I Know Where I'm Going

(Private collection)

THE CURSE OF QUON GWON (1917) dir. Marion E. Wong “The first feature film made with an all-Chinese American cast and an all-Chinese American company, The Curse of Quon Gwon was written and directed by Marion E. Wong at her own Mandarin Film Company, based in Oakland, California. Offering an important counterpoint to racist depictions of Asian characters in other films of the period, the film explores western influence on traditional Chinese society and amongst Chinese American communities, suggesting Wong’s keen awareness of early twentieth-century transnational identity, as film scholar Jenny Kwok Wah Lau has observed. Marion, who was in her early twenties at the time, also played the film’s villainess. Nearly all the actors in the movie are family members and friends. The leading role of the heroine was played by Marion’s sister-in-law, Violet Wong. Family members were also involved in other aspects of the film’s production, including costumes and finance. Produced in 1916-1917, The Curse of Quon Gwon is the earliest example of Chinese American independent film known to exist today.”

Greta Garbo and Antonio Moreno 'The Temptress' 1926 photo by B.Longworth

a cute guy with a tough girl

Ava Gardner by Milton H. Greene for a Look magazine story on What is Sex Appeal. New York, 1954

One Touch of Venus (1948)

more [+] by this photographer

She is best known for her appearance as a bespectacled bookstore clerk in The Big Sleep (1946) with Humphrey Bogart and for her Oscar-winning performance in Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind (1956), but she toiled away in movies and television for 52 years, from an uncredited role in Convicted Woman in 1940 to a featured role in the 1992 hit Basic Instinct.

Sylvia Sidney, 1930s

A photo by Bert Stern for Vogue, 1962

Kaze no naka no mendori (1948)

Yvonne Rainer and Bill Davis in “Love,” the final section of “Play” in Terrain (1963), Yvonne Rainer. Judson Memorial Church, New York, 1963. Photo: Al Giese. The Getty Research Institute, 2006.

The black satin gown Rita Hayworth wore for the famous one glove strip tease scene in Gilda. It was made by french designer Jean Louis in 1946

Dorothy Lamour photographed in ₁₉₃₄.

La musica, Marguerite Duras, Paul Seban, 1967.