Sartorial heros

[storeynicholas]

Several sartorial heros are obvious from reading the threads: the Duke, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper. Apart from these obvious ones, are there any more?
NJS

[Guille]

Others mentioned in the forum include Beau Brummell and The Duke's brother. The former was a pioneer wearing a combination of black and white that would evolve into white tie. The later, although not as significant as his brother, popularised the 4x2 double-breasted jackets in suits, and probably also other things that others may reveal. I do know that Alfonse XIII of Spain was the first one to wear the double-breasted dinner jacket back in the 20s, but it didn't became popular until the Duke's adoption of it.

[storeynicholas]

Maybe the Duke's brother was the Duke of Kent? Brummell was a card - as amply demonstrated by Captain Jesse's biography and the more recent one by Ian Kelly - he also featured in the poetry of Byron who described him, with the Duke of Wellington as the 'greatest men of the age'. Anyone have any more to add to the list? Maybe Clive Brook, Jack Buchanan and Valentino?

[Guille]

Maybe the Duke's brother was the Duke of Kent?

Yes, I believe so.

[couch]

Buchanan is always mentioned by Flusser and co., and the few pictures I've seen (mostly from the '20s, a couple from the early '30s) make him look very smartly turned out if a bit on the "neat" side, as was typical of the decade (despite the Oxford bags). But he didn't seem to leave so many impressions on this side of the pond as the others you mention.

As for others, I think Agnelli is widely admired among the members; Noiret in his different way. Both de Sica and Visconti are interesting to me. Adolph Menjou.

Among actors there are several who impressed in more than one role--that is, they wore clothes well--but who may not have been so consistent in their off-screen dress. Mastroianni comes to mind, in La Notte and Divorce Italian Style, and La Dolce Vita and others. Jeremy Irons in Swann in Love, and with Anthony Andrews in Brideshead.

I'd think the prewar Anthony Eden presents both a positive and negative example. Carlo Barbera seems to do relaxed elegance very well. Some of my personal icons of elegance are not particuarly public people, so hard to share. I think of one U.N.H.C.R. diplomat of French birth I knew in the '70s whose features looked remarkably like Raphael's Prado portrait of a cardinal, except in beautiful herringbone tweed suits (when he wasn't in a dinner jacket). Always able to put people at ease. Somehow the dispossessed found him sympatico despite his assurance and beautiful manners--not an easy thing to pull off.

Charlie Rose seems to me above the average standard of dress for television, though his posture doesn't do him any favors.

[andreyb]

David Niven.

Andrey

[Trey]

I would add Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Ralph Lauren to the list.

Trey

[storeynicholas]

Yes, please keep them coming because there is some good stuff emerging here. On Buchanan - he was a star on both sides of the pond in his day and so famous that he was sometimes chased in the street. However, more accomplished as a stage performer (most successfully with Elsie Randolph), his talents did not transfer very well to film and so he has, like all stage performers, not left much to tell later generations of his ability to entertain. However, on his appearance - Bing Crosby (with a much, much better singing voice) admired him and said that, when he stood next to JB, he felt like a cab driver. The British entertainer and DJ David Jacobs remarked on his shoes (boned waxed calf) that you could see your face in them (hence, perhaps the suggestion of over-neatness for the modern age). When Ian Carmichael (actor in great Ealing comedies - I'm All Right Jack, Brothers in Law, School for Scoundrels etc, later playing Lord Peter Whimsey and Bertie Wooster opposite Dennis Price) was starting out on the stage he had an early hit and, back in his dressing room, there was a knock on the door and JB (Carmichael's hero and template) came in and shook his hand, saying 'Hello, old boy, I'm Jack Buchanan' and congratulated him on his performance, before leaving as suddenly asd he had arrived. Although I say that JB's talents did not easily transfer to the silver screen - his best film was his last - the Band Wagon with Fred Astaire, Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant. Most remarkably, Archie Leach once said that Cary Grant was a mixture of 'Jack Buchanan, Noel Coward and Rex Harrison. I thought of someone that I wanted to be and I became that person. Or he became me.' Here is the famous Baron picture of JB that still hangs in the royal retiring room at the Garrick Theatre.[img][img]http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg55 ... 535_10.jpg[/img][/img]

[alden]

I was on the Row last week chatting with a few of the knowledgeable and we concluded there was only one man, in recent history, who reached the elegance quotient of 10.0 and his picture is on the front of the London Lounge. He is Gary Cooper. I suspect Cary Grant would come in second place, followed by Fred Astaire. This is the clothes horse tri-fecta.



How did Archie get a piece of the Cooper's Limited edition tweed?

Cheers

[storeynicholas]

I am not going to contradict you but I think that it is a pity that the head of the field died in 1961 and I also think that there are some others coming up fast on the inside: Ray Milland, Duff Cooper, Rex Harrison, David Niven, Sean Connery as the early Bond. Clive Brook (best remembered now for Cavalcade and Shanghai Express) was always superbly turned out and, although I am seldom given to such language, such a kool kat. The current PoW and the Duke of Edinburgh are always well dressed. The trouble is that to be discussed they have to be famous because the private people are not known. However, maybe some people have telling photos of elegant relatives and friends which they could share? - or even pictures of the forgotten famous. After all, they say that the best history is biography. One we have missed is Noel Coward who,besides some wonderful songs (from the humour of Mrs Worthington and Mrs Wentworth-Brewster to the rousing wartime London Pride) and stage plays, also popularized the polo-necked jumper and dared to wear a brown DJ - on stage - because brown is warmer than black or blue.
NJS

[Guille]

The American Film Institute's 100