The Beauty of Women in Furs on Film and Television
Anita Ekberg in Fur
Large fox hats are difficult to find, so surprising this one reports in from 1968. It sits rather perfectly upon the head of Swedish actress Anita Ekberg. The Flickr description says it’s from a postcard, though the postcard could be from a film. Feel free to weigh in via the comments if that’s the case. The pose seems rather “theatrical,” so to speak.
Comments on the last post got me to thinking a little harder about my favorites, so I decided to try and get them down, all official-like. So here is my entirely subjective personal opinion on the top 12 fur wearing actresses of the last 80 or so years (mostly minus the last 20 since they… sucked). If you’re thinking I started with 10 then remembered some more, then you’re absolutely correct. After I post this, I’ll probably remember a lot more.
This list technically covers fur wearers only, but Garbo is also on top of my all time most-attractive list, with or without fur. It’s the face, really. That face is the greatest ever, and for once I’m not alone in having that opinion. Actually, all of these women share that quality, the face is what I first “fall” for, Garbo just does it best.
Greta Garbo - Inspiration - 1931
Notable Fur Films: Inspiration
I really went controversial with the top 2, picking two of the most highly regarded women in the world. Dietrich has the face and the furs to frame it with, and certainly a sultry voice to back up the entire package.
Marlene Dietrich - Shanghai-Express - 1932
Notable Fur Films: Shanghai Express, Pittsburgh, The Scarlet Empress (lots of fur, but way too “period” for my tastes.)
Her films from the 30′s are the source of some of the best furs filmed, and she certainly backed them up with beautiful features and masterful performances. If there’s going to be a “tough broad” in the picture, than Barbara is the one for the job.
Barbara Stanwyck - The Mad Miss Manton - 1938
Notable Fur Films: Breakfast for Two, Baby Face, Lady of Burlesque, The Mad Miss Manton
As usual, the sad, wish-it-weren’t-needed, caveat of “early” Joan. Her youth and beauty in the 30′s and early 40′s was exquisite. We can just conveniently overlook what happened later.
Joan Crawford - The Bride Wore Red - 1937
Notable Fur Films: Mannequin (1937), The Bride Wore Red, They All Kissed the Bride, Ice Follies of 1939
That face and that wonderful red hair, a beautiful combination. Red is my favorite hair color, and I generally like it like I like my fox fur coats: lacking any shred of subtly. Ann’s fame put her in some of the “lean” years of fur fashion, but she managed to find her way into some stunning fox coats from time to time, like this one in Once A Thief, a film I’ve not yet seen.
Ann-Margret - Once A Thief - 1965
Notable Fur Films: The Swinger, Once A Thief (maybe)
Broken record at this point, but I said what I liked at the top and Natalie Wood is, in fact, another pretty face. I could even imply something stereotypical like: Miss Zakharenko’s Russian heritage makes her natural in fur. Much like Ann, she experienced super stardom in the 50′s and 60′s, which makes it more difficult to find her in great furs.
Natalie Wood - The Great Race - 1965
Notable Fur Films: The Great Race
I don’t think Italian heritage can make for any dumb statements about how well you wear fur, but it certainly didn’t hurt Miss Loren’s lovely features. Her most productive years were similar to Natalie’s and Ann’s, so finding Sophia in exceptional furs is a little tricky, but there are a few gems.
Sophia Loren - The Millionairess - 1960
Notable Fur Films: The Millionairess
Ah, the 1980′s report in at last. Miss Fairchild embodied the 80′s blonde in big furs, and she did so with the utmost glamor and class. If there was an 80′s mega fox coat in the picture, she probably wearing it. After saying that, here’s a shot of her in lynx.
Morgan Fairchild - Paper Dolls - 1984
Notable Fur Films and TV: Paper Dolls, Any other 80′s soap she was ever on, most likely
Absolutely gorgeous in fur, though sadly not afforded nearly as many opportunities to wear it as her contemporaries. If I had a time machine, I’d go back and fix that. If nothing else, that suggests I have really bad priorities.
Anna May Wong - Piccadilly - 1929
Notable Fur Films: Piccadilly
Hedy’s lovely features are framed by my second favorite hair color: black. Not dark brown, or really dark brown, or even so-dark-brown-it’s-almost black; no: black. This kind of black is a gleaming obsidian set off so nicely by a thick, white fox. There’s some good films with Hedy in fur, but they’re harder to find for some reason.
Hedy Lamarr in White Fox Fur. 1938
Notable Fur Films: I Take this Woman
This may be a controversial choice only because she’s so low on the list. If it makes any ardent Joan fans feel any better, this is like the top 10 of all actresses ever, so, percentile wise, this is still huge. Joan is actually here more for the 70′s than the 80′s, since Morgan covers that. She pretty much nails it in The Bitch. I know, date-wise that’s almost a technicality, but it’s still the 70′s.
Joan Collins - The Man Who Came to Dinner - 1972
Notable Fur Films and TV: The Bitch, Dynasty
The downside is strong, but much like ignoring what happened later with Miss Crawford, assuming Miss Ball’s career ended in the mid 40′s means she’s one of the fur wearing greats in film. Back when she was young and doing films, she was quite the classic beauty, and commonly draped in beautiful furs.
