Model Iskra Lawrence

Iskra Lawrence is what people normally would call a "plus-size" model, but don't call her that to her face.  She hates the term.

Originally from England, Ms. Lawrence does not try to hide her large size and has refused to allow anyone to retouch her photos to make her look thin.  She doesn't like the impossible beauty standards set by fashion and cosmetics.

Ms. Lawrence is best known as a model for the American Eagle Outfitters lingerie line Aerie.

Sports journalist Mina Kimes

Mina Kimes is a prominent woman in the men's domain that is ESPN.

She's a regular commentator on ESPN shows, but her biggest contributions for the sports network are for the channel's sister print outlet.  She's worked at ESPN magazine as its senior editor since 2014

Before that, she was at Bloomberg for a year, working as an  investigative journalist, and had been at Fortune for six years before that.

Mina Kimes currently co-hosts the ESPN Radio weekend program "The Morning Roast" with Domonique Foxworth (Foxworth is a man) and Clinton Yates.  The three of them began the show at the beginning of  2017.  They talk about sports and whatever else comes to mind. :-) 

Stage actress Nikki M. James

Nikki Michelle James has been on numerous TV shows, but her real love is the theater.

She grew up in New Jersey, and she performed in church and in school performances, where she found she could sing as well as act. So musical theater was a natural fit for her.  Much of her work has been in New York City.

One of her first major roles was as the heroine prostitute Ottilie in a revival production of the Truman Capote musical House of Flowers, and she also appeared in the Broadway cast of All Shook Up, an Elvis Presley jukebox musical set to the story of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.  Yes - the King and the Bard, together!  (The experience of appearing in a Twelfth Night-based musical would enable Ms. James to play Viola in two different Central Park productions of the real thing.)

Ms. James also played Nabulungi in the musical farce The Book of Mormon and received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in 2011 as a result of that role.  She also  played Éponine in a Broadway revival of Les Misérables from 2014 to January 2015.  Nikki M. James is nothing if not versatile.

On television, she has had one-shot parts in "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "The Good Wife," and "Bull," among other shows.

TV newswoman Kasie Hunt

Kasie Hunt is one of the top political reporters at MSNBC and NBC News.

At 33 years of age at this writing, she's already accomplished a lot, and she's just getting started.

Though Ms. Hunt began her journalism career as an intern for NBC News' political unit, she didn't get on the air through the usual channels - no pun intended - of employment in local TV stations.  She actually went to print reporting after her NBC internship, working as a health policy reporter for the National Journal's CongressDaily segment and also covering politics for Politico and the Associated Press.

Ms. Hunt returned to NBC News as an off-air reporter in January 2013 and became an on-air political correspondent in November 2014.

Since October 2017, she's hosted her own two-hour Sunday night MSNBC political news program, the punningly titled "Kasie DC."  The gig is a double-edged sword, given that its first hour competes directly with CBS's "60 Minutes."   

Model Carol Francis

Carol Francis is a model whose career spanned the seventies and eighties, the golden age of modeling.

She worked in Paris in the 1970s, being represented by John Casablancas' prestigious Elite agency there, and she also worked in America, represented by Elite's New York and Los Angeles offices - with a brief intermezzo with the Ellen Harth agency in New York.

Among the photographers Carol Francis worked with back then were Marco Glaviano and Alberto Rizzo. Tony Kent took the picture above.  

Actress Judyann Elder

Judyann Elder has a career and a résumé going back several decades, and if you've never heard of her, well, that's your fault.

She was a founding member of the Negro Ensemble Company, and her acting abilities made it un tres bien ensemble.  :-) The company was (and is) the leading troupe in the United States for original black theater, and Ms. Elder was a pioneer in that effort, originating roles in plays such as The Song of the Lusitanian Bogey and Daddy Goodness.

Eventually, Ms. Elder went Hollywood, and she had guest roles in some of the most popular television series of the 1970s, including "The Streets of San Francisco," "Sanford and Son," "Lou Grant," and "The White Shadow."  It didn't stop her from working in her first love, the theater, for in  1976 she debuted Broadway debut  as Coretta Scott King in the Martin Luther King, Jr. biodrama I Have a Dream.  Her big-screen credits include 1973's Bloom In Love, 1995's Forget Paris, and 2008's Seven Pounds.  And she also played the role of Bernette Wilson in the 1978 miniseries A Woman Called Moses, about Harriet Tubman.

