FEMININE BEAUTY, OR 70 GIRLS 70

Some things are absurd. I am frequently accused of misogyny; what nonsense! For me, there is nothing more beautiful in the world, and thus more sacred, than a beautiful woman. True, this excludes many women; it presupposes beauty of face and body, of limbs and extremities—ideally, the convergence of several beauties into one.

Of course, face and figure are the most important, and, after that, legs and behind. But one can be a beautiful woman without perfection in all parts; we think of Myrna Loy, Gene Tierney and Liz Taylor as beautiful, even if none of them had perfect legs. And unless we have seen them in bikinis, we cannot vouch for their derrieres. And sometimes not even then.

But even with some imperfections, there is nothing, I repeat, more beautiful than a beautiful woman. This is true even in art, hence the prevalence of female nudes. But art also reveals to us how the concept of beauty has changed over the years. What was beautiful for Rubens or Rembrandt is quite different from what was beautiful for Manet or Modigliani. 

Thus what I proclaim beautiful today may not be so for future generations. Even so, let me name a number of actresses from several countries whom, at one time or another, I have found beautiful. Even just writing down their names gives me a frisson of beatitude.

Isabelle Adjani, Anouk Aimée, Bibi Andersson, Ursula Andress, Laura Antonelli, Karin Baal, Barbara Bach, Brigitte Bardot, Halle Berry, Adriana Beneti, Laura Betti, Jacqueline Bisset, Florinda Bolkan, Francesca Braggiotti, Genevieve Bujold, Leslie Caron, Valentina Cortese, Dorothy Dandridge, Danielle Darrieux, Catherine Deneuve, Doris Dowling, Anita Ekberg, Lena Endre, Jane Fonda, Megan Fox, Jane Greer, Virginia Grey, Camilla Horn, Brigitte Horney, Marsha Hunt, Jennifers Garner and Lopez, Jessicas Alba and Beil, Angelina Jolie, Katalin Karádi, Nicole Kidman, Keira Knightley, Johanna von Koczian, Hilde Krahl, La Jana, Hedy Lamarr, Diane Lane, Virginie Ledoyen, Vivien Leigh, Sofia Loren, Anita Louise, Antonella Lualdi, Silvana Mangano, Lea Massari, Irene von Meyendorff, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Sarah Miles, Marilyn Monroe,  Rossana Podesta, Micheline Presle, Liselotte Pulver, Lee Remick, Julia Roberts, Laila Robins, Keri Russell, Romy Schneider, Simone Signoret, Alexis Smith, Kristina Söderbaum, Audrey Tautou, Elizabeth Taylor, Charlize Theron, Ingrid Thulin, Gene Tierney, Nadja Tiller, Mari Törőcsik and Alida Valli.

Given my lifelong distaste for lists, I have herewith contradicted myself, but, like others who have lapsed into self-contradiction, I invoke Walt Whitman in my defense. Some seeming contradictions may even be mere changes of opinion, which are perfectly permissible.

Now, what of looks acquired through or enhanced by cosmetic surgery? Some people regard that as cheating, indeed invalid. Not so I; I say beauty is beauty, however achieved.

More problematic are women whose sexiness, though not exactly beauty, proves a compelling substitute. Think Nastassja Kinski or Gloria Grahame.

Sometimes the boundaries are blurry and it is hard to decide whether a woman is beautiful or just sexy: think Marion Cotillard, Susan Sarandon or Sigourney Weaver. What is certain is that no straight man would kick any of them out of bed. 

Someone might wonder why my list is as long as it is. Usually lists are of the ten-best or twenty-best variety. This one could easily have been much longer and I am sure to be soon kicking myself for some obvious omissions. The intention was to include those women who, at my various stages, have been most attractive, most exciting to me.

Definitely omitted are women who were merely lovable. That is more of an inner beauty, not visible, and therefore not to be counted. It is more goodness than beauty, though the two sometimes get confused. Not to be omitted were some actresses not known to many of my readers. Not any of them ended up in my arms, but once a woman becomes a memory, there is scant difference between what you had and what you only yearned for.

You most likely know how pleasurable it is to live with a lovely view outside your windows. Well, how about having it inside your walls in the forms of a beautiful face and figure? 

                                                           
You go to bed content and wake up content, and in between there is something even better. You are not plagued by envy of other men, and feel affluent without a dollar in the bank. Life itself has become beautiful.

To be sure, you may resent knowing, or just knowing of, a woman beautiful without deserving it in the slightest. Why such injustice? You must then be either very young or blind not to be resigned to there being no justice in the world.

And then, again, how relative everything is! I see on my computer a full-length picture of Jane Greer in a bikini and leaning on an outdoor chair. She is stunning from top to toe, yet out of eleven respondents, one, so Google tells me, finds her feet ugly. This strikes me as totally incomprehensible. Tastes may differ, but white cannot be anyone’s black, square anyone’s round. Jane Greer’s feet are just fine; is that respondent an idiot?

The only problem with female beauty is that, like any other, lesser one, it ages. Some women age better than others, but none, alas, stays forever young. Some women are beautiful even in old age, but merely with the austere, cold beauty of the monument they have become. It is not even the just one remove from the flesh and blood kind of a photograph. It inspires merely a remote nostalgia for what the woman must have been or, if she is a friend or spouse, was. She is even a symbol of mortality, inducing a kind of melancholy respect. Is that a good feeling? I truly don’t know.