I'll never know what made it so exciting

The magnificent Birgit Nilsson was an opera diva completely unafraid of dressing up for a role.

And what a voice! Here she is in one of her trademark roles, Turandot by Puccini:

Birgit Nilsson & Franco Corelli - In questa reggia (Puccini - Turandot)

As Brünnhilde in Wagner's Gotterdammerung:

Birgit Nilsson - Immolation Scene (Wagner - Götterdämmerung)

And in complete contrast, a little My Fair Lady:

Birgit Nilsson - I Could Have Danced All Night (Lerner & Loewe - My Fair Lady)

Birgit Nilssen (17th May 1918 – 25th December 2005)

Do of the Century?

Mia Farrow and Frank Sinatra


Candice Bergen


Lee Radziwill


Jacqueline de Ribes [Read more about her]


Gloria Guinness



Truman Capote's Black and White Masked Ball, 1966 (often referred to, mainly by Capote himself, as "The Party of the Century") - read all about it, courtesy of The Independent

Style, models' own.

Hair by Kenneth.

Kenneth Battelle (19th April 1927 - 12th May 2013)

Oh for the wings of a Dove

Art Deco icon Billie Dove (born Lillian Bohny, 14th May 1903 - 31st December 1997)

Facts about Miss Dove:

• In the 1920s she was voted, with Clara Bow, as America's most popular actress.
• Her parents were Swiss immigrants, and as a child she spoke German before she spoke English.
• She began her career (as so many others) as one of Florenz Ziegfeld's girls.
• Apparently Howard Hughes paid Billie's husband $325,000 in thousand-dollar bills to divorce her so she could marry him. She never did.
• Dorothy Parker dedicated a book to her: "To Billie Dove, God loves her, I do, too."
• Her greatest on-screen collaborations were with the heartthrob John Gilbert, and, like him, she never transferred successfully to "talkies".
• She retired from the screen in 1933, and lived till she was 94.

On the Jukebox this weekend at Dolores Delargo Towers

The laughter is over

The last photograph of James Dean alive, and he is sharing a joke with our own, dearly departed Sara Montiel...

RIP

Going against the rules

"I've never done what was fashionable. Going against the rules comes naturally to me."

"Life is more with colours."



RIP "Mr ZigZag" Ottavio Missoni (11th February 1921 - 9th May 2013)

Tea lovers

“I know my little ‘dirty drawings’ are never going to hang in the main salons of the Louvre, but it would be nice if - I would like to say ‘when,’ but I better say ‘if’ - our world learns to accept all the different ways of loving. Then maybe I could have a place in one of the smaller side rooms.”
- Tom of Finland, 1991

Creator of the greatest "über-masculine" homoerotic art in the late 20th century, Tom of Finland is now considered an artistic, as well as erotic genius - his work appears on the walls of such esteemed establishments as New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as on t-shirts, numerous prints and books, and on this rather marvellous tea service...









[I know I have featured it before, but it is my 50th birthday this year - hint, hint!]

Touko Laaksonen aka Tom of Finland (8th May 1920 – 7th November 1991)

Tom of Finland Foundation for the protection, preservation and promotion of erotic art.