Last year, in December, I launched the ’60Signers for the 60th Anniversary’ initiative, and for almost two months, I have been busy meeting with every single signer who accepted to support this initiative (and they are 60!). I will come back to you with some new information about it soon, but if I mention the initiative in this post, it is because the end of 2008 was a very busy time for me. Between two meetings with amazing people fighting for Human Rights, I was working on the last portraits of my new series titled: ‘Movie Stars’. There are a lot of actors and actresses I appreciate and the hardest thing was not to samaze them.; I explain. I got the inspiration but what was hard was to make a choice between them: ‘Who will I samaze?’ Usually, my series count 4 (like the U.S Presidents Series) to 8 portraits but this time, I couldn’t make only 4 or 8 portraits, I made 16…
The choices were tough to make but I finally got a list of my 16 favorite Movie Stars, and I gave you a hint about four of them in the title of this post. On my top list, and it comes as no surprise to you I guess, is Cary Grant. I already samazed him a long time ago but I did a new portrait especially for the series. Elegance, class, charm, charisma, humor… I am a bit nostalgic of this kind of actors, I must admit. On the opposite, the name of Angelina Jolie may come as a surprise but I think she is a very good actress (as recently seen in Changeling) and she is also very glamorous. The first time I saw her was in Hackers, with short hair but already with an incredible presence on screen. Then came The Bone Collector and of course Tomb Raider, with the sexiest Lara Croft we will ever get. She is also committed to many causes; enough for me to samaze her. Now Sean Connery. I remember a comment I posted to one of my post: Dexter and The Shield: bad is good, when I was asked by one of you who was my favorite James Bond agent. My answer was that Sean Connery is unquestionably my favorite one. Sir Sean Connery is an amazing actor and like Cary Grant, he is classy and he also has this so-British elegance that makes his acting so special. Now Marlene Dietrich. No need to explain. She is not only a Movie Star, she is a Movie Icon. Being a huge fan of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Marlene Dietrich is one of the best actress of that era with a very strong personality and a strong commitment during World War II. She had to be part of the Movie Stars Series.
These are only four of the 16 portraits I made and I will not show you any of them… For now. I know, I am being cruel with you [sic] but this series will be part of my new exhibition and I don’t want to reveal any of the portraits before it takes place. So for the moment I will only give you some hints about the other portraits I did, if you are willing to guess them. This actress was spectacular (some may even say she was a sex-bomb) during the golden age of the 30s. And she also had a soft spot for Cary Grant. This actor is a committed one, I mentioned one of his movies in Hotel Rwanda, Syriana, Blood Diamond… Not only entertainment and his name was mentioned several times in the comments of Darfur: when History is a never ending story…, Darfur: a World Wide Role Playing Game and Tall oaks from little acorns grow. I wish we could see him more often on screen. There are also two French actresses, both are unfortunately dead now but they still perfectly embody the definition of acting. They both had different styles, one was older than the other, one was once a Diabolique and the other one an Empress. My last hint is about a director/actor/movie genius. I already posted an article about him and let’s say that sometimes, sounds and gestures can be much better than dialogues.
Enough with the hints, I hope you like this little game since I heard your ‘complains’ about how frustrating is my natural inclination to ‘secrecy’. So I am working on it, as you can see ^_^