More from: David Smiedt
Style June 2022
Freedom Rider
5 Minute Read In an extraordinary life, the Swedish-American model Paulina Porizkova has twice found herself cast as the victim of oppression. Twice she has prevailed.
Style May 2022
THE GOOD TIMES
She was a pioneer among supermodels and one half of an eighties It couple. But it took Yasmin Le Bon a while longer to find true fulfilment. ‘I’m so glad I hung on for dear life in this profession,’ she says.
Icons February 2022
Together Again, Kid
She reduced him to tears; he called her his ‘last love’. When Lauren Bacall died aged 89, the tributes and obituaries shone a new light on her show-stopping marriage to Humphrey Bogart, and with it came the realisation that not every celebrity match has to end in a conscious uncoupling.
Icons February 2022
The Heart Grows Fonda
She is a libertine, a political and social activist and at the age of 84, Jane Fonda remains her gauntlet-hurling, shit-stirring, couldn’t give a damn self.
Style January 2022
FADE TO BLACK
‘Movies are my life and my life is a movie,’ said Marisa Mell, the Austrian actress whose beauty channelled Brigitte Bardot as a brunette. If that were so, Mell was denied a happy ending.
Style November 2021
REAR ADMIRABLE
Vikki Dougan has been described as a midcentury Emily Ratajkowski or Kim Kardashian, a celebrity who ‘brazenly claimed attention for her figure, exercising her agency as a woman to do so’. Dougan’s fame burned brightly and briefly..
Style September 2021
DESIGN FOR LIFE
From modelling and motherhood to commerce and philanthropy, it feels as though India Hicks has already packed several existences into her 53 years.
Icons July 2021
Cathy Moriarty: The Bronx Knockout
Cathy Moriarty was perfectly cast as the doe-eyed wife whose cheekbones were no defence against Jake LaMotta’s temper. Originally published in Issue 53 of The Rake, David Smiedt writes that Raging Bull, the 1980 classic, made Moriarty an overnight success, but Hollywood has not been kind to her since.
Style July 2021
BARING HER SOUL
The former model and counterculture figure Nena von Schlebrügge turned her back on the vapidities of fame to pursue a more spiritual calling.
Style April 2021
MYTHBUSTER
Fifty years after her theatrical debut (as a drama student at Yale), Sigourney Weaver remains a torchbearer for an enlightened Hollywood
Style March 2021
FLIRTING WITH LIFE
Originally published in Issue 42 of The Rake, David Smiedt writes that before Lauren Hutton came along, gap-toothed models were about as welcome at a photoshoot as a case of chickenpox. But the all-American cover girl with a boundless lust for life made pretty much anything look cool.
Style December 2020
THE CONQUERING HEROINE: Bebe Buell
Her first four dates on moving to New York were Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Todd Rundgren. It was the early 1970s: free love reigned, and the singer, muse and model Bebe Buell was queen.
