is amazing, does anyone know who took it or where a proper print can be obtained?
posted by waxboy at 9:00 PM on August 26, 2011


Ummm...is Marilyn's head five feet closer to the camera than the rest of her?

It does look like it may have been shot with a tilt-shift lens.
posted by atbash at 9:28 PM on August 26, 2011


So this was before the invention of non-clumping mascara?
posted by roger ackroyd at 9:34 PM on August 26, 2011


Site is hosed for me but individual shots are working.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 9:42 PM on August 26, 2011


Ingrid Bergman has real eyebrows and she's gorgeous. Some of the ones with the serious clown makeup eyebrows are scary.
posted by doctor_negative at 9:53 PM on August 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


No Hepburn?
posted by Sphinx at 9:57 PM on August 26, 2011


The Academy Library has these as does the Everett Collection. Both will sell you prints for your own pleasure, ie no commercial use.
posted by Ideefixe at 9:58 PM on August 26, 2011


Bah, all that Garboage, and only one Deanna *Sigh!* Durbin?!?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:02 PM on August 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


That is a young All About Eve era Marilyn.
posted by Ad hominem at 10:02 PM on August 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


Incredible.
posted by Meatafoecure at 10:20 PM on August 26, 2011


No Hepburn?

Now there's a famous last name that's not self-explanatory.
posted by John Cohen at 10:24 PM on August 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


I wish I had never heard anyone call Liz Taylor "the most beautiful woman in the world." It prevents me from being able to see her for who she is, just as it's impossible to really see the Mona Lisa because it's so iconic and overexposed. Also, the overstatement has a similar effect to the way people call the Rolling Stones "the greatest rock band in the world." I'm not a big Stones fan, but I'd like to be more of one, and that phrase actually makes it harder for me to get into them. I'm so distracted by thinking: "Oh, they're not that great," the same way I can't look at Liz Taylor and just see an individual; I end up thinking, "Oh, she's not that attractive."
posted by John Cohen at 10:28 PM on August 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


Oooh, Montgomery Clift.....
posted by Lucinda at 10:48 PM on August 26, 2011 [2 favorites]


Ummm...is Marilyn's head five feet closer to the camera than the rest of her?

Shut up! Some of us just have giant heads. :(
posted by Malice at 10:51 PM on August 26, 2011 [1 favorite]


I heard once that one of the reasons Monroe looked so good on camera was that she was covered in a kind of blonde downey fur that caught the light, can anyone confirm this?

Anyway Clift is probably the only one of the bunch to have a Clash Song about him.
posted by Ad hominem at 11:03 PM on August 26, 2011


Seconding Alvy Ampersand - and I'd never heard the name Deanna Durbin before.

It's a very odd feeling when you type a beautiful woman's name into Wiki and discover that she was born in the same year as your grandparents...
posted by sodium lights the horizon at 11:16 PM on August 26, 2011


Maybe I'm just a hippie, but the makeup is just weird. Did most women in America do themselves up like that in the 40's & 50's, or is that just a hollywood thing? Doris Day is the only one that even looks mostly human. And if I had to pick a Hepburn, I'd go with Katharine. That giant brain was sexy.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:27 PM on August 26, 2011


When did people stop looking cool like this?
posted by Anonymous at 11:28 PM on August 26, 2011


When did people stop looking cool like this?
posted by schroedinger


Right about the time the world turned from black and white into color.
posted by blaneyphoto at 11:53 PM on August 26, 2011 [2 favorites]


Needs more Anita Ekberg.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:19 AM on August 27, 2011


It's not just you, Devils, that thick pancake makeup combined with the drawn eyebrows makes it tough for me to get a sense of them, though I'm sure they were all beautiful no matter what. Today's glamour photos tend to lay it on thick as well.
posted by Salmonberry at 12:27 AM on August 27, 2011


Hedy Lamar??
posted by the noob at 1:43 AM on August 27, 2011


sorry Lamarr
posted by the noob at 1:45 AM on August 27, 2011


That's **Hedley**
posted by Rangeboy at 2:22 AM on August 27, 2011 [9 favorites]


Yes the inventor Hedy Lamarr was also super hot.
posted by tarvuz at 2:30 AM on August 27, 2011 [5 favorites]


Oh, hey, Gloria Grahame! She was a spunky, fun character in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. But she was terribly wooden in OKLAHOMA!, playing that wonderful role Ado Annie: she never seemed to move her mouth.

I wonder if her performance in OKLAHOMA! was regarded as good at the time? [Googles] "Additionally, the actress's concern over the appearance of her upper lip led her to pursue plastic surgery and dental operations that caused visible scarring and ultimately rendered the lip largely immobile because of nerve damage, which affected her speech."

