EYEBROWS

[charliechaplinfan]

I think the housecoat was excusable in my Grandma's day, she would be all day cleaning, washing, cooking and didn't want to get her clothes dirty. I hope she took it off when she went out. There are a few picture of both's my Grandma's in housecoat's. Not curlers though.

Anne touched partly on my bugbear, when the temperatures rise here, some men, especially of retired age think it is fine to go to the grocery store, the bank, takeaways without any shirt on at all. I can't imagine why they would do that.

[knitwit45]

Alison, a woman in Kansas City, Eileen Quinlan Donnelly Reed, also known as Nelly Don, started a business run from her home in 1916. She rejected the "mother hubbard" dresses that were the only thing available for homemakers at that time.
Women were so tired of these shapeless, ill-fitting dresses, and Nelly came up with pretty colors, and dresses that actually fit the wearer.

She convinced a store in downtown KC to take 18 dozen dresses on consignment, and they sold out in a matter of hours. She roped all her friends into helping her make more, and a huge corporation was born. There is a great movie about her life, "A Stitch In Time", and it's really interesting. She was kidnapped, and Kansas City Gangsters fanned out and found her, pretty much unharmed. What a life this lady led!

[charliechaplinfan]

My goodness, it's a case of life being stranger than fiction.

[klondike]

Here, mi campaneros, is IMHO absolutely the final word on this subject:

[youtube][/youtube]

[JackFavell]

Love her... love her eyebrows.

[moira finnie]

Wow. Do you think that they shaved Katy's eyebrows off and drew them on too? They seemed to change quite a bit over time. I just realized the resemblance between Katy Jurado and Linda Darnell. Yes, there are those who would claim that Linda had a more refined appearance allowing her to be both sexy and demure, but both of these women shared a lush, dark beauty that really seems exotic for Hollywood then and now. I wonder what My Darling Clementine (1946) would have been like with Katy in the role of "Chihuahua"?

I bet Victor Mature would have thought twice about raising his eyebrows at her! Btw, to JackFavell--you're not alone in your admiration for Vic. Love him in the aforementioned movie, as well as Kiss of Death, Betrayed, After the Fox and, yes, even the hilarious Demetrius and the Gladiators.

Btw, why haven't we mentioned the eyebrows of Kay Francis in detail? This woman had the longest brows in movie history. Below is Exhibit A to support this thesis:

[JackFavell]

Katy strikes me as someone who would have killed a person for suggesting she shave her eyebrows....

Moira, I love all the movies you mentioned, except Betrayed, which I haven't seen. When I was a kid, they showed Samson and Delilah every couple of months. Cecil indoctrinated me early on in the joys of Victor Mature, in fact, I never thought about his acting in the picture. It was just a heck of a lot of fun. I probably saw it a hundred times. Somewhere along the way, I realized that Vic was a lot more than beefcake. One of my favorites to tune in to on a rainy day is The Robe, a kind of overblown movie in which he completely underplays and out-acts hammy Richard Burton, the supposedly great actor. Then I saw After the Fox and I thought, "anyone who can make fun of themselves like that is OK in my book."

Recently, I saw Cry of the City, thanks to Cinemaven. I thought he would be overshadowed by Richard Conte, but Mature once again stepped up and by the end of the movie, I was incredibly moved by him.....His self-effacing comments about his career and acting made me love him. When denied entrance to a country club because he was an actor, Mature responded, "Hell, I'm no actor and I've got 28 pictures and a scrapbook of reviews to prove it."

Apparently he is very good in 1972's Every Little Crook and Nanny, but I have not been able to find it. Esquire magazine said his performance as an aging mafioso was, ""massive, vigorous, vulgar, authentic, and splendid".

Oh, lookie at those brows on Kay! I never realized how far across her head they go....and yet, they look right on her!

[Garbomaniac]

Well, I guess the gals weren't the only ones to paint their eyebrows!

[charliechaplinfan]

Did he use greasepaint or is it a false moustache or a bit of both?

[Professional Tourist]

.

[Garbomaniac]

Wow, PT, that is one fabulous photo! Good job!

And, yes, I recall it was greasepaint as well. But, as a child, I thought they were real, eyebrows and moustache.

[moira finnie]

A discussion about Robert Taylor's eyebrows in Mongo's Candid thread earlier this week jogged my memory of something I'd read. I seem to remember that at 20th Century Fox, Darryl Zanuck's wife took one look at young Tyrone Power's "unibrow" and said "Shave his eyebrows and he'll be a star!" Her husband cast him in Lloyd's of London and took her advice, resulting in (imho) the far too unnatural looking brows that the lad sported in that movie, which I always thought made the actor look even more boyish:


Fortunately, they let his brows grow back as his stardom progressed. A decade later he looked quite a bit more natural (and probably more handsome) in Nightmare Alley:


Tyrone Power, Sr. (1869-1931), whose unibrow look didn't appear to hurt him a bit in his legendary theatrical career:


You can see the family resemblance (prominent and expressive brows and all) in Tyrone Power, Jr., and his half-sisters, Romina and Taryn here at Allan Ellenberger's site, detailing a tribute to their father in 2008.