There was nothing "faded" about her looks in this film. I thought she was gorgeous. The words "stunning" and "elegant" don't even begin to describe how well she looked. I thought she put Jill St. John to shame. Paolo must have been out of his mind to choose her over Viv.
We'll see whose the filthiest person alive! We'll just see!
I agree! I find the description of her character Karen Stone as a "faded beauty" to be ridiculous. Vivien Leigh has such an elegant and cultured loveliness in "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" that what happens to her character is all the more sad. Leigh did a great job of infusing Karen Stone with a quality that separated her from the general crass and gossipy side of the society portrayed in the film...
I kind of agree about the faded beauty. I found her hair color terrible and ages her a bit, but all I kept thinking was she is very pretty. Hardly someone who would turn on a lamp as she looks in the mirror and be repulsed by what she sees. I did not see how she could be so desperate as the character is portrayed She was a mature beautiful looking woman, but still beautiful none the less with lots of money and living in Rome. That does not seem so bad or a desperate place to be in.
shareBut you're approaching this as a rational person. Clearly Karen had some vanity about her. Think of all the GORGEOUS actresses and actors in Hollywood who ruin their looks with botched plastic surgery trying to shave off 10-20 years. Hmmmm, Warren Beatty comes to mind. Back to Karen. She seems terribly insecure, doubting not only looks but her career, her capacity for love, her very place in the world. I can easily imagine a person in such a state of mind being blind to all that is good around them.
Yes, I killed Yvette. I hated her sooo much. F - flames, on the sides of my face - heaving, breath-
The hair was hideous. But Vivien was still so gorgeous at almost 50. She had such a graceful, elegance about her. And she had a great figure. Considering she was a chain smoker and had so many health problems, I think she held up very well.
shareI don’t see any problem with the concept of Karen Stone as a faded beauty,she was past her prime in terms of career, her appearance and her personal security. Therefore she finds herself as a 50 something woman all alone in the world with all her previous securities and comforts extinguished.
It makes a lot of sense, when she turns the lamp and looks at herself in the mirror she doesn’t see a so called “beautiful mature woman” she sees her Scarlett O Hara days long gone and some middle-aged stranger staring back at her.
And Vivien didn’t hold up well in terms of her ageing appearance, she was only 48 in this film yet she looked like she was approaching her mid fifties, she looked even older on Ship of fools which came a couple of years later.
The shock treatments, sleep deprivation and chain smoking took their toll and as a result her beauty started fading rather early.
Her hair color was terrible and also the style was awful. When she cut it short and it looked red with bangs it was much better.
But by the end, back to the purple hair color and basically slapped against her head.
Maybe she was supposed to look like that, so we would think it was awful. had she looked wonderful, she wouldn't have looked like a faded star.
"I'm rich and I'm Scottish. Doesn't get better than that!"
Craig Ferguson in "I'll Be There"
I'm with you and I'm rather shocked by the comments that she looked better pre-haircut!! Vivien wears her hair in a terrible hairstyle and an awful grayish blonde in the beginning, I believe this was deliberate to make it clear Karen was past her prime and no longer a young girl. Vivien was 48 but still attractive but they needed to do something to make it clear this was an aging woman. If she had used her naturally beautiful brunette hair people would think it bizarre this character was supposedly losing her desirability.
The new flattering haircut was perfect in that it showed Karen was deliberately making herself attractive for her young lover but that "pink champagne" color was still the mark of a middle-aged woman for the era and still kept the idea that Karen was aging at the forefront whereas going brunette or a vibrant blonde would have made her too beautiful.
Also...you have to consider "faded" and "aging" from the standards of 1961. Obviously to us she is gorgeous (until she gets that awful haircut in the middle of the movie, anyway!) and quite the cougar. That catagory didn't exist back then, though.
shareYou beat me to it, cookie. I had the exact same reaction to her haircut in the middle of the movie. It took her from slightly faded beauty to full-on MATRONLY.
And while I agree that Vivien Leigh was still an exceptionally handsome woman in 1961, let's face it guys...she wasn't Scarlett O'Hara gorgeous anymore. And that's fine. How many of the beauties of the 1930's still looked FRESH and nubile by the 1960's?
As for those suggesting that Paolo should have been more attracted to the classic elegance of Karen Stone than the nubile charms of Jill St. John's Miss Bingham? No way.
PS - Who chose that hair colour for Viv? She actually looked best in the dark wig and heavy pancake as Rosalind in "As You Like It" at the beginning of the film.
I think the abrupt change in hairstyle must be something that happens in the original book, to make Mrs. Stone seem more pathetic. Because at the same point in the TV remake (which I actually prefer) (though I know it's sacrilegious to say so!!), Helen Mirren suddenly chops her long hair off and dyes it a harsh RED. It's like Karen is celebrating the "new" her, but is actually revealed to be even older and sadder than she thinks.
Also, the colors in the film have probably faded with time, but I wonder if that type of ash blonde shade was chosen because it can also look sort of gray?
Faded beauty or not, she got my motor running while watching this film. :-D
No blah, blah, blah!
Your username and signature are great. Everybody needs some trash in their lives!
You make such an exquisite corpse.
The character is similar in many ways to her famous role as Blanche in Williams' greatest play Streetcar Named Desire. The faded beauty to me is only true in contrast to the leading man in the film--Warren Beatty in this one and Marlon Brando in the other. Hunky young men who, of course, made her look somewhat faded. Also, I always thought Vivien Leigh had a quality about her that made her look older than she was, something about her eyes and eyebrows??
shareNot only did her hair make her look older, she wore ugly beige colors that were very unattractive. I kept thinking that if she wore her hair dark and wore a rich color, she would be too beautiful to be believable in this role.
shareAnd she does look stunning in red when she buys the sprig of flowers on the street and then tells her friend that she has been ill.
shareSadly and inevitably, her beauty was faded by the time this movie came out. It's a testament to how great her looks once were that even at this later stage in life they're still substantial. The lady was not as great a beauty as she once was.
shareIn 1961, a woman of Vivien's age, no matter how lovely, was consigned to play "faded" beauties. She WAS still beautiful, but clearly older than Paulo, who would naturally be more interested in the young, vapid Miss St. John
shareUnfortunately, the movie's plot pretty much mirrored Vivien's own career: she was pretty washed up by Hollywood standards in 1961. Still a great beauty when you look at her but not suitable for leading lady roles in Hollywood during that time.
Have you seen "Ship of Fools", her last movie? She has this really eerie, eerie scene where she talks to her own image in the mirror while she puts on her makeup. She muses about how she used to be beautiful but has aged. Really creepy but excellent scene! Talk about actors/actresses baring it all and being honest!
"Don't call me 'honey', mac."
"Don't call me 'mac'... HONEY!"