Oh! Gosh. That's tragic, and explains the odd acting. Poor thing, to feel that way, and hurt herself. There does seem to be an enormously high level of emotional damage and tragedy in Hollywood.
posted by alasdair at 2:43 AM on August 27, 2011


Does 'glamour photography' in the US mean what it does here? I expected to see n00dz, as it;s a phrase associated with the likes of Page 3 and the Sunday Sport.
posted by mippy at 3:04 AM on August 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


Greta Garbo was actually a robot. This I learned today.
posted by tmt at 3:28 AM on August 27, 2011


It's great to see these old-school studio publicity shots at a respectable size like this but, hokey smokes, are they horrible scans. The beauty of these old photos were their wide, smooth tonal range. A ton of these look almost posterized, due to some serious clipping, either at the point of scanning or in their conversion to jpeg.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:23 AM on August 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


The links posted above which begin "wparena.com/" all gave me a 403 Forbidden error. Are they that beautiful that a minger like me cannot even be allowed to look at them?
posted by marienbad at 4:26 AM on August 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


I heard once that one of the reasons Monroe looked so good on camera was that she was covered in a kind of blonde downey fur that caught the light

This was a big reason for the popularity of Lassie as well.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:12 AM on August 27, 2011 [7 favorites]


Teen wolf too!

And I'll relish another opportunity to link to my favorite video on youtube: Marilyn's screen test for Something's Got To Give.
posted by carsonb at 7:14 AM on August 27, 2011


Ten year old me is probably pretty disappointed in current me that I still can't grow a moustache like this.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 7:35 AM on August 27, 2011


The links posted above which begin "wparena.com/" all gave me a 403 Forbidden error. Are they that beautiful that a minger like me cannot even be allowed to look at them?

Copy the link from your address bar, open a new browser tab/window, paste into address bar.

It's blocking you from seeing the image because the owner is blocking "hotlinks" from sites like this one. If you visit the URL without being referred directly by metafilter.com, it should work.
posted by Joey Bagels at 8:08 AM on August 27, 2011


Yeah a lot of these scans are pretty "snarky" as my old black and white teacher used to say (overly contrasty.)

Many of these portraits were shot on 8x10 film and then retouched with pencil to get rid of any imperfections. Boy, of those guys could see what Photoshop does now.
posted by mrhappy at 8:33 AM on August 27, 2011


Looking at her really makes me want to start smoking.
posted by benito.strauss at 8:41 AM on August 27, 2011


Nanette Fabray has a really timeless look, this shot could have been taken yesterday if they only still made sweaters that hugged the waist like that. ;)
posted by dabitch at 8:54 AM on August 27, 2011


I prefer to get my vintage glamour from Dr.Macro, which features images large enough that I can almost feel the texture of the clothing and the thickness of the makeup.


(Oh Buster, you're dreeeeamy. Sitting there, writing down the baseball scores.)
posted by redsparkler at 9:00 AM on August 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


Oh, hey, Gloria Grahame!

I was just reading about her last week after seeing her in one of the more unusual Bogart films I've ever seen. When I read about that thing with her lip I thought, "What in heaven's name was she worrying about?"

I'm sorry I missed TCM's day devoted to her by about a week.
posted by pmurray63 at 9:13 AM on August 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


Fun fact that I know for some reason: Lana Turner went to high school with Judge Wapner, and they even went out. She was known as "Judy" then though.

...Wow, did not realize he was still alive.
posted by lily_bart at 9:49 AM on August 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


I prefer to get my vintage glamour from Dr.Macro, which features images large enough that I can almost feel the texture of the clothing and the thickness of the makeup.

(I wasn't sure how much of his content was there when last previously-ed.)

I'm perusing his fine section on Monroe right now. It reminds me of Norman Mailer writing in his book about her how excellent a still photography model she was.
posted by Trurl at 9:52 AM on August 27, 2011


For example.
posted by Trurl at 9:59 AM on August 27, 2011


Ooh. Thanks for posting that one Trurl. She's so human, and pretty in that shot.
And my gosh, she's got freshly shaven hair-stubble under her arms. Since this is never seen in photographs, I thought when I was a teenager that I was the only girl in the world who looked like that and spent way too much time powdering my underarms aiming for the perfectly smooth look you see in ads. That look is unpossible.
posted by dabitch at 11:17 AM on August 27, 2011 [2 favorites]


John Cohen, my favorite thing about Liz Taylor is she's not that attractive.

Richard Burton (her husband, twice) said about her: “She has wonderful eyes. But she has a double chin and an overdeveloped chest, and she's rather short in the leg.” And it's TRUE! But it doesn't matter, because she is still so beautiful. Not despite her imperfections, but because of them. She makes everything about herself her own.
posted by lesli212 at 11:55 AM on August 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


Isn't that Beyonce?
posted by tigrefacile at 12:03 PM on August 27, 2011 [1 favorite]


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