Rita! Or Gilda, or Margarita Carmen Hayworth. Really, it’s hard to tell them all apart. Rita was was an invention, an actress, a dancer and a Goddess! Image is a self-portrait and was edited to remove acne scars.

There were femme fatales, girls next door, tough girls, country girls, good wives, up until Gilda.  After Gilda, you had the first apparition of the Hollywood Goddess. With her million-dollar smile, twinkling eyes, vaporous hair, sensuous dancing, she breathed life into celluloid divinity! Pushing away the European Femme Fatale, and creating the All-American Glamour Goddess.

She famously said: “All men fall in love with Gilda, but wake up with me”. A poignant statement and warning about the curse that glamour places on those who weave the spell: is that it carries on in real life.

I went for bare shoulders, like in Gilda‘s iconic closeups. A Technicolour flush, from whatever makes the heart race, and the skin glow. Bless you Rita, wherever you are, for making sexy, classy. We can only wish to live up to the grace you gave!