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Sunday, March 21, 1999 By Barbara Cloud
Glamour. What is it anyway?
I received a lovely Christmas gift last year, a book called "The Power of Glamour" by Annette Tapert, co-author of an earlier book, "The Power of Style."
Tapert offers up 11 film goddesses who, in her opinion, defined the magic of stardom.
And it is magic. It's an undefined quality, but you know it when you see it.
What struck me was that today we would be hard-pressed to come up with three or four truly glamorous film stars.
Good actresses and sexy actresses, yes. But glamour is hard to come by, no matter the designer label on their gowns.
What I appreciated and had to smile about was the remark from the 30ish woman who presented me with the book.
"I don't know most of the women who are written about, but I'm sure you will," she said, meaning it as a compliment.
I wasn't offended in the least.
I was interested, am interested, maybe to a fault.
I was drawn to the ones who radiated glamour, as defined by Tapert, and who affected those of us who spent so many Saturdays in the movie houses.
Tapert's book attempts to explain why Katharine Hepburn and Greta Garbo had what she describes as "reverse glamour."
She notes Marlene Dietrich's siren persona, and the power of Kay Francis, Dolores Del Rio and Constance Bennett, which was seen in the way they used style, wit and guile to enchant the world.
She writes about Joan Crawford, Carole Lombard, Norma Shearer and Claudette Colbert.
And there was the woman who started it all, claims Tapert: Gloria Swanson.
All are gone but Hepburn.
While I hadn't seen Norma Shearer and Kay Francis in their heyday, I identified with their names because of my mother.
My mother was often told she looked like one or the other. I see it, too, in some of her photographs as a young woman.
But I would imagine many women were told that because back then women copied hairstyles, lip and eyebrow shapes, and wore fake gardenias on their dresses, "just like in the movies."
They set the style back then.
We have turned from movies to rock stars, sitcom ingenues and models in recent years. We still copy celebrities but not their glamour. Just their nose rings, preference for tank tops and no bras, and maybe their hairstyles.
Glamour was one part of the Hollywood drill. When movie studios signed performers to contracts, they created an image from the ground up and insisted it was maintained, even in the stars' private lives.
Wearing jeans, having stringy hair and wearing no makeup or no bra weren't an option.
Stars dressed to the nines, even if they went to their mailbox or walked the dog or cradled a new baby. Hair was perfection. So were the face and the outfit.
Maybe today's actresses have glamour hidden underneath all that "I want to be me" exterior. It's hard to tell.
Who knows, maybe the glamorous ones years ago had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the beauty salons, but the end result gave us images we would all crave.
As Tapert acknowledges, her 11 choices weren't the only glamour goddesses.
"The closest I could come to making a selection was to choose women whose personal tastes and personal struggles struck me as timely," writes Tapert. "I realize glamour is a fairly ephemeral notion, and the topic is highly personal."
In other words, we might not agree with her examples.
In the current Town & Country, Tapert profiles socialite Nan Kempner, based on her many appearances on international best-dressed lists. Kempner credits her mother and grandmother for exposing her to style and taste, but it was Lauren Bacall, she said, whom she and her friends tried to emulate.
Me too, Nan! I have always wanted her hair, and I wouldn't mind if you threw in a thing or two from her closet.
She would be at the top of any list I might make of actresses still performing who have "it."
And I want some.
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