RIP Anna Karina

Anna Karina

September 22nd, 1940 - December 14th, 2019

Queen of the Nouvelle Vague, Danish-born Karina was a coquettish screen presence that has influenced many filmmakers and actresses since she first shot to fame in the 1960s as the muse of her then husband, Jean-Luc Godard. Her films with Godard are arguably some of his most popular and acclaimed, including Band a Part, A Woman is a Woman, Alphaville, Vivre sa vie, Made in the USA, and Pierrot le Fou which, combined with her trademark look of heavy eyeliner, tartan dresses, long socks and beret, ensured her rightful place as an icon of the 1960s.

Karina arrived in Paris at the age of 17 when she was just plain Hanne Karin Bayer. Poor and unable to speak the language, she was talent spotted outside a cafeteria one day by a woman from an advertising agency who convinced her to embark upon a career as a model. It is said that Coco Chanel helped her choose the professional name of Anna Karina. Godard spotted her in a series of Palmolive ads in which she appeared, seemingly nude, in a bathtub. Casting for his debut film, A bout de souffle, Godard offered her a small role that would require her to appear naked, which she declined, pointing out that she wasn't actually nude in the ads that had caught his attention. She did ultimately appear in Godard's film, The Little Soldier, and a creative and personal relationship ensued that was as tumultuous as it was professionally lucrative. 

Following the breakdown of her marriage to Godard, Karina continued to act, appearing in  Fassbinder's 1972 movie Chinese Roulette, but also diversified her career to take in various other roles, including a singer, director and novelist. She died of cancer in a hospital in Paris on December 14th.

RIP

Out On Blue Six: Swing Out Sister

With BBC4 now repeating Top of the Pops from 1987, I'm reminded of the sophisticated pop of Swing Out Sister, a most underrated pop group. Mention the name and most people will recall Break Out, their chart debut, but they had a string of really good songs, including this one, Surrender

Corinne Drewery was so stylish wasn't she? Turning up at the TOTP studios with clothes the former fashion student bought second hand means she effectively created charity shop chic, whilst her sharp cheekbones and even sharper bob more or less set the template for supermodels like Erin O'Connor. But despite the many she inspired, not many of them could possibly have had her beautiful honeyed voice.

End Transmission

Wordless Wednesday: The Real Peaky Blinders

Wordless Wednesday: 1970

Wordless Wednesday: Casuals

Silent Sunday: Break

Smoking Hot

My Smoking Hot thread has routinely appeared for some years now on this blog, but I realised with some embarrassment, that I only ever posted images of women smoking - largely because as a straight male it is women that I find attractive. I intend to rectify that now, new year and new start and all, so here's that great young actor Jack O'Connell enjoying a smoke in a rather lovely jacket. As someone who used to wear a flying jacket in his twenties, I wholeheartedly approve.

Jodie's Doctor Costume Revealed

I just came.

She looks adorable in cropped teal culottes, yellow braces, striped top (anyone else thinking Mork & Mindy or is that just me?), swishy trench coat, blue stripey socks and boots. Oh and earrings too - a first for the Doctor!

Boxing Barbara

Barbara Stanwyck's publicity photos for the 1937 film Breakfast for Two

Out On Blue Six: The Style Council

I've been having fun flashback watching 1984 repeats of Top of the Popson BBC4 these past couple of weeks, as they've been showing The Style Council's wonderful cycling based video for their hit My Ever Changing Moods

Who would have thought that that video (discussed so beautifully and amusingly by this blogger) would become something of a rarity on the net thanks to Vevo being a dick and blocking it in the UK? If only I'd knew that back in the late '90s when I would routinely record onto VHS videos that took my fancy on VH1. I had a load of Style Council vids - along with many other '80s vids - interspersed with channel presenters such as Julia 'Jules' Carling (phwoar!) Richard Allinson, Bob Mills and King (yes, of Love & Pride fame). As it stands, if you're looking for the track on YouTube here in the UK at least all you'll see are 'live' performances on TOTP and Saturday Superstore or straight uploads of the track such as this one...

