Vintage Beauty - Janet Blair

Today another vintage beauty - actress Janet Blair.

Born as Martha Jane (or Jean) Lafferty (she took her acting surname from Blair County, Pennsylvania) in Altoona, Pennsylvania on 23 April 1921.

Ms Blair began her acting career on film in 1941 in 'Three Girls About Town',a Columbia comedy film also staring Joan Blondell and Binnie Barnes.

In 1942, with Fred Astaire in 'You'll never get rich,' as well as 'Blondie Goes to College', 'Two Yanks in Trinidad', 'Broadway' and 'My Sister Eileen', with Rosalind Russel, while being placed under contract to Columbia Pictures. During World War II, she made a string of successful pictures. Her singing and dancing made her a popular entertainer on several bond-selling tours, and after filming 'Once Upon a Time' with Cary Grant she went on a tour of American Army Camps.

In 1943 she married Sargent Louis Ferdinand Busch, US Army, whom she met while singing with the late Hal Kemp's band, where Busch was piano player and arranger. Ms Blair bought an interest in a music publishing business in Los Angeles and contracted all of Kemp's musicians.

1943

In 1944 Ms Blair filmed the technicolor 'Tonight and Every Night', where she played Rita Hayworth's best friend. In the late 1940s, she was dropped by Columbia and did not return to pictures for several years.

1944

1944

In 1946 she filmed 'Gallant Journey' with Glen Ford.

Janet Blair and Glen Ford, 1946

1946 in Gallant Journey

In 1947 Columbia loaned Ms Blair to United Artist for 'The Fabulous Dorsey's"  a film about the famous dance-band leaders. 

With red hair in 1947

In 1948 Ms Blair appeared in three movies, including the film noir 'I love trouble', and also appeared on television in 'The Ford Theater Hour.'

Blair played Nellie Forbush in a touring production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific; she starred in that musical for over 3 years, and claimed to never have missed a performance. She was also seen in a national tour of Mame, with Bells Are Ringing and Follies among other theatre credits.  During the tour, she also got married to second husband, producer-director Nick Mayo, and they became parents of Amanda and Andrew. They divorced in 1971.

She also starred on Broadway in the 1953 play 'A Girl Can Tell', by F. Hugh Herbert. It ran for 60 performances at the Royale Theatre.

She appeared on television on various variety shows including "The Ford Theatre Hour," "The United States Steel Hour," "A Connecticut Yankee," "One Touch of Venus" (in which she played the title role), "The Chevy Mystery Show," "The Outer Limits," "Destry," "Marcus Welby, M.D.," "Fantasy Island," "The Love Boat," and "Murder, She Wrote" ( her last TV appearance, 1991).

Blair recorded an album in the early 1960s entitled 'Flame Out' - a collection of ballads like "Don't Explain" and "Then You've Never Been Blue".  

the record!

She also made a rare dramatic appearance in the 1962 British horror film Night of the Eagle (Burn witch burn), as Tansy Taylor.

Blair as Tansy Taylor

She died at the age of 86, of complications from pneumonia, at Saint John's Health Centre in Santa Monica on 19 February 2007.

Vintage Beauty - Shirley Temple

Shirley at school hour at the studio, 1939

Born Shirley Jane Temple in Santa Monica, California on 23 April 1928, Shirley Temple went into show business in 1932 at the age of four, after being discovered in a dance studio. She became the most beloved little girl in the world and was voted" the most outstanding personality of the year" at the age of six by the Academy of Motion Pictures.  She started out making 75 pounds a week, and by 1937 was earning 150,000 pounds a year - the seventh highest paid actor at the time. By 1939 16 of Shirley's movies  had grossed 2,500,000 pounds each.   Shirley was cute, but not too sugary, and so clever - she could dance, sing and had quick come back lines - costars like Lionel Barrymore thought her "divine" and "intelligent," and every little girl wanted to be just like her.  Clever marketing put her name to everything from dolls to hair-ribbons - you could eve buy Shirley Temple toothbrushes.

Wearing Pearls - 8 Inspirational Women

I love pearls.

I tend to wear them every day, either as stud earrings, a brooch or a necklace - real and fake.  They can give a vintage touch to any outfit, and any era.

There is something special about pearls - their lustre, they way they catch the light, and the way they feel.  The fact that they are made by nature, with a little help from man now and then, is also amazing. 

Nothing evokes timeless elegance more than pearls - when I think pearls I think Coco Chanel,  Grace Kelly, Jacqueline Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor and other glamorous women. Putting on a strand of pearls gives us a link to that glamour, to that past.

Grace Kelly in Rear Window, 1954

Here is British actress Alma Taylor, who appeared in over 150 movies the 1910s and early 1920s. In 1915 she was voted the most popular British performer by readers of Pictures and the Picturegoers, comfortably beating Charlie Chaplin into second place, and she was on the cover of Life Magazine.

Alma Taylor on the cover of Life, 1915 source

I even like fake pearls and cultured pearls - much easier to look after, cheaper and great to wear en masse.  Cultured pearls began to appear on the market in the 1900s when real pears were in short supply.  Neither cultured and or artificial glass pearls were accepted immediately.  Coco Chanel was one of the first designers who started to work with imitative or imitation jewellery, including pearls and gemstones, in the 1920s.  Rather than being for those who could simply not afford buying the real luxury, Chanel brought imitation to the state of art.   She often made her costume jewellery pearls bigger than natural, and her simple dresses were ideal for wearing jewellery.  Chanel herself  wore her own creations, often wearing strands of pearls at a time.

Coco Chanel c. 1936, with red lipstick and strands of pearls source

Jacqueline Bouvier , before she was a Kennedy, apparently purchased her famous  pearls in the late 1950s - at Bergdorf Goodman for about $35. She wore her fake pearls with grace, elegance and dignity, whether she was greeting dignitaries or looking after the children, when she was young and when she was older – if she could do it so can we! 

More glamorous ladies - actresses Sophia Loren and Gene Tierney -

Gene Tierney c. 1945 source

I love this photo of Shirley McLaine with her daughter Sachi taken in about 1958 - not really glamorous, but fun!  It' s great to instill a love of pearls into your daughters!

source

Doris Day, always so happy, and beautiful in pearls - 

source

Are you a pearl wearer?

♥ Deb