Rita Hayworth is the bane of my hairstylists. I have two with whom I've been with for the past.. oh, almost three decades. :)  One in Singapore and the other in Hong Kong. Whenever my hair grows beyond my shoulders, I'll be at the salon with my, "I want my hair in waves, youknow, just like Rita Hayworth's in 'Gilda'!" refrain. Unfortunately, up to today with technological advances that enable us to see via satellite a cigarette stub on the ground half the world away, the only way to get those particular waves would be to go to salon everyday to get my hair set with two curling irons simultaneously...

      "Gilda"was not a movie I'd seen, indeed my mother would have deemed it too 'adult' for a ten year old. I'd just happened to catch a part of it when a documentary on Hollywood dance scenes was on TV. It featured that risque glove-stripping dance, not that *I* thought it was shocking or decadent. (Can you tell, my mum wasn't around? :)  I don't recall anything esle of that one-hour documentary except for that wonderful woman who put her whole being into her dancing. She wasn't afraid to be a woman. Not just some feminine girly thing, but a passionate vital being. To my girlfriends, I was always different. I never went through the phase of modelling oneself after the latest teen singer, and even now I don't wear what is currently fashionable unless it just is something already in my wardrobe. Perhaps it's time I pay tribute to the woman whose career or life I never did find out more about, but in that few minutes so touched me with her open honesty and imbued me with her bravery. I will crop my hair short when I feel like it, but when it grows out, I will still be hassling my hairstylist about those waves. Now there will be an inkling into why most of my evening gowns are long and fitted. And perhaps.. why I prefer to dance without a partner... :)

      So....,when Marco happened to mention that he used to have some Rita Hayworth photos up on his site, I asked if I could put them up. The pictures below are smaller versions of scanned photographs from his personal collection. If you click on them, you will see the original scans. (well.. that's how it's *supposed* to work.. :D)

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The image who shaped my life, if not my hair. :)

 

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Some other interests of the man who owns the photos.