Disgraced Minor Female Celebs

[VintageKell]

Ida Rubenstein was a Russian ballerina, actress, patron and Belle Époque figure. She was born into a wealthy Jewish family, but was orphaned at an early age .... by the standard of Russian ballet, she had little formal dance training. She began her training too late to be a great dancer. She did, however, have tremendous stage presence and was able to act.

So what's a girl gonna do when she has limited talents, and has to get that attention of the great Diaghilev? Well nudity has always done it, so in a quick 'route one' approach to attention seeking, she was tutored by Mikhail Fokine for a 'special' performance of the 'Salomé' which she debuted in 1908. This was a single 'private' performance of Oscar Wilde's play in dance, in which she stripped nude in the course of the 'Dance of the Seven Veils' .... performing without the benefit of music to avoid the censors. The performance was both the talk of St Petersburg and scandalous.

Sergei Diaghilev took her into the Ballets Russes and she danced the title role of 'Cléopâtre' in the Paris season of 1909, and 'Zobéide' in 'Scherezade' in 1910 (both choreographed by Fokine who had done both their careers no harm with his Salome stunt ). She was partnered in 'Scherazade' by the great Nijinsky, but Rubinstein left the 'Ballets Russes' in 1911, and in fact she left Russia before the first World War and the Revolution to go to Paris.

She then formed her own dance company, and commissioned several lavish productions including 'Le Martyre de Saint Sebastien' which included a score by Debussy. This prompted another scandal when the Archbishop of Paris prohibited all Catholics from attending because 'St. Sebastian' was being played by both a woman and a Jewess. Openly Bisexual, while in Paris, she began a three-year lesbian affair with the painter Romaine Brooks, who created a striking portrait of her as Venus (some of you may recall that Brooks was the long-term lover of Natalie Barney who has featured here already, come to think of so has Venus ).

After the First World War, Rubinstein appeared in a number of plays, and enjoyed success .... She was an adventurous commissioner of works (mainly to suit her limited dance style) and she commissioned and performed in Maurice Ravel's Boléro in 1928. Other works developed were Massine's 'David', with music by Sauguet; and 'Le Baiser de la fée', with music by Stravinsky. The company was revived in 1931 and 1934, with new works. She closed the company in 1935, and gave her last performance in the play 'Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher' in Paris, 1939. Rubinstein often staged free ballet events after she retired, and continued to dance until the start of the Second World War .... and she was much celebrated in in France, by writers and artists. She had been awarded honorary French citizenship, in 1935, and in 1936 she converted to Roman Catholicism.

In 1940 she left France during the German invasion, and made her way to England via Algeria and Morocco. There she helped wounded Free French soldiers until 1944. One of her many lovers, Walter Guinness (of that family), sponsored her to a suite at the Ritz Hotel, until he was assassinated by the Stern Gang in late 1944. She returned to France after the war, living finally at Les Olivades at Vence. She died in 1960 at Vence, France, and is buried nearby.

Trivia:

• Her portrait by Valentin Serov in 1910 marks the most complete realization of his mature style.
• The Art Deco sculptor Demetre Chiparus produced a Rubinstein figurine.
• She was also painted by Antonio de la Gandara.
• The painter Romaine Brooks, used the dancer as a nude model for Venus.
• She commissioned and performed in Maurice Ravel's Boléro in 1928.
• In 1934 the French government awarded her the Légion d'honneur
• In 1939 the Grand Cross of the order, the highest rank.
• She was said to live solely on a diet of champagne and biscuits, she was moody and unpredictable as a sitter, posing a challenge for artists, including her lover Brooks.

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Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Daiana Antivero (aka Natalia Antivero) is an Argentinian Model, who at just 18 should have her future mapped out in front of her, especially as she already had a 'Maxim' shoot behind her. Well she has, its apparently behind bars and that's what she's facing after being arrested this month, for trying to smuggle drugs to Europe, according to AFP reports.

The 18-year-old model was detained along with five other people, including two Dutch citizens. The busts came after the wiretaps revealed that would be responsible for the logistics of a drug gang. The head of Argentina's airport police said the Argentine model was part of the operation to send mules to Europe. "We believe the girl had a role in organizing logistics and was basically in charge of booking tickets and hotels for the mules," he said.

