# Who was the earliest "hottie"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 13, 2007, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988 "2007-04-13T17:30:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Arien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arien)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2007, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/61 "2007-04-14T04:12:30Z")
Well, since this thread is turning into a list of historical women famous for their looks, an interesting example is [Phryne](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phryne), a famous ancient Greek courtesan. The name meant Toad (I guess the Greeks were funny about epithets by our standards, like Hera being referred as cow-eyed in the Iliad) because she was kind of sallow but she became so rich she was able to fund the rebuilding of the walls of Thebes. And at her trial for profaning the Elusinian mysteries, she bared her breasts and was found not guilty. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2007, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/62 "2007-04-14T04:43:19Z")
The problem is that “today’s standards” are very atypical, historically. Looking at movies prior to, say, the late 60s, most women looked somewhat overweight and with very poor posture. Even Marilyn Monroe wouldn’t cut it today, without a whole lot of body sculpting. What this means is that a hottie “by today’s standards” would not have been a hottie in the past, possibly even considered homely. So she’d be less likely to become a movie star or had her likeness preserved for posterity. She would have lived her life and died in anonymity. ---
**Author:** ![drm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@drm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drm)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2007, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/63 "2007-04-14T05:04:35Z")
As I understand it, Spartan woman were supposedly pretty hot. They were all into physical fitness and such so they were pretty toned. They also had more rights than most other greek woman so they probably ate a little better. Ironically, the men spent so much time together (a young boy at 13 or there abouts is paired with an older guy and they got it on) that when it came time for marriage it was tougher for them to adjust to sex with woman so they developed this ritual to help out. So maybe it was a bad thing they were so beautiful? So yeah, I’m going with a Spartan woman and to provide a name, Helen of Troy. I’m sure there were others just as beautiful and not mythological, however. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2007, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/64 "2007-04-14T05:03:46Z")
• [Alexander the Great](http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/A-Robert.R.Lauer-1/alexanderthegreat.jpe) • [Nathaniel Hawthorne](http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/nh/hawthorne_files/hawthrn2.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2007, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/65 "2007-04-14T16:00:10Z")
[QUOTE=VCO3] I know it’s funny to say “Lucy” and “Eve” and be big nerds, but it’s a valid OP, and it’s RIGHT THERE: Why do people think they’re so funny that they have to completely derail valid threads? [/QUOTE] In this case, probably in reaction to the inane sweeping generalization that everyone used to be homely. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/66 "2007-04-18T04:08:48Z")
[QUOTE=panache45] The problem is that “today’s standards” are very atypical, historically. Looking at movies prior to, say, the late 60s, most women looked somewhat overweight and with very poor posture. [/quote] That simply isn’t true. Look at any screen siren of the 1920s through the 1940s and you’ll see many slender beauties: [Myrna Loy](http://www.atomicpinup.com/images/Myrna_Loy_1.bmp), [Claudette Colbert](http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Colbert,%20Claudette/Colbert,%20Claudette%20(Sign%20of%20the%20Cross,%20The)_01.jpg), [Veronica Lake](http://www.nndb.com/people/534/000026456/vlake-med.jpg), to name three among hundreds. Standards of beauty have been all over the map (and bathroom scale) all through history. > [@](#): > > Even Marilyn Monroe wouldn’t cut it today, without a whole lot of body sculpting. Also untrue. Marilyn [was not unusually zaftig by the standards of her day or ours](http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/mmdress.htm), contrary to popular myth. And Anna Nicole Smith became a sex symbol in the 1990s at a size much larger than Marilyn (or Bettie Page, or Dorothy Lamour, for that matter) ever thought about attaining. ---
**Author:** ![Lisa-go-Blind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Lisa-go-Blind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lisa-go-Blind)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/67 "2007-04-18T05:00:33Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] However, [this](http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/articles/oct02/josi1002.htm) purported poster of Josie Earp (wife of Wyatt), in her music hall days before her marriage, certianly gives the lie to the idea that everyone was homely. This picture was used on a psychedelic era concert poster in the 1960s, but I don’t remember which one. WARNING: Probably not _quite_ SFW. [/QUOTE] [Vanilla Fudge](http://www.leadpipeposters.com/images/1872.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Silence\_of\_the\_clams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Silence\_of\_the\_clams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silence_of_the_clams)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/68 "2007-04-18T08:45:53Z")
[QUOTE=Lemur866] This is the canonical one: > **[Venus of Willendorf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_willendorf)** > > The Venus of Willendorf is an 11.1-centimetre-tall (4.4 in) Venus figurine estimated to have been made c. 30,000 years ago. It was recovered on 7 August 1908 on an archaeological dig conducted by Josef Szombathy, Hugo Obermaier, and Josef Bayer at a Paleolithic site near Willendorf, a village in Lower Austria. The figurine was found by a workman named either Johann Veran or Josef Veram and is carved from an oolitic limestone that is not local to the area, and tinted with red och As with similar ... [/QUOTE] Lucky for us there’s more than one “Venus”, I find [this one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo) much more palatable 😉 and, she lives up to modern standars because you can see little bit of her butt showing because her garments are worn low (much like todays female fashion of wearing jeans that do not cover more than half the ass (I’m not complaining; this was just making an observation)) ---
