
As I continue to age and become increasingly feeble, forgetful, and just plain dopey, I nevertheless come up with theories that appear to be accurate. Case in point: Rita Hayworth. The movie goddess and dreams of millions of men the world over was best known for being a red-headed pinup during World War II. However, in the 1948 film noir The Lady From Shanghai, hubby Orson Welles had Rita dye her hair for her role ass a sick and twisted femme fatale. But you knew all that. Now before I go forth with my crackpot belief, I'll have you know that what I don't know about style could be stuffed into the Grand Canyon. But what I've always found interesting about Rita-as-blonde is how well she makes that look work for her. Rita was of latin extraction, so her looks were such that her dark complexion wouldn't really work all that well with blonde hair. In fact, I see zillions of bleach blondes of all ages out there in the real world and I can tell from their olive or yellowish complexion--or black eyebrows--that they're not real blondes. How did Rita Hayworth pull this look off? Perhaps the fact that Shanghai was filmed in black and white helped. But the color still pictured above shows Hayworth aquitting herself quite well with this look, latina extraction and all. I guess some women are just plain beautiful no matter how they're made up.