The six suspects were arrested in separate raids in and around the capital Buenos Aires over several days. He added that security agents had found 3.5 kilograms of cocaine, including one kilogram that had been divided into capsules to be swallowed by the carriers. The police said the two Dutch citizens were each found with "capsules of cocaine in their bodies" without elaborating ..... not the snap of rubber gloves!

She will no doubt try to plead her innocence with 'the old I didn't know anything' defence (leaving her friends to take the rap), but as her boyfriend was one of the arrested, this may need a very good legal weasel to squeeze her out of this mess anytime this decade. Her parents, who are separated, pleaded her innocence of the charges, but then started blaming each other for the situation she was in .... a broken home then

Pictures:

She has no thread here as she is virtually unknown, even in Argentina, so a serious number of pictures posted ..... Please consider creating a new thread if you want to post more. She has plenty of pictures out there, and she hardly warrants anymore here. Thanks






Videos:

For those that are bothered, here she is on model shoots:

[VintageKell]

Hildegard Knef (aka Hildegard Neff or Hildegarde Neff) was a German actress, singer and writer. She began studying acting in 1940, aged 14. She appeared in several films even before the fall of the Third Reich, but most were not released until after World War II. Her acting career is best known for 'Die Mörder sind unter uns' (The Murderers Are Among Us), which was the first film released after the Second World War in East Germany .... Westerners may remember her more for her appearance in 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro' in 1952 and her appearance in a number of 1960's low budget films such as the Hammer film 'The Lost Continent'.

In order to achieve success outside of Germany, she had to change her name from Knef to Neff and this gained her some success and stardom on Broadway as “Ninotchka” in the Cole Porter musical, 'Silk Stockings'. She began a new career in 1963 as a singer and surprised her audiences with the deep, smoky quality of her voice and the many lyrics, which she wrote herself ... she continued to sing through out the 1960s and 1970s as a singer of German chansons.

She got much support from her fans around the world as she fought and defeated cancer several times, and she returned to Berlin to live after the reunification. She was married three times and died from emphysema, aged 76, in 2002.

She published several books during her lifetime, including her autobiography 'Der geschenkte Gaul - Bericht aus einem Leben' (The Gift Horse - Report of a Life) in 1970. This was a candid recount of her life in Germany during and after World War II. It was said to the best-selling German book after World War II. Her second book 'Das Urteil' (The Verdict) in 1975 dealt with her struggles with breast cancer.

Ah your thinking, just a 'forgotten' celeb and no scandal? As if I would do that .... In 1950 she starred in the movie 'Marina in Die Sünderin' (The Sinner), in which she performed the first nude scene in German film history The nudity in the scene caused one of the largest scandals in German film-making history up until that time. This was especially so when the Roman Catholic Church protested vehemently against the films release. She responded with something of a put down “I can't understand all that fuss - just five years after Auschwitz!”

Trivia:

• She was forced to dress as a young man to avoid being raped by the Soviet soldiers and was sent to a POW camp as she was thought to be a soldier.
• David Selznick invited her to Hollywood, but she refused to agree to the conditions of the contract which reportedly included changing her name to Gilda Christian and pretending to be Austrian rather than German.
• She was a close personal friend of Marlene Dietrich, despite being in the legend's international shadow for much her career.
• Became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1950.

Pictures:

Much to my surprise, she turned out to have a thread already, which took the wind out my sails ... ah well, just a few pics. Any follows up to her thread please.

[VintageKell]

Gina Lisa (aka Gina Lisa Lohfink), appeared in the third cycle of Germany’s Next Top Model. She was eliminated in the sixth episode ... and that's all folks. Well it should have been, but suddenly the Internet carried a story about the Germany’s Next Top Model contestant Gina Lisa, and her recent homemade sex tape, which was leaked online.

The video was apparently released by the German newspaper 'Bild' and features 23 minutes of “wild erotic games and unbridled sex.” The paper was claiming that Gina Lisa gave them permission to leak the video ..... well maybe, or maybe not, but its too late now

She appears to have capitalised on all this publicity with a German Pl*yboy appearance .... and then sunk back into well deserved obscurity.