Ms. Elder continued to work steadily in the eighties and the nineties and also into the twenty-first century. including the distinction of being the second actress to play Harriette Winslow in the last episodes of the Chicago-set domestic sitcom "Family Matters," along with several plays.  One of her most remembered roles is as Dr. Barton, the obstetrician on "Murphy Brown" who delivered Murphy's baby.  Now that "Murphy Brown" (starring in the title role an earlier honoree on this blog, Candice Bergen) has been rebooted, I think I speak for many when I propose that Dr. Barton should return to see what a fine young man Murphy's son Avery turned out to be. :-)  

Judyann Elder isn't a celebrity, but she is a star. :-)

Social media reporter Alex Denis

Alex Denis has one of the most interesting news jobs created as a result of the digital information age.  She host the "Now Trending" segment on New York's WCBS-TV, meaning she monitors social media and follows the latest trending topics, people, and videos and and asks viewers to opine on them.

She joined WCBS-TV in 2012 after having been a traffic reporter and substitute anchor at Nashville's WZTV-TV.  Originally from Tampa, she stated her reporting career there as a desk assistant at WFTS-TV and,worked as a general assignment reporter for WJHG-TV in Panama City 

Ms. Denis is an alumna of the University of South Florida's School of Mass Communications, having graduated there magna cum laude.

CBS newswoman Nancy Cordes

Nancy Cordes is a leading figure in the new generation of female television correspondents.

She covers the United States Congress for CBS News, which she joined in 2007, and as a journalist trying to keep politicians on the straight and narrow, she may be even more powerful than that other woman on Capitol Hill named Nancy. ;-) 

Ms. Cordes actually started out at ABC, where she reported on the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina, among other stories.  She got there through working at the Washington, D.C. ABC affiliate WJLA-TV from 1999 to 2003.  While at WJLA-TV, she covered the September 11 attack on the Pentagon.

Fun fact: Nancy Cordes grew up in Hawaii. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, she worked KHNL-TV in Honolulu from 1995 to 1997.

Model Pattie Boyd

Pattie Boyd was one of the top models in Britain during the "Swinging London" era of the mid-1960s. Fashion and beauty trends coming out of London then were as relevant as the rock and roll music that British bands - especially the Beatles - were recording at the time.

So it seems more than appropriate the the first rock star-fashion model marriage ever would involve Pattie Boyd and George Harrison.

Pattie and George would eventually split, and she would eventually marry his best friend Eric Clapton - though they too have since split, of course. She would remain friends with both of them afterwards.  But she had been the muse for many well-known Beatles songs written by George Harrison - "Something" and "For You Blue," for example - as well as many songs composed by Clapton, such as "Layla" and "Wonderful Tonight."  (The latter song was inspired by the frustration Clapton experienced while waiting patiently for Pattie to get ready to go out with him and having to re-assure her that she looked fine prior to their departure.)     

Since Pattie's marriages to Harrison and Clapton, rock star-fashion model pairings have become commonplace.  In the eighties, the trend got a little ridiculous when everyone in Duran Duran seemed to marry a model.  As for these pairings, some have gone . . . and, as Patti Hansen's marriage to Keith Richards shows, some remain.  But Pattie Boyd's two marriages are still the gold standard of such pairings, if only because of the songs they inspired. :-) 

And she never lost her appeal.  This is a picture of Pattie Boyd in 2008 that I - yes, I - snapped at a Beatles convention, when she was 64.  Beatles fans likely were, and likely still are, still sending her valentines, which she probably keeps on her mantle as she knits sweaters by the fireside.  (I know Paul McCartney wrote that song, but what the heck!)

Fun fact: Pattie's sister Jenny is also a famous model.  She inspired Donovan's song "Jennifer Juniper," and she was once married to Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood.  

Model Khadija Adams

I've seen many a beautiful Yves Saint Laurent model, and of course I've seen numerous pictures of the eternally beautiful Catherine Deneuve, Monsieur Saint Laurent's longtime muse (a favorite subject on this blog, in case you haven't noticed), but except for Mlle. Deneuve herself, I don't think I've ever seen a woman associated with the late French designer or his fashion house as extraordinarily lovely as this woman!

That ravenous dark hair . . . that smile . . . those long, sensuous arms . . . that swan-like neckline . . . I think I'm in love!

It figures that Khadija Adams, the object of my infatuation, was a beauty queen before she became a runway queen.

Khadija Adams originally hails from Kenya, which she represented in the 1984 Miss World pageant.  Amazingly, she didn't win the title, but she did win the Continental Queen of Africa prize.

Ms. Adams was able to parlay her pageant success into a modeling career, and after working in New York and Milan, she caught the attention of Yves Saint Laurent, who fell in love with her just like I did. :-D

He was so inspired by her captivating beauty, he designed a single haute couture collection around her.  To say that she became his muse would be an understatement.  Like the picture at the top of this post, the picture immediately above and the picture immediately below both show Ms. Adams modeling  Yves Saint Laurent clothes.

And when she wasn't modeling Saint Laurent's outfits, she was modeling his cosmetics line, having secured a lucrative makeup contract with his fashion house.

Khadija Adams is retired from modeling now and lives a private life.  But those of us who are as taken by her beauty as Yves Saint Laurent was still love her. :-)