Last night I was reading the interview with Kate Winslet in the current Entertainment Weekly, and in the scene-setting opening, the interviewer says something along the lines of “blah blah blah, she is, of course, a great beauty, despite her charmingly down-to-earth presentation of self…”
Okay, I’m paraphrasing like mad here, but the author definitely described Winslet as “a great beauty.”
Except she isn’t.
Let alone “of course, a great beauty.”
Now, I’ll give you “a beautiful woman” – though even that isn’t beyond debate (there’s something very, very weird about her mouth, esp. her upper lip) – but she’s not “a great beauty.”
Because, like porn, “a great beauty” may be hard to define, but you know it when you see it.
So, question one is “what does ‘a great beauty’ mean?”
And question two is “who, past or present, would you consider ‘a great beauty’?”
I’ve got no answer to either one, but I’ve got an hour drive ahead of me on which to meditate on these issues.
Modern day: I might call Scarlett Johanson a great beauty. She’s about the only actress I can think of right now who I just can’t look away from when she’s on screen. But, she’s so far from classically beautiful that that choice is hard to defend.
I’m a firm believer in the whole eye-of-the-beholder thing. “A great beauty” means different different women to different people. Would many people call Angeline Jolie a great beauty? She doesn’t do a thing for me.
Oh, yeah, I think Winslet is a great beauty. Nicole Kidman, when she eats something, is a great beauty. I think her best look was Moulin Rouge, but she’s too skinny these days and I sense she’s not going to age well - the skinny ones rarely do. Morena Baccarin, definitely. Audrey Hepburn, Isabella Rossellini (who isn’t aging at all, clearly she’s a vampire), and I second Loren and Deneuve…these are the women that make my stomach ache for their beauty.
I nominate Maureen O’Hara, with her gorgeous features, perfect figure and that incomparable red hair. Accompanying the glorious physical attributes are her obvious intelligence, strength of character and just plain niceness. A magnificent woman in every respect.
I know the OP asked for examples only of physical beauty, but I mention character and brains because true beauty doesn’t exixt without them. Without these traits, you have Paris Hilton, pretty but empty.