Pictures:

She has a non nude post, and one with the video as well nude pictures here, but no thread, so anyone wanting to post more pictures could start a new thread for her .... she ain't shy ... apologies for any duplicates, but I was in a rush tonight.

[VintageKell]

I hope that I have earned enough 'merit points' to be allowed a small bit of latitude on this thread ... this lady, ain't a disgrace as such (well not that I know of, or in the normal sense of this thread ... but read on), but she is certainly 'minor' and almost 'unknown'. She is 'Angelyne', a model and occasional actress who I feel has a spiritual home here on this thread. She is principally known for her purchase of billboards advertising herself in of Hollywood and Los Angeles. Her "mystique" partially exists because she refuses to directly answer questions (or gives contradictory replies), so much of Angelyne's actual biographical information is vague or false, which makes her easy to post on. She is believed to be about 49 yrs old, and single (or not).

She began to gain notice in the early 1980's. when a series of handbills, and later billboards, popped up around Los Angeles featuring her in various poses and she soon got her first TV appearance as a guest on the late night talk show 'Thicke of the Night' ..... she often compared herself to the doll 'Barbie', stating that "Kids think I'm a Barbie doll." and, on one billboard, "Barbie wishes she were me." Her billboard campaign garnered her some minor celebrity status and she has appeared in several television shows and movies, including the opening titles of the 1980s television series 'Moonlighting', a brief mention in the movie 'Get Shorty', and a quick parody during the credits of cartoon series 'Futurama'. She has had parts in a number of movies, from 'Earth Girls Are Easy' in 1988, to 'Place Like Home' in 2012

She was one of the candidates in the 2003 California 'recall' election, finishing 28th in a field of 135 candidates (with 2,533 votes). Her slogan during the campaign was "We’ve had Gray, we’ve had Brown, now it’s time for some blond and pink" ... She was also a candidate for Hollywood city council in 2002, if it were to secede from Los Angeles.

As of 2010 most of her billboards have disappeared from the Los Angeles area. Presumably she has either not got the funds to pay for more, or she is getting too old, or maybe they achieved what she wanted? After all her stated aim was to be "famous for being famous".

In truth some might think she isn't aging terribly well, if some of the pictures I turned up are her now, and that's putting it mildly .... but she may return again .... 'fame', even minor, is such a drug.

Even More Trivial bits:

• Angelyne drives a pink Corvette with the license plate "ANGLYNE".
• She has a pink Maltese named 'Buddha'.
• In the movie Escape from L.A. with Los Angeles in ruins, 'Snake Plissken' walks up Hollywood Boulevard and looks up to see a pristine Angelyne billboard.
• She is the author of an as-yet unfilmed screenplay 'The Bra that Ate L.A.' about a mad scientist who invents a supernatural power-converting brazier.
• Measurements: 43DD-23-35 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)

Pictures:

She has a thread here http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/sho...light=Angelyne ..... so any follow ups to her thread please

[VintageKell]

Mary Pinchot Meyer was an American socialite, and minimalist painter. She was the daughter of a wealthy lawyer and a key figure in the 'Progressive Party' who had helped fund the 'socialist' magazine, 'The Masses'. She attended Vassar College, where she became interested in Communism. While at a dance held at Choate Rosemary Hall she first met 'John F. Kennedy' .... I suspect that you are way ahead of me now, but lets get there in the normal way. She left Vassar and became a journalist, writing for the United Press amongst other publications, where as a pacifist and member of the 'American Labor Party' she first came under scrutiny of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

She met one Cord Meyer in 1944 when he was a US Marine Corps lieutenant who had lost his left eye because of shrapnel injuries received in combat. The two had similar pacifist views and beliefs in a world government and married on April 19, 1945 .... her husband apparently changed his views after members of the Communist Party USA infiltrated the international organizations he had founded. He began secretly working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and was soon a "principal operative" of Operation Mockingbird, trying to sway US print and broadcast media toward the CIA line. Mary may also have done some work for the CIA during this time but her tendency towards spur-of-the-moment love affairs reportedly made the agency wary of her.

