Cleopatra
With the death of her father, 18-year-old Cleopatra inherited an ancient kingdom. We have heard a lot about this strong legendary Queen, who was the last Pharaoh to rule Ancient Egypt.
She claimed to be Goddess Isis herself. The name Isis means “throne” and this Egyptian deity appears as the principle of natural fertility among all the religions of the ancient world, a virgin goddess.
She used to be the most famous lover of antiquity – not one but two great Roman leaders had the privilege to satiate her sensual desires. Seduction was always a part of her diplomacy – this is why she had a bad reputation among her enemies – for using love as a weapon and winning her throne through manipulation and affairs. Even though she was not an immaculate beauty especially judged by modern standards, this Siren of Nile knew how to make herself irresistible with her legendary, iconic charm.
Cleopatra’s Beauty Secrets
Her flawless skin she owed to 100 donkeys, which were milked daily for her everyday bath packed with essential oils. To her face, she applied honey and rinsed it with apple cider vinegar. Her natural exfoliator was sea salt. She used henna to dye her nails and hair, and rose water for her sensitive skin. Her favorite scent was jasmine. She mixed red ochre with fat together to color her lips.
She was intelligent and enchanting, but she also had the cold-blooded and unscrupulous ego of an able ruler, ambitious mother, and smart woman. She acted really bravely in the climate of those dangerous times. She was the only Queen who learned to read and write in Egyptian. She spoke nine languages in a voice so sonorous and enchanting, that every man cherished her immediately. She was a master of plenty of subjects, which made her equal not only to men but to Emperors. When she was banished from the palace, by her brother Ptolemy, she decided to contact the all-powerful Roman Emperor Julius Caesar, who came to visit Egypt and collect his taxes. She decided to appear in the Emperor’s chambers in a rolled luxurious carpet, from which she rose naked as Eve and with a ton of eye-shadow. It must have worked!
So how did she solve her Empire’s problems? By fascinating Roman Emperors! One after another – Julius Caesar was closely followed by Mark Anthony for the affair of the millennium. With a similar bit of theatre show as with Caesar, she entered the city by sailing up the Cydnus River, in a golden boat adorned with purple sails, while she was dressed in the robe of Aphrodite, which was completely transparent.
Nefertiti
Another Ancient Egyptian Queen, whose name means “the coming beauty” or “the beautiful one has come.” Surprisingly little is known about her. She must have been about four feet and six inches tall – the height of an average Egyptian woman. She often went about scarcely dressed, as was the custom in the warm Nile climate. She was dearly loved by her husband and her beauty was legendary. Her husband established a new religion around Egypt and with that he created a new ideal of beauty.
Her famous bust is a life-size colored, totally impressive and fabulously beautiful. Thutmose was the artist who made her in his own studio, not in a tomb. Scientists believe that this sculpture was actually to serve as a model of other sculptures the artist would make of the Queen. The most remarkable about this work of art is how sensitively carved and tremendously elegant she is. Despite the missing eye her statue is the most beautiful female figurine from the ancient world.
Why does she dazzle us after so many centuries? She was the Cleopatra of her days – just as beautiful, wealthy and powerful. “She is compelling” –says Michelle Moran, an author of a book about Nefertiti – “You look into her face and you are arrested by beauty.” Her sensuality and her feminine body shape, her fertility – she was the mother of six princesses – indicate that she was treated as a living fertility goddess.
Therefore many contemporary women dress in Nefertiti adult costumes for Halloween. Period.
Mae West
“When I am good, I am very, very good, but when I am bad, I am better.”
One of the nuttiest of Guinness’s records was recorded in the memoirs of the Hollywood star Mae West. The actress testified that her sexual intercourse with some Ted chap was 15 hours long. Of course, no one saw that, but Ted confirmed that everything described in the book of the amorous diva is pure truth, and he was pleasantly surprised and happy with his sexual abilities.
In the Spanish Museum, the masterful artist Salvador Dali left one of the special attractions – a three-dimensional work of art with a red sofa, formed as full lips, a fireplace in the shape of a nose, two pictures on the wall as eyes, and curtains from blond threads. If you look at it through the lenses – the interior merges and forms the portrait of Mae West.
“All my work I do in bed.” Mae West says. The exact number of her lovers remains unknown, but still, she is among the most sexually active representatives of the fair sex. She wrote most of the TV plays she acted in.
