Most of the news coming out of Hollywood only serves to further convince us that the entertainment community is overpopulated by self-absorbed, phony, materialistic and morally void bimbos.
I often write articles that parody female celebrities I think are spoiled and overindulgent, but I suppose it’s just as possible to stereotype the famous as it is to stereotype any other group of people.
There are exceptions to the rule in La La Land that we scarcely hear about, because the media prefers the more sensational types of folks. The women of Hollywood who behave “badly” garner a lot more hits on TMZ.com than those who conduct themselves with quiet dignity and elegance.
Having class is about more than being well-coiffed and wearing designer gowns and expensive jewelry.
It goes beyond how much money you have, because it’s something you can never buy. Class is about possessing an individual sense of style and not needing to do crazy things to get noticed.
With this in mind, I am presenting a list of those actresses I deem to be among Tinseltown’s classiest. They keep their private lives private, refrain from doing outlandish, desperate antics just to receive publicity and they actually present themselves intelligently.
This makes these ladies a prized rarity among a sea of vacuous peers.
Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep reigns supreme as probably the greatest screen actress of our times. You don’t receive 13 Oscar nominations by being a lightweight and she has shown herself to be exceptional, both in her career and in the way she has led her private life.
Far from being a mental midget, like some other film actresses, Streep received drama training at both Vassar and Yale. One of her earliest roles was as Inga Helms Weiss on the critically-praised television miniseries Holocaust. Her excellent performance got her to Hollywood, where she has made a succession of high caliber movies over the years, such as The Deer Hunter, Sophie’s Choice, Kramer vs. Kramer, Silkwood, Falling In Love, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Heartburn, Out of Africa, Postcards from theEdge, the Bridges of Madison County, Music of the Heart, The Manchurian Candidate remake, The Hours and The Devil Wears Prada.
It isn’t surprising that she admires the late Bette Davis, because she is the only actress who has come close to Davis in both talent and class. One needs only to watch younger actresses who appear in films with her to see that she is far superior to them.
Whatever Streep’s life is privately, she has only vaguely disclosed in the occasional interviews she grants,
but she wisely keeps most of her personal matters to herself, which has enabled her to have a stable family.
Glenn Close
Connecticut-born Glenn Close is about to become age 60, usually an horrific happening for the career of a screen actress working in an industry that worships youth, at least as it concerns females. She has beaten the odds, however, by continuing to work steadily in films, as well as on stage and on television and is well-respected by the acting community.
No matter what roles she plays, from Dangerous Liasons’ aristocratic schemer Madame de Merteuil to the love-obsessed psychopath Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction to the high-camp diva Cruella De Vil in 101 Dalmatians, Close’s cool refinement makes her an obvious standout.
The fact that she has been nominated for a number of Oscars, Emmys and Tony Awards is proof positive that Glenn Close exists in a higher realm of reality than most of the younger and far-less talented actresses who now rule Hollywood.
We don’t need or particularly want to hear about her personal issues or about who she’s dating or marrying or
divorcing, etc. because it’s her talent we’re interested in.
It’s because of this that her career will probably still be active long after the newer generation of screen thespians has faded into obscurity.
Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster has defied the usual future expected of many child actors whose careers wane once puberty hits. She grew up relatively scandal-free and became a successful Oscar-winning actress as an adult.
She started her professional year at two-years-old, appearing in Coppertone commercials. She eventually graduated to television appearances on shows such as Daniel Boone, My Three Sons, Mayberry R.F.D. Gunsmoke and The Partridge Family.
In her early teen years, the films she was in were as diverse as Disney films like Freaky Friday, Napoleon and Samantha and Candleshoe to Martin Scorsese provocative movie Taxi Driver, in which she played child prostitute Iris Steensma. It was her role in Taxi Driver that brought her a Best Supporting actress Oscar nomination. Unfortunately, she also got the obsessed admiration of John Hinkley, Jr., an unstable fan who made an assassination attempt on then President Ronald Reagan to get her attention when she was a brainiac student attending Yale University.
In spite of this negative association, Foster was able, as a full-fledged adult, to go on with her career and make such motion pictures as The Accused, The Silence of the Lambs, Little Man Tate, Sommersby,Maverick, Anna and the King, Contact, Flight Plan and more. She has won two Best Actress Oscars for her roles in The Accused and Silence of the Lambs.
Although the media has tried to scandalize her by questioning her sexuality, she has had the grace never to dignify them with a response. Much to their chagrin, she has kept her private life insulated from the press, preferring to let her work alone represent her.
Jodie Foster is an intellectually gifted actress with an amazing lack of ego, something you don’t find much of in Hollywood nowadays.
Nicole Kidman
Nicole Kidman is one of the closest things we have to equal the kind of movie stars they used to have in the old days of Hollywood.
There is a reason this Australian actress is among the highest paid actresses in the film industry. It’s not simply that Nicole Kidman is a versatile and extremely talented actress, but she just wears her life well.
She has proven her professional prowess by starring in films, such as To Die For, The Portrait of a Lady. The Peacemaker, Moulin Rouge, The Hours. Cold Mountain, The Stepford Wives and other critically-acclaimed movies.
Certainly, her name has been in the gossip columns, but she has risen above the headlines by keeping details of her personal life to a minimum. This is something her former spouse Tom Cruise could take a lesson from.
Unlike the shameless media circus that has surrounded Cruise and his new wife Katie Holmes, pre-wedding and post-nuptials, things were pretty civil, in comparison, when Nicole was Mrs. Cruise.
Queen Latifah
She’s young, hip and refreshingly unpretentious.
Plus-sized beauty Queen Latifah started out as a rapper/singer and steadily advanced to becoming an actress on television. Her Fox sitcom Living Single, about the struggles single “buppies” living in New York
City, came way before the similarly-themed Friends. In her role as magazine owner Khadijah James, she is both warm and fiercely independent.
Her personal charisma took her to Hollywood, where she starred in such vehicles as Set It Off, Brown Sugar, Bringing Down the House, Chicago (which got her a nod for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination),
Beauty Shop, Scary Movie 3, The Cookout, Last Holiday and Taxi.
Her classiness comes from her lack of fear in showing herself to be a strong, intelligent woman. Way too many of today’s actresses think they need to play the “dimwit card” in order to advance their image, but Queen Latifah doesn’t play that game, which is why I see her career steadily moving forward and lasting.
She is truly the “Queen” in every sense of the word.