In 1953 Senator Joseph McCarthy publicly accused the Meyers of being a communists and the FBI was reported to have examined both their political pasts ... but because of the rivalry between the CIA and FBI, initially Dulles aggressively defended the Meyers and her husband remained with the CIA. During the summer of 1954 John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie Kennedy bought a house not far from where the Meyers lived .... (getting closer).

By the end of 1954 Cord Meyer was still with the CIA and often in Europe, running Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty .... by 1958 Mary had filed for divorce. Her divorce petition alleged "extreme cruelty, mental in nature, which seriously injured her health, destroyed her happiness, rendered further cohabitation unendurable and compelled the parties to separate." She began painting again in a converted garage studio at the home of her sister 'Tony', and had a close relationship with abstract-minimalist painter Kenneth Noland, while becoming 'friendly' with the other Kennedy, Robert.

Pinchot Meyer visited John F. Kennedy at the White House in October 1961 and their relationship became intimate. Pinchot Meyer told Ann and James Truitt she was keeping a diary of the affair. Mary Pinchot Meyer and John F. Kennedy reportedly had "about 30 trysts" and at least one author has claimed she brought marijuana or LSD to almost all of these meetings (LSD was not illegal in the U.S. at that time and that its use to facilitate psychotherapy and artistic endeavors was not uncommon in some of Pinchot Meyer's social circles). In January 1963 Philip Graham an an American publisher disclosed the Kennedy-Pinchot Meyer affair to a meeting of newspaper editors, but his claim was not reported by the news media at the time.

On October 12, 1964, eleven months after John F. Kennedy's assassination and two weeks after the Warren Commission report was made public, Pinchot Meyer went for a walk along a Canal towpath in Georgetown. A mechanic on Canal Road and heard a woman cry out, "Someone help me, someone help me." He heard two gunshots and ran to a low wall looking upon the path where he saw "a black man in a light jacket, dark slacks, and a dark cap standing over the body of a white woman" ... it was Pinchot Meyer. She had two bullet wounds, one at the back of the head and another in her heart. An FBI forensic expert later said "dark halos on the skin around both entry wounds suggested they had been fired at close-range, possibly point-blank" ... this implied a possible 'hit', or then again just a struggle in a robbery.

For those who do like a conspiracy, when the 'black man' that they arrested came to trial. The Judge Howard Corcoran ruled Mary Pinchot Meyer's private life could not be disclosed in the courtroom ... and indeed the defence lawyer, later remarked that she could find out almost nothing about the murder victim: "It was as if she existed only on the towpath on the day she was murdered" ... the *suspect was acquitted of all charges and the murder remains unsolved (*He wasn't some passing innocent, he led a life of crime thereafter). The 'diary' was found, and its said to have confirmed Meyer's intimate friendship with Kennedy, but nothing else.

Trivia:

• Timothy Leary the LSD experimenter and friend of Meyer, later claimed Pinchot Meyer influenced Kennedy's "views on nuclear disarmament and rapprochement with Cuba".
• Leary also made a lot of other claims, including that she was taking part in a plan to avert worldwide nuclear war by convincing powerful male members of the Washington establishment to take mind-altering drugs ... this included conducting LSD sessions with these powerful men, including, she had strongly implied, President John F. Kennedy
• He went on to suggest 'conspiracies' and other attention seeking claims, which you can believe or not, as is your nature. I choose not to.
• 'An American Affair', was a 2009 film starring Gretchen Mol as a character based on Mary Pinchot Meyer (the colour pictures attributed as Meyer on some web sites are I believe the actress Mol).

Quote: "Mary's visits to Timothy Leary during the time she was also Kennedy's lover suggest that Kennedy knew more about hallucinogenic drugs than the CIA might have been telling him. No one has ever confirmed that Kennedy tried LSD with Mary. But the timing of her visits to Timothy Leary do coincide with her known private meetings with the President" - journalist Nina Burleigh and Pinchot Meyer's biographer.

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Aaliyah Dana Haughton, was known simply as 'Aaliyah' by her hip-hop and R&B fans. She was born in Brooklyn, N.Y where she appeared on "Star Search" at the age of 10. She got her first break when she duetted with Gladys Knight (of the pips fame) just aged 11. At age 12, Aaliyah signed with Jive Records ... and the money machine started to role. Her producer was 'R. Kelly', who became her 'mentor', as well as lead songwriter and producer of her debut album, 'Age Ain't Nothing but a Number'. The album sold three million copies in the United States and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Aaliyah went on to release "One in a Million" while just 17 yrs old, which was another certified double-platinum recording.