For her rather spicy performance the beloved burlesque diva was arrested for filthy behavior on the stage and she spent ten days behind the bars. One week of incarceration culminated in a lifetime of fame. She was accused to be “corrupting the morals of youth” and the arresting officer confirmed that he not only had seen her navel in public, but she also moved it up and down and side to side.
The fashion designer Marchel Rochars creates Femme – the legendary perfume of Mae West, and a lace black corset especially for the icon of independence for the common woman that she represents.
Mata Hari
Mata Hari is a dark-haired and dark-eyed native of Holland, which already makes her an exception. She was tall and very artistic. When she was twenty-one she decided to marry and have a decent life. Thus she became the wife of a colonial officer from the Holland part of India, and she gives birth to his two children. Because of her husband’s job she spends some time on the island of Java where she finds the magic of the far-east culture. All that makes her finally realize her attractiveness to men. The nickname Mata Hari comes from the Indonesian language and means “the eye of the day,” which is the Sun.
Her dream was to dance on Paris cabaret scenes. For this purpose, at the age of 27, she first divorces herself and then leaves for France. She becomes an overnight success. She was seen as the nude of art, rather as the nude of commerce – her performances were accepted as a cultural event. She becomes famous with the exciting and completely fabricated and false stories she tells about herself. Because of her status as an expensive and very wanted courtesan, Mata Harry immediately gets under suspicion for being a spy. She has got plenty of lovers among the councils of big states, and underlined attraction to officers – she had no shortage of high-society lovers, she knew several languages and traveled around Europe. If she really was a spy, she surely ranks among the world’s most inept agents – a famous secret agent is almost a contradiction of terms.
James Bond is essentially a gender-switched Mata Hari, not only because he is a serial seducer, ravishing in his luxurious, globe-trotting lifestyle, but he is also so indiscrete to mention his name wherever he goes.
Bond. James Bond.
For decades to come Mata Hari was the archetypal temptress, who prospered in a man’s world by being creative and a tease that isn’t over even now after 100 years and 250 books of her.
Sophia Loren
Born under the sign of Virgo one of the living goddesses of cinema, still dazzles us in her 80s. Millions of fans around the world admire her from the very moment she appears on the silver screen. Richard Burton – Elizabeth’s Taylor great love describes Sophia as: “beautiful brown eyes set in a marvelously vulpine, almost satanic face.” He also describes her as extremely intelligent – she moves “swaying like rain.”
Her ambitious and very poor mother decided to enroll her in a beauty competition “Queen of the Sea and her 12 princesses.” Since they have no money for a dress, they did exactly as Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With The Wind – they took off her grandma’s pink curtains and sew an evening dress from it. Her black slippers are turned into white with white oil paint. Chosen for one of the 12 princesses, Sophia gets a ticket to Rome.
Carlo Ponti saw Sophia on the competition and invites her to his office for a screen test. The cameramen panic wondering what to do with her terribly long nose and too wide hips. They strongly advise her to undergo a plastic surgery for the nose and lose some weight, but she refuses without contemplation.
Ponti decides to “export” Sophia in America. At her arrival in the USA, she gets a letter from him, which reads: “Learn English!” 20 days after this, Sophia already speaks English.
At some point in her life, she was able to choose between Ponti and Cary Grant – the irresistible sex symbol, and she chose Ponti because even though he was older and married, he belonged to Italy, her world. Her biographer claims that there was no love in their relationship – it all was business.
She won an Oscar for best actress after the movie La Ciociara, 1960, after which she won plenty of awards and the world acknowledged her talent officially. She had as her partners the sexiest men of Hollywood, and even published their love letters to her in her memoires.
Marilyn Monroe
Another Hollywood icon with a life too scandalous for its time is Marilyn Monroe. A surprising fact is that she is not the stupid blond sex bomb she represents in her movies. Actually, her IQ was 168.
Her naked photos appeared in the first edition of Playboy, and its editor Hugh Hefner was later buried near Marilyn’s grave.
One of her famous relationships was with the American President, and it was not secret at all. “If I don’t have sex every day, I get a headache” – J. Kennedy said.
Her dress in her address to John Kennedy for his birthday is so tight that it was sewn on her body, a little time before she went on stage. It is covered with crystals but reveals her figure immaculately. The sensuous song finally gives away their relationship.
Once upon a time Marilyn called Jackie Kennedy on the phone and told her that she is sleeping with her husband Jack and he had promised her to leave his family for her. “Marilyn, you will marry my Jack! This is lovely!” Jackie replied with a taunt. “You will move into the White House and take over all the obligations of a first lady. I myself will move out and leave all the problems to you.”