Lucille Ball - Dance Girl Dance - 1940
Notable Fur Films: Annabel films, Dance, Girl, Dance, Easy to Wed
That wraps up my current top 12, at least until I remember more. Feel free to try and help me out in the comments. Or suggest that I’m wrong, and also a doo-doo head; you can do that too.
Bonus points for throwing out names of any actress from the last 20 years. I should point out you’ll need to do better than one or two furs, and, if you’ve been reading for any amount of time, you should know I’m not going to look kindly on any suggestion that includes mink. There are a number of modern actresses I’d like to put on the list, but they can’t make the grade fur-wise.
While Claudette Colbert is not a particular favorite of mine from the period (she’s not even my favorite Colbert), she does look rather nice in this exemplary white fox fur cape from 1935. I haven’t seen The Gilded Lily, but it is going on the “remember to record” list, that’s for sure. Sadly I don’t even remember ever seeing it in TCM’s listings lo these many years, so my hopes aren’t particularly very high in that regard. I’ll be happy enough if they get back to showing Mannequin (the 1937 version with more and better fur), Breakfast for Two, and Pittsburgh. Oh, and the cinematic tour de force that is Ice Follies of 1939.
Wish it was easier to find shots of Garbo in fur (that I like). This is close. It’s not fox, lynx, or chinchilla, but it’s got some body to it. Garbo combined with any fur is magic, though, so it will do.
Your bonus for another week my distraction levels remain high:
Small Black Fox Muff
This is from dovima_is_devine_II‘s photostream, a very large (and ill-tagged) set of photos from a combination of sources, including a lot of vintage fashion mags. It’s not all fur, but there’s a lot of nice stuff in there.
Imagine my surprise when a commenter suggested that one of my favorite fur film moments was not, in fact, fur at all. I speak of Shanghai Express.
This Is Not The Sable You Are Looking For
The fringe on the garment she wears in the “hat” sequence, which I had presumed was sable, is feathers, or rather down pelts, simliar to the ones that made up the also rather visually appealing white coat she wore in the Dietrich in London special. I see no reason to doubt this assertion, after all, it’s not like they were suggesting there was no fur at all, or that everything in The Mad Miss Manton was fake. No, actually quite reasonable now that I look at it again.
I’ll blame my sable dreams on a combination of low resolution and highly wishful thinking.
Ah, but someone didn’t desecrate her grave because Marlene Dietrich wore a lot of goose down. Thus, finding photos of her wearing real fur is not exactly difficult. What is always enjoyable is finding those few that just knock you off your feet when you see them for the first time. This is one such example:
So the Shanghai Express collar wasn’t sable. I’m pretty dang sure this is fur, so I’ll get over it by picturing this one instead.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered one of the single best images of 30′s fur fashion did not appear to be on Flickr. I’ve looked around for this iconic image of Lucille Ball a few times, but not until this weekend did it appear. At least, I think. Again, as I mentioned last week, some work with tagging on Flickr would be nice, but at this point, who cares. Just enjoy…
Just… wow.
A brief detour into “current events” for this blog. Elizabeth Taylor’s recent passing gives us a reason to take a look back. Unfortunately, her most high profile roles occurred in the most low profile fur fashion years. The IMDb suggests she started in 1942 and was particularly big in the 50′s and 60′s.
She did some things in the 70′s, but none of them look all that familiar, and I doubt those will be the ones that figure into the eventual TCM retrospective. There is, of course, BUtterfield 8, but as far as movies with fur coats as plot points go, it’s a really boring fur coat. Her character should have stolen that white fox from The Awful Truth instead.
Fortunately, 50 pages deep in Flickr search results, I found some good ones:
By the way, if anyone knows what the story is with the last shot, if it’s from a film, I mean, you’d be doin’ a guy a solid if you posted the name in the comments.
Oh, and not to bite the hand that just fed me a quickie update, but really, guys, is it that hard to tag photos in Flickr? That last one for instance, may I suggest, oh, I don’t know… “fur.” That’s just off the top of my head.
Thought this was from Reckless when I first saw it, but turns out it’s from Dinner At Eight. Should have known, the white fox from Reckless was larger, but ultimately didn’t get the same screen time as this one from Dinner At Eight. This one didn’t get very much either, to be honest, and that’s one of 2 major problems with that film. The other being Marie Dressler, if you’re keeping score.
Hedy Lamarr in White Fox Fur. 1938
It’s not Hedy, it’s Hedley.
Wait, no, this is Hedy Lamarr, wearing a (admittedly small) white fox fur wrap. It’s in close up, so that helps. Another actress from the period whose looks I rather enjoy, but she didn’t to a lot of films in the States during the 30′s. Her most well known body of work was in the 40′s.
I’m cheating, because I linked to a different version of this via text a while back, but ondiraiduveau upped it to Flickr in an embeddable format, so, here it is. A beautiful shot, in subject, composition, and fashion. Ladies with gleaming obsidian locks can’t go wrong framing them with thick white fox fur. They have a good set of vintage shots and vintage art here.
I do have more ‘legitimate’ updates planned, but 3 in a row is a pretty good run after the comeback. I remembered, as I do every year, that February is the month that TCM shows pretty much the same movies every single year, as it is their “month of Oscar.” On the good side, they had the Oscars in the 30′s, on the bad side, they had them every decade since, and there’s (sadly) little correlation between Oscar noms and copious amounts of large fur fashion.
