The eye of the beholder

Just the other night, while I was watching “The Sound of Music” (Yeah? What of it bud? You got something to say?) I got to thinking just exactly how beautiful Julie Andrews was/is. During the scene where Captain von Trapp expresses his love for the former nun in the gazebo, the two-time nanny (eh, remember her turn around the rooftops of London with Dick Van Dyke in “Mary Poppins”?) looked so beautiful it got me to thinking about other beautiful women.

Then, yesterday, Vanity Fair announced the results of its poll and named Angelina Jolie “The Most Beautiful Woman in the World.” She was, in fact, the overwhelming winner, taking 58 percent of the vote and the only person on the list to make it into double digits percentage-wise (Gisele Bundchen – 9 percent, and Halle Berry, 4 percent, were second and third).

Now, don’t get me wrong, Mrs. Pitt is a beautiful woman, but she and pretty much all of her contemporaries in the moving pictures today can’t hold a candle to the silver screen’s leading ladies of yesteryear. With that in mind, I got to thinking even more. What I needed was a list. A list of women who's beauty transcends time and space.

And here it is, my list of the Top 3 Most Beautiful Women in Cinema History, and a few of their credits in case you want to look them up. Trust me, you won't be disappointed.

Grace Kelly
To Catch a Thief and Rear Window

I saw “Rear Window” in a film class my sophomore or junior year. The first time Grace Kelly came into the frame she took my breath away.

Ingrid Bergman
Casablanca and Notorious

Forever famous for asking Sam to play “As Time Goes By” Ingrid Bergman’s beauty makes it easy to understand why Rick was so destroyed when she missed the train and left him standing in the rain in Paris.

Audrey Hepburn

Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and My Fair Lady

Sometimes one picture is just not enough. So here's a couple more.

“I ain't dirty! I washed me face and hands before I come, I did.” No amount of dirt smudging her face could disguise her beauty.

I know there’s some actress out there I missed who may be as luminescent as the three mentioned above and for that I am truly sorry. One thing I’m sure of is Grace, Ingrid and Audrey would still be leading ladies today. Not in their current form, of course, since all are dead, but at their prime their beauty easily eclipses any of today’s stars.

A Mom-centric TMI Edition

It was the summer of 1994, one of the best summers of my life.

I'd gotten out of the Marine Corps the previous year, had just finished up a part-time schedule of classes at Chapel Hill and been accepted as a full-time student for the following fall. My youngest brother, who'd just been commissioned a Marine second lieutenant, and I had an entire summer to wile away with beer, booze, women and friends. That and rebuild the retaining wall in front of our parent's house. And a mighty wall it is, still standing strong and proud these 14 long years later. (The wall it replaced, designed and built by my father, a civil engineer I might add, had crumbled after a mere six or seven years.)

But that was just busy work to justify the amazing amount of drinking we did during those three months. If there was a bottle of beer, a fifth of whiskey or an unattached woman in or around the city of Pittsburgh, they weren't safe.

Life was indeed good.

The came the day my mom asked me for some help cleaning out her dresser. Like an idiot, I agreed.

"No problem Mom. We'll knock that right out."

So, there I was, helping Mom as she dug through years of detritus layered in her dresser drawers. Just as we were finishing up, she found a little notebook right in the bottom.

Perhaps all the drinking that summer had dulled my finely honed Marine sense of danger. Perhaps I was thinking ahead to that night's entertainment. Either way, I was utterly and completely unprepared for what came next.

"Do you know what this is?" Mom asked as she flipped to a couple of pages covered in columns of numbers in the high 90s.

"No, not a clue?" I stupidly asked, still not recognizing the danger.

"It's the chart I kept of my temperature during the months I was trying to get pregnant with you."