The other day I was watching some movie and I started to wonder, “Yeah she’s good looking, but what would she look like without makeup?” It made me start to wonder, what did they look like when they rolled out of bed? Walked out of the shower? This afternoon TCM is playing ‘Sex and the Single Girl‘ (1964) with Natalie Wood. She is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful women of all time. She lead off my post, ’10 Most Beautiful Women of the 60’s’. I did a search, “Natalie Wood without makeup”. I found a couple of when she was younger, but none I don’t think of when she was famous.

If you look on Facebook much you’ll see that women are masters of knowing what side or what angle they look best at. I’m not kidding. The photo they’ll use for their account photo often bears no resemblance to their other photos. They know how to use a soft focus or other slightly altered photo that takes 15 or 20 years off them. I really saw it 12 or so years ago with Jennifer Love Hewitt. I watched her in The Ghost Whisperer and thought she was the cats meow. Then the Enquirer and others started printing photos of her without makeup and took a lot of the bloom off the rose. I guess the question I’m trying to answer is what makes a woman beautiful? And why to one person and not another?

In Natalie’s case I have to think she had a good amount of natural beauty, or else any woman could look topnotch by simply having a good makeup artist and a cute hairstyle. And that’s clearly not the case. So there must be something there. Some fundamental quality about her bone structure that makes her stand out.  I suppose it reminds me of photographing a young woman years ago. The first time was in the winter when she wore a good deal of makeup. As she explained for a summer shoot, it was too warm so of course she wouldn’t be wearing the makeup. It was a completely different look. Less the ravishing beauty without the makeup, but just as attractive nonetheless.

Stage and Screen, Personalities, pic: circa 1960’s, American actress Natalie Wood,(1938-198), star of such films as “Rebel Without A Cause” 1955, “West Side Story” 1961, and “Splendor In The Grass” 1961 (Photo by Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images)

[Using another example from Hanne Nabintu Herland on how women know how to use the best photo, you wouldn’t even know the 2 photos below were the same person!]

Gorgeous ^

Not so gorgeous.