However, you can see the video in all its glory on Vimeo 

Silent Sunday: Teddy Girl

Smoking Hot/Cars & Girls

Ina Balke in Elle, 1964. Photo by Brian Duffy

Theme Time : Pet Shop Boys- The Clothes Show

Some shows are so etched in the memory that the moment you hear the theme tune you are transported back in time. Like the themes to Last of the Summer Wine, Bullseye, Bread and Howards Way, I only have to hear the Pet Shop Boys In The Night Mix, the theme to the BBC's The Clothes Show and I'm instantly back top those Sunday evenings as a kid in the '80s and '90s, when I had to tolerate watching a load of waffle about fashion because my sister wanted to watch it.

The Clothes Show made its debut on BBC1 on October 13th, 1986 (just six days before 7th birthday, of which I remember a nice cake with a Worzel Gummidge figure you could place a candle in) and its mix of catwalk reportage and tips on how to get the catwalk look on a budget was originally hosted by designer and former Mr Sandie Shaw, Jeff Banks and the classy hostess of BBC's Breakfast Time, Selina Scott. Later, i-D Magazine's editor Caryn Franklin joined the show, taking over from the main co-presenting duties with Banks once Scott left. 

The show ran for fourteen years and a series of hosts appeared alongside Banks and Franklin including Margherita Taylor, Brenda Emmanus, Richard Jobson and Tim Vincent. In 1989 the success of this teatime Sunday evening programme saw the launch of Birmingham NEC's annual Clothes Show Live, still held to this day, and even an accompanying magazine. The show's annual modelling competition boasted finds such as Jamie Theakston and Cat Deeley, whilst guest roving reporters included the inimitable Leigh Bowery, a character who completely bemused the childhood me at the time. 

Despite its success and loyal audience, The Clothes Show's time on the BBC came to a close in 2000, though it subsequently returned on the cable and satellite channel UKTV Style in 2006 and can now be seen on Really on weeknights since 2009. Hosts on this new incarnation have included former girl band member and premier WAG Louise Redknapp and the show's stalwart Caryn Franklin.

Whilst it is the Pet Shop Boys track which will be forever associated with the show, the series original theme was in fact a Shep Pettibone remix of Five Star's Find The Time, which had reached number 7 in the UK charts in July of 1986.

Saint Etienne were also asked to produce a theme tune for the show, but it was subsequently turned down. Poor St Etienne - they not only had their theme for the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies knocked back, but also The Clothes Show. The band subsequently released it on their album Built on Sand, a compilation of rarities from 1994-'99. "Imagine our horror," they wrote in the sleevenotes, "when we turned on to discover our 'theme' has been relegated to incidental music for the part of a programme called Wild About Wool. Hey ho. Feel free to use this theme for your own TV extravaganza"

Well I can't use it for that purpose, but as someone has kindly uploaded the entire album on YouTube, I can post it here and you'll be able to hear the band's proposed theme immediately, as it is track one...

Silent Sunday: Riding Pillion

Silent Sunday: Cafe Society

Smoking Hot

Vicky McClure

The Crystal Gazer: Sandra Caron, 1973

Channel 4 broadcast a special one-off edition of The Crystal Maze last night for the charity StandUp2Cancer, with Stephen Merchant stepping into the gamesmaster shoes previously worn by Richard O'Brien and latterly by Edward Tudor-Pole of Tenpole Tudor fame. I was quite surprised to see they'd included Mumsie, the riddling fortune teller character created by Sandra Caron in the original series, played this time around by none other than Maureen Lipman!

Mumsie then, Sandra Caron

Mumsie now, Maureen Lipman

It spurred me on to googling Caron, who was of course the sister of tragic songbird Alma Cogan, and I found these delicious, atmospheric photographs from 1973 taken by Howard Grey which feature her gazing wistfully, maybe even mournfully out of the window of a cafeteria

For more of these photographs visit Howard Grey's site here

Smoking Hot

Edita Vilkeviciute

Girls With Guns

Dita Von Teese

Smoking Hot