The Top 40

The coolest couple in the history of mankind is Bogey & Bacall.

And Audrey Hepburn, and Anouk Aimee, and Gene Tierney and and and and ........ Don't make me go look at Silver Screen Sirens. I might turn up Jennifer Jones or my favorite screenbabe Myrna Loy. Over to you.

Don't forget Jean Arthur, who was still quite attractive when she made "Shane." However, Cary Grant said Grace Kelly was his favorite leading lady so that pretty much retires the jersey.

Fer chrisakes, she brought carryout from Chasens, complete with waiter.

The current crop looks like what most of them turn out to be - spoiled, self-obsessed brats.

Grace Kelly was by all accounts every bit the skeeze girls like Paris Hilton is, but the studio system kept it under wraps, and at least she knew how to behave in public.

Yeah, and Jean Harlow.

Ruth Hussey*

Ingrid Bergman, Irene Dunne, Hedy Lamarr, Greer Garson, Eve Marie Saint, I got all day here folks.

Lorne wins.

Jean Arthur. endit.

Ingrid Bergman. Nothing more needs be said.

Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti.

Did Cary Grant say that before or after he made that movie with Sophia Loren, and was so smitten he hopelessly proposed marriage even though she was already married to Carlo Ponti?

Great list, gents; what a buncha classy dames. All of us were prepared by these ladies to spend our lives in thrall to wised-up, dignified, strong, feminine, sexy worship-able women.

And what we encountered were "feminists," dedicated to making themselves miserable, and sharing it - and to raising little girls and little boys who would never grow up, or want to, and who would forever hate and mistrust each other.

My Christ, what a waste.

She can't even twerk!

Whatever twerking is, Rhonda Fleming does it to me.

Everybody needs a squeezable redhead like Maureen O'Hara.

When I grow up I want to be Rosalind Russell.

indyjonesouthere

I remember her as quite a cool lady.
Scary cool.

I did some work for her and shared a house with her tenant after a hurricane trashed her home many years ago. He left behind a sweet 870 and a .357 when he bailed. They provided alot of peace of mind in the months I stayed at that house.

Anyway, her husband (super pilot Charles Blair) owned the local seaplane company and flew my family to nearby islands a couple times a year in old WWII Grumman Goose seaplanes until he died in a plane crash on the reef offshore of his launch ramp. I fondly remember making a game of plugging up streams of water jetting into the passenger cabin through rivet holes in the hull with my fingers.

Our island is a poorer for their absence.

Ann Hathaway could have been a lady like these, but she insisted on playing skanks in a string of movies and ruined her image.

Bacall and Truman.

http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/bacall-on-trumans-piano/

You see, Miley, she did not have to 'twerk it'. Bacall just had to be. Grace looks effortless; and all of cool is a studied application of effortless. There is effort, of course, but there is never the appearance of effort. Like 'slo-motion' it is all fluid and effortless on the surface. All of the effort is in the preparation and remains under the surface.

There is cool. And then there is grace.