**Author:** ![Puzzler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d07c76/32.png) [@Puzzler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Puzzler)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/69 "2007-04-18T10:02:50Z")
[QUOTE=Darryl Lict] How about [Nefertiti](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nefertiti) (the beauty that has come). Supposedly, Egyptian liknesses were fairly realistic at the time and she doesn’t come off looking too bad. I sort of imagine her looking like [Kelly Hu](http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1805535170/photo/242273) in The Scorpion King. I’ve hung out at Nefertiti’s lounge at the Luxor in Vegas and the waitresses are usually pretty hot. I imagine they’re pretty representative of Egyptian women of that era. [/QUOTE] She actually reminds me much more [Meskie Shibru](http://www.onp.co.il/pages/maskie.htm) (an israeli singer/actress). ---
**Author:** ![Sonia\_Montdore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Sonia\_Montdore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sonia_Montdore)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/70 "2007-04-18T13:25:57Z")
The woman who modeled for the Willendorf Venus. She may be plump to our eyes, but she was a hottie by paleolithic standards. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/71 "2007-04-18T13:31:17Z")
[QUOTE=Kotick] Lucky for us there’s more than one “Venus”, I find [this one](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo) much more palatable 😉 [/QUOTE] And is _Boxing Helena_ also your favorite movie? ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/72 "2007-04-18T13:50:56Z")
[QUOTE=VCO3] No, this reading of the OP is faulty. He says “BY TODAY’S STANDARDS.” Therefore, he’s asking about how far back you can go and still find a woman that would be considered “hot” by 2007’s sociocultural standards. Lucy was a fucking APE. Cleopatra was an ugly man. I’d venture the mid-1800’s; before that, the cultural standards of beauty favored things that aren’t considered beautiful by modern stanrdards, such as obestity. [/QUOTE] Leonardo painted long before the 1800’s. [This young lady is not obese](http://www.latifm.com/artists/image/da-vinci-leonardo-la-dama-con-lermellino.jpg). I’ve been “watching” Anton Francesco degli Albizzi for years… [At Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts.](http://www.mfah.org/graphics/deco/timeline1961.jpg) Going back even farther… [Zeus or Poseidon? Definitely a fine figure of a man.](http://www.utexas.edu/courses/classicalarch/images3/ArtemisionZeus.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/73 "2007-04-18T14:04:57Z")
Mary Magdalene? ---
**Author:** ![raz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@raz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raz)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/74 "2007-04-18T14:50:35Z")
[Don’t act like you don’t think this guy is a hottie!](http://www.adweek.com/adweek/photos/2006/09/12_CR_News_GEICO.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/75 "2007-04-18T14:50:38Z")
[QUOTE=Fiver] Marilyn [was not unusually zaftig by the standards of her day or ours](http://www.snopes.com/movies/actors/mmdress.htm), contrary to popular myth. [/QUOTE] Scarlett Johansson, anybody? ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/76 "2007-04-18T15:31:16Z")
How about [Hypatia of Alexandria](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Hypatia_(Charles_William_Mitchell).jpg/250px-Hypatia_(Charles_William_Mitchell).jpg)? Not only was she smokin’ hot, she was acknowledged as a genius and one of the greatest minds of the ancient world. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/77 "2007-04-18T15:38:46Z")
How about John Sargent’s [Madame X](http://jssgallery.org/paintings/Madame_X.htm), from 1884? Then there’s Goya’s [Dona Isabel de Porcel](http://www.abcgallery.com/G/goya/goya8.html), dated 1806 or [Portrait of Antonia Zárate](http://www.abcgallery.com/G/goya/goya55.html), from 1805. Then there’s Henri Fantin-Latour’s [Charlotte Dubourg](http://www.abcgallery.com/F/fantin-latour/fantin-latour19.html) from 1882. The woman in the portrait is middle-aged, but you can tell that she was quite a beauty by today’s standards when she was younger. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/78 "2007-04-18T16:29:13Z")
[Ann Pennington (actress) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Pennington_%28Ziegfeld_star%29) Ziegfeld Folllies showcased wome from 1913 onward. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/79 "2007-04-18T16:52:40Z")
[QUOTE=Darryl Lict] How about [Nefertiti](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nefertiti) [/QUOTE] That was going to be my suggestion, too. Her [face](http://z.about.com/d/womenshistory/1/7/k/I/nefertiti_400.jpg) is stunning. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2007, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988/80 "2007-04-18T16:58:58Z")
Also, whoever posed for [this Roman statue](http://www.livius.org/a/turkey/ephesus/ephesus_artemis_selcuk.JPG) must have been an attention-getter. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-was-the-earliest-hottie/399988.md?page=5)