She followed that up with "Aaliyah" in July 2001, after landing her first major film role in 2000's "Romeo Must Die" .... one month later, shortly after wrapping production of her music video for the single "Rock the Boat" in the Bahamas, Aaliyah and eight members of her record company boarded a small plane to fly back to the U.S. The plane crashed shortly after takeoff, and all aboard were killed. The pilot, Luis Morales III, was unlicensed at the time of the accident and had traces of cocaine and alcohol in his system. Aaliyah's family later filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Blackhawk International Airways, which was settled out of court.

He big brush with scandal was that R. Kelly, the singer who helped write and produce her first album, apparently 'married' the 14/15-year-old singer, when he was aged 27. 'Vibe' magazine published a copy of their Illinois marriage license, dated Aug. 31, 1994, which showed the starlet's age had been listed as 18. Their marriage was annulled in February 1995 by her parents .... there were no arrests (lucky boy Mr Kelly), mainly as they both just kept denying it despite the evidence .... but tellingly they didn't sue the magazine.

Trivia:

• There was a posthumous release of 'Queen of the Damned' in 2002 (which oddly, is the only reason I have ever heard of her).

Pictures:

She has a small but reasonably well populated thread here already, so just some illustrative pictures (apologies to posters if dupes), and any follow ups to her thread please

[VintageKell]

Virginia Oldoini better known as La Castiglione, was a significant figure in the early history of photography. She was born into a family of minor Tuscan nobles. She married Francesco Verasis, conte di Castiglione at the age of 17, and was known for her beauty and her flamboyant entrances in elaborate dresses at the various courts of Europe. One of her most infamous outfits was a "Queen of Hearts" costume .... she travelled to Paris as a part of a deputation from the Victor Emmanuel II, king of Sardinia to plead the cause of Italian unity with Napoleon III of France. Whilst in France she entered the social circle of European royalty and became acquainted with Augusta of Saxe-Weimar, Otto von Bismarck and Adolphe Thiers, among others.

In 1856 she began sitting for Mayer and Pierson, the photographers favored by the French Imperial court. Over the next four decades she directed Pierre-Louis Pierson to help her create 700 different photographs of her life for the camera. She was obsessed by the medium and spent a large part of her personal fortune (including entering into debt) to execute this project.

Most of the photographs depict the Countess in her theatrical outfits, such as the Queen of Hearts dress. A number of photographs depict her in poses risqué for the era .... exposure of her bare legs and feet .... oh la la! In these photos, her head is cropped out. Her involvement in this project did much to promote photography in Europe, and made her one of the earliest 'photo models' and a 'celebrity'.

The countess finally returned to Italy in 1857, and just four years later the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed ... possibly her charms had worked on on Napoleon III afterall. That same year, 1861, she returned to France and settled in Passy. In 1871, just after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, she was called to a secret meeting with Otto von Bismarck, to explain to him how the German occupation of Paris could be fatal to his interests. She appears to have used her charms once again and have been persuasive, because Paris was spared Prussian occupation.

And that would be that, but Quelle Surprise! She was also a courtesan of some infamy, having become the mistress of Emperor Napoleon III of France .... this affair was so notorious and such a scandal, that it led her husband to demand a marital separation.

Trivia:

• She was often known by her nickname of "Nicchia".
• Robert de Montesquiou, a Symbolist poet, dandy, and avid art collector, was fascinated by the Countess di Castiglione. He spent thirteen years writing a biography, La Divine Comtesse, which appeared in 1913. After her death, he collected 433 of her photographs, all of which entered the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Samantha Ronson is a singer-songwriter and disc jockey who lives in Los Angeles, California. Ronson was raised in St John's Wood, London before her family relocated to New York City following her parents' divorce .... UK's loss is America's gain At age sixteen Samantha Ronson was in a rap group called the 'Low Lifes', which may have been prophetic .... somehow

Somewhere along the line she became what was once known as a Disc Jockey, but which is now abbreviated to 'DJ' ... She DJ'd live for 'MTV's New Year's Eve 2001' show from Times Square in New York. Somehow this qualified her as a 'songwriter', and she became the first 'rock act' signed to 'Roc-A-Fella Records'. She released four songs to very little public interest, and wrote and recorded her first album, 'Red' (which was never released). Possibly the only thing about this that was of interest was that one of her songs "Built This Way", was featured in the movie 'Mean Girls' starring Lindsay Lohan.