Marilyn makes her second husband Joe DiMaggio to promise he will leave flowers on her grave every week if she dies before him. DiMaggio keeps his promise for 20 years and sends thrice a week half a dozen red roses on her grave, before giving up, when he understands that fans of the legend constantly steal them.
Elizabeth Taylor
A few stars shined as bright as Liz Taylor. Michael Jackson says about the great screen legend: “Elizabeth Taylor is gorgeous, beautiful and she still is today, I am crazy about her.” They promise each other, that they will love each other till eternity. She is the Godmother of his children.
The love of her life Richard Burton she meets on the stage of the super production “Cleopatra” and they fall for each other straight away. She is under the Sun Sign of Pisces, he is a Scorpio – and they are soul mates destined to love and challenges. Their first kiss happens to be in front of the camera and it lasts for so long that everybody feels inconvenient, and the director starts crying “Stop!” Both actors are in their early thirties – the perfect time to act like enamored teenagers. None of them hides that they are crazy about each other. A congresswoman tried to ban her and Burton from the States, because of her scandalous affair on the set of Cleopatra. Even the Vatican printed an open letter scolding them for their “erotic vagrancy.”
The Hollywood lioness was also on the list of conquests of the “Old Blue Eyes” – Frank Sinatra. She married so many times that people joke she’s got scars from rice on the face. Exactly 8 times! Metro Goldwyn Mayer paid for her first wedding with Conrad Hilton Jr. in 1950.
Her stunning eyes – she had a rare genetic mutation and had twice the normal number of eyelashes.
Elizabeth’s Taylor’s perfume “White Diamonds” was released on the market from Elizabeth Arden in 1991 and brought the company 67,2 million dollars in 2009. It’s quite a spicy scent with heavy oriental flavor. However, she claims: “There is no deodorant like success.”
Ava Gardner
Hollywood starlets – they just don’t make them as they used to. There aren’t such women anymore, no such women! The actress Ava Gardner – one of the most beautiful women of the 20th century – is famous as the woman “with the face of an angel and the body of a goddess.”
When she became 17 Ava went to New York to visit her sister. The husband of the sister, an amateur photographer shoots a few pictures of the young relative and puts them on the window of his shop. Exactly these photographs attract the attention of the film company Metro Goldwin Mayer and Ava is invited to Hollywood.
At the trials they find out that Ava is not capable of anything – she can’t sing, she can’t dance, she ca n’t play, she can’t pose. But she signs a seven-year contract. She is just born beautiful. She has got a royal carriage, voluptuous hair, incredible figure, white skin, extremely photogenic features and that makes her a dream for every movie cameraman. She has got no charm, no talent, or at least charisma but she is dazzlingly beautiful.
The truth about Ava Gardner is that she enjoyed her life and still she considered herself to be really superficial. She liked simple things in life.
“When I’m old and gray, I want to have a house by the sea. And paint. With a lot of wonderful chums, good music, and booze around. And a damn good kitchen to cook in.”
Sarah Bernhardt
Her life starts on the scene and ends on the scene. Eccentric, self-assured, glamorous are only a part of the words that describe the legendary actress. Her enchanting golden voice and her magnetic emanation inspired many creators such as Jean Cocteau, Oscar Wilde, and many others. Oscar called her the Divine Sarah.
Oscar Wilde: “Do you mind if I smoke?”
Sarah Bernhardt: “I don’t care if you burn…”
Her mother was a courtesan, her father was unknown, and her life was an adventure, she was a girl with a taste for the world. She was unashamedly promiscuous in a world of stern morality. She had a small zoo full of cheetahs, lion and tiger cubs, a monkey of the name of Darwin, an alligator with the name Ali Gaga, she used to sleep with until it died from too much milk and champagne. She always brought her coffin on tours. Like Mata Hari, she was also a notorious liar.
In Belgium, she meets the young prince de Ligne who impregnated her with a child he never acknowledged. When she received her vast fame and fortune, the Prince went to Paris and offered their child Maurice to be recognized formally as his son. Maurice politely declined, because he was entirely satisfied to be just the son of Sarah Bernhardt.
One of the male roles she performed was of Prince Hamlet in the screen version of Shakespeare’s play, the first Prince Hamlet in a movie.
Most of all, she had an incredible will to survive, to achieve and do things her way. There was no one quite like her. The sentiment was probably best expressed by Mark Twain: “There are five kinds of actresses. Bad actresses, fair actresses, good actresses, great actresses, and then there is Sarah Bernhardt!”