Celebrity Wallpapers

She plays Julia Braverman-Graham, a lawyer whose husband stays at home and takes care of their little girl.

Julia is an ardent feminist who shudders at the mere appreciation of feminine physical beauty. In one episode, she gets upset when her daughter wants to dress up for Halloween as a beauty pageant contestant and desperately tries to get her to reconsider. In another episode, she cringes when her daughter plays Marilyn Monroe in a children's play about the history of California. ("Parenthood" is set in Berkeley.)

So, Julia would be intellectually opposed to this blog and find it objectionable.

And yet, I'm featuring the actress who plays her.

Ironic, no? :-O

Since debuting in the disaster picture The Towering Inferno in 1974, Susan Blakely has worked steadily as an actress, doing everything from playing Eva Braun in The Bunker to making guest appearances on TV shows such as "Murder, She Wrote" and "Two and a Half Men."

My favorite Susan Blakely movie is the small 1979 film Dreamer, with Tim Matheson. In that film, Matheson plays a competitive bowler who hopes to win a major championship, have his own bowling alley, and win the girl of his dreams - played by our heroine. This could be where the idea for the TV series "Ed" came from. :-)

My earlier assertion that Kim Alexis is someone women have wanted to emulate and men have wanted to accompany was certainly true in my household, as evidenced by my sister's and my use of the family VCR. My sister bought Ms. Alexis's exercise video. I learned one day that Ms. Alexis would be on NBC's "Late Night With David Letterman" (remember, it was the eighties) and, being unable to stay up that late, made darn sure that I taped it! :-D

I probably won't be doing a retrospective on Ms. Alexis in the near future. Hey, in case you haven't noticed, I've posted seventeen pictures of her this past week, which should be more than enough for awhile. But I'm leaving my options open, so don't be surprised if you see her here again soon. :-)

For more Kim Alexis, you can visit her Web site.

And here's a much more recent picture (from 2010) of a more mature Kim Alexis at fifty - with short hair!

She looks different. Not worse, only different. :-)

Of course, for those of you prefer a more recent picture of this supermodel legend with long locks . . . well, here you are! :-)

Here are some facts you may or may not know about Kim Alexis . . ..

She's of Swedish descent. Her paternal grandfather changed the family name to Alexis from Andersson.

She played herself in the series finale of "Cheers," as a presenter on a TV awards show. In the episode, Norm, Cliff, and their fellow barflies - aware that "stunning supermodel Kim Alexis," as they repeatedly call her, will be a presenter - keep the bar TV tuned in and the mute button on and wait with baited breath. In the meantime, they patiently wait through numerous announcements of pairs of presenters - like Margaret Thatcher and LL Cool J. ("Mute it!") Kim Alexis appears with football legend Mike Ditka.

And, as if Kim Alexis weren't associated enough with sports already, she's married to former hockey player Ron Duguay.

Her glamour, vividly illuminated in the Scavullo photograph below, was an essential factor in ensuring her iconic status. She became the archetypal woman that other women wanted to be like and men wanted to be with.

Kim Alexis parlayed her modeling career into activities in other media, such as television. She's been an fashion editor for "Good Morning America," she's hosted health programs on the Family Channel and Lifetime, and more recently, "She's Got the Look," a TV Land contest show that looks for models over the age of 35.

Kim Alexis, who turned fifty in July 2010, should know better than most people that age is no impediment to beauty. :-)

Of course, it now seems inappropriate to me, as feminists have long argued forcefully, for Sports Illustrated to have a swimsuit issue. While I don't necessarily see anything wrong with pictures of beautiful women in swimsuits - is that really any worse than some of the infamous beefcake spreads in Cosmopolitan? - it makes little if any sense to feature in a sports magazine women in swimsuits that have nothing to do with the sport of swimming.

But Kim Alexis was different. She looked like she belonged in a sports magazine. By that, I mean that she was (and is) so muscular and athletic that, as I once wrote in an essay, she could have easily been featured in Sports Illustrated as a champion Olympic swimmer just as swimmers like Donna de Varona and Nancy Hogshead were, had she gone that route.

Of course, she wouldn't have been wearing any bikinis or provocatively cut maillots, so how gorgeous could she have possibly looked in a regulation swim team tank top?

Very gorgeous, as the picture above should make quite clear. :-D :-)

But she's hardly the delicate flower she appears to be here. Kim Alexis is known for her lifelong interest in and commitment to athletics, having been into sports since she was a little girl.

Mention the name of Kim Alexis to men of a certain generation - namely, mine - and you'll immediately induce dreamy sighs, weak knees, soft smiles, and sweet memories of adolescence. Yes, there are many models from the eighties who have have the same effects on men like me. But rarely, if ever, all of them at once.

To those of us who were in high school in the early 1980s, Kim Alexis was like a goddess. The reasons for this should already be clear, and they should become clearer still as I post more pictures of the woman who has long epitomized perfect feminine beauty.

Well, consider this . . ..


Although she's long since retired from the business to pursue a career as an artist, she remains an icon and an inspiration to those who would pursue a career in or take an interest in her former line of work.

And of course, she commands a great deal of respect as an artist, inspiring many painters and sculptors.

I think these are much better photographs of the native South Carolinian model-turned-actress. :-)

Since 2008, Andie MacDowell has remained active in movies, having appeared in The Six Wives of Henry Lefay (2009) and the Canadian drama Daydream Nation (2010).

This is from a 1980 ad for Charles of the Ritz, a cosmetics brand that has since gone out of business.

The picture doesn't show her long, lustrous hair so much, but it does accentuate her eyes quite nicely. :-)

I would be remiss if I didn't post this ad as it originally appeared in magazines.

Black and white, color, greyscale, sepia - Sheila Johnson looks great in any photographic medium. :-)