Ronson has parted ways with her label 'Roc-A-Fella Records' and is currently focusing on her DJ work (probably for the best, eh?). She is or was a co-owner of the New York City nightclub 'The Plumm', along with some actors I haven't heard of. Well, enough of the boring stuff, no doubt having virtually no record sales has made her rich, so no need to try and find her talent.

Lesbian Stuff:

In 2008 suggestions appeared in the media that Ronson and actress Lindsay Lohan, who were often 'very affectionate' in public, were in fact 'an item'. Lohan stated through her publicist that she "wanted to keep her private life private" ... while Ronson merely said when asked "Are you retarded?" ... this stance didn't last for too long and when asked by a radio program presenter how long they had been a couple, Lohan laughed, and replied "For a very long time". The UK press, never shy about this kinda thing, then started saying that their relationship was 'on the rocks', which elicited a denial by Lohans publicist. Ronson more typically said, "Are you fucking kidding me!?"

In April 2009, Lohan announced that she was taking a break from seeing Ronson, and Ronson stated, that she loves Lohan as a human being, but the paparazzi attention grew to be too much, adding "I'm not gonna not hang out with somebody that I care about because of that shit". She also stated "I’m not gay! I’m an equal-opportunity player! I still go back and forth" .... batting for both teams is an honourable tradition on this thread

Other Stuff:

In April, she had a bit of an incident on a BMX bike while she was cycling home from a gig in Los Angeles .... she was left with a bruised and cut face afterwards. Ronson said: "Let this be a lesson ... if you have a driver's license you probably don't need to be on a bmx bike ... Wear a helmet kids!!! "

Legal Stuff:

(Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive ) ... or something like that.

Lindsay Lohan crashed her car in May 2007, and Police found a "small amount" of cocaine in her car which famous blogger Perez Hilton re-posted from another blog belonged to Ronson, Two weeks later he started selling "Blame Samantha" t-shirts and called Ronson a "lezbot dj". Ronson hired a legal eagle to start a defamation suit against both Hilton and the original story source. The original source agreed a retraction and apology if Ronson would drop the claim; But Hilton's lawyers asked the judge to throw out the case as an assault on his 'free speech rights'.

Robson's lawyer considered that it would be impossible to prove that Hilton had acted with malice and proposed an agreement which would have kept Ronson from paying Hilton's legal fees. Ronson vetoed the proposal (wanting a retraction). Unfortunately her lawyer also presented his bill ($100,000 bill on top of the $25,000 retainer already paid). Ronson couldn't or wouldn't pay up, and neither she nor her legal eagle appeared at Hilton's hearing, where the judge ruled in Hilton's favour ordering Ronson to pay Hilton's $85,000 legal fees.

Things couldn't have got much worse, but they did when her lawyer sued Ronson in New York for close to $142,000 in fees and services, but he later dropped that suit (possibly suspecting there was no money to gain). In response Ronson filed suit against him, contending that his incompetence had lost the case against Hilton and asking for damages in excess of $300,000.

God only knows where this all ended up, because in response to Ronson's malpractice suit, the lawyer counter sued to recover his fees ....

Finally, on Sunday last week Ronson was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence (DUI) at 10:30am in the morning in LA .... she was driving her black Porsche home when she was pulled over by police for speeding. She failed a field sobriety test but she refused to take a breathalyser so was arrested on the spot .... silly girl. Once in custody, police tested her blood alcohol level and she blew the legal limit. The booking sheet listed 33-year-old Samantha as 5'7'' (170cm) and 105lbs (47.6kg) .... she was charged with DUI and released at 05:30pm on Monday afternoon.

That's another thing she and Lohan have in common ....

