Kate Winslet – “Glamour should never be superficial…”

Kate Winslet is in Paris where she just finished filming her role in Roman Polanski’s movie “God of Carnage”.

We glimpsed her having lunch at the Café Hugo at the Place des Vosges, in the Marais – one of our favourite “quartiers” in our “City of Light”.

She does not look anything like the Kate of the award-winning movie “Titanic”, where she and Leonardo di Caprio were awesome in depicting a tragic love story.

We remember her having long, curly, reddish-brown hair, with a rounded, voluptuous figure, and a gutsy personality.  This Kate has been honed and transformed into a totally new woman – a Star.

Mario Testino has taken fabulous photos of her in “Vogue” magazine, of which one is slightly reminiscent of Kim Novak in the movies “Bell, Book, and Candle” and “Vertigo”.    The shorter-looking Platinum Blonde hair is striking – more Hollywood than English.

Having won her Oscar in “The Reader”, followed by her divorce from the director Sam Mendes, it took her 10 months to act in the role of “Mildred Pierce”, in which Joan Crawford played the lead role in the 1945 film version.

Film producer Harvey Weinstein described Winslet as “one of the greatest actresses, with a talent second to none”.  Maybe so – but for me, no one of today’s actresses can come up to, or match, the larger-than-life goddesses of the black and white era.

Those dazzling actresses of the Forties, Thirties, etc., were a breed apart.  They had the depth of character, personality, and presence – a fascination on and off the screen.

They kept their mystique, their enigmatic lifestyle – plush, decadent, glamorous – lived in a haze of splendour.  They were, and always will remain, awesome – in their talent, beauty, and mystery.

Kate Winslet, with her undoubted talent, might be able to replicate a Kim Novak, or a Mildred Pierce – but that is only on the screen – her everyday personality, character, and lifestyle will always remain normal, and even ordinary – no matter how blonde the hair is, nor how magnificent the clothes that are worn.  The magic is not there.

For, it is not the clothes, nor hair, nor beauty that makes great acting megastars – it is as Joan Crawford said: “Glamour should never be superficial.  It should be part of your habit, part of your lifestyle”.  It is undoubtedly the aura of the golden age of cinema of that time that created those irreplaceable Legends.

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