Posts like this one by David Cairns remind me why I subscribe to his Shadowplay blog. Here he is rhapsodizing about 1940’s starlet Gene Tierney:
I now list the features, and excuse me if I get overcome and have to go lie down:
The eyes: large, long, and very wide apart. I have a vision of walking up to Gene and putting my hand over the centre of her face, and of her looking back at me from around either side of my palm. THOSE EYES IS WIDE APART.
The big pale moonlike forehead. I am a man who likes a forehead. (Paulette Goddard, what a forehead that is! An eighthead, in fact.)
The nose, apparently hand-shaped from some soft, wonderful material — butter, perhaps – by tiny master craftsmen.
The cheekbones, beautifully defined, as if constructed especially to receive Von Sternberg’s light.
The mouth, completely redesigned by ambitious lipstick in these images, but in reality a wide, full and elaborately flared labial sculpture, balancing the eyes, and containing slightly erratic teeth which add charm to what could otherwise be chilly perfection.