Trivia:

• Her mother married 'Foreigner' guitarist Mick Jones, and moved the family to New York.
• Among the allegations against her lawyer was that he failed to fulfill his duties as her attorney because he was focused on collecting his fees .... so?
• Lohan's father, Michael Lohan, has been very outspoken in his disapproval of Lohan's lesbian relationship with Ronson but Lohan wrote a response to him via e-mail to the New York Post: "Samantha is not evil, I care for her very much and she's a wonderful girl.... She loves me, as I do her."

Pictures:

[VintageKell]

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (aka Colette) was a French novelist and performer ... She is best known for her novel Gigi, upon which Lerner and Loewe based the stage and film musical comedies of the same title. She studied piano as a child and left school with a diploma with high marks ... and in 1893, at age 20, she married Henri Gauthier-Villars, who was infamous as both a bisexual and a 'wit', known as "Willy" to his friends and public. He was 15 years her senior and biographers later labelled him as a 'literary charlatan and degenerate'. Maybe not the best of introductions to married life, but as we shall see, she may have been more aware of his foibles than biographers gave her credit for

She started writing very soon after the marriage started (she may have had time on her hands, all things considered) but published under the pen name of her husband, "Willy", and a famous story says he locked Colette in her room until she had written enough pages, which brings a whole new meaning to the term 'slaving over a type writer'. The books, the Claudine series, which depicted the adventures of a teenage girl, were a big success with whats nowadays more likely to be regarded as a chastely sensual, rather than prurient story line. In 1906 she left and divorced the ever unfaithful Gauthier-Villars, she was living for a time at the home of the American writer and salonist Natalie Barney ... who as regulars to this thread will know was a lesbian of some renown, and so unsurprisingly the two had a short lesbian affair, and remained friends until Colette's death.

This seems to have awakened something in her because its alleged that she then had an affair with the actress Josephine Baker.... followed by another affair with Mathilde de Morny (aka the Marquise de Belbeuf, known as 'Missy'), this after she went to work in the music halls of Paris. They then pushed the boundaries a bit too far when in 1907, the two performed together in a pantomime entitled 'Rêve d'Égypte' at the Moulin Rouge. On stage she bared one breast, mimed copulation in a sketch, and their 'onstage kiss' caused a near riot, which the police were called in to suppress before the disturbance got out of hand.

As a result of this scandal, all further performances of 'Rêve d'Égypte' were banned and Colette and de Morny were no longer able to openly live together, though their relationship continued in secret for five more years. Like a lot of our girls, she was swinging both ways and she was also was involved in other relationships during this time e.g. with the Italian writer Gabriele D'Annunzio. She also squeezed in another brief affair during this period with the automobile-empire scion, Auguste Herriot.

She then slowed down and married Henri de Jouvenel, the editor of the newspaper Le Matin. She was now writing for ballet stories for the Opera de Paris and she commissioned Maurice Ravel to write the music, and it was performed as as an opera on 21 March 1925. This was after yet another sex scandal .... In 1920, when he was a mere 16, and she was in her late 40s. she began a much talked-about affair with her stepson, Bertrand de Jouvenel. The affair ended Colette's marriage and caused a scandal which only subsided after her divorce in 1924.

Still, she was not one to rest on her laurels, or anything else come to think of it, and in 1935 she married the Jewish Maurice Goudeket. During the German occupation of France during World War II she aided her Jewish friends, including hiding her husband in her attic all through the war. Upon her death in Paris in 1954, Colette left 50 published novels in total, many with autobiographical elements. She was the first woman given a state funeral in France, although she was refused Roman Catholic rites because of her divorces. Colette is interred in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Trivia:

• Colette de Jouvenel, the daughter of her second marriage later stated that her mother did not want a child and left her in the care of an English nanny, only rarely coming to visit her.
• During the war, she converted her husband's St. Malo estate into a hospital for the wounded, and was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (1920).
• Maurice Goudeket published a book about his wife, 'Close to Colette: An Intimate Portrait of a Woman of Genius'.
• The publication of Chéri in 1920, is considered the high point of her writings.
• She was a member of the Belgian Royal Academy (1935), president of the Académie Goncourt (1949) (and the first woman to be admitted into it, in 1945), and a Chevalier (1920) and a Grand Officier (1953) of the Légion d'honneur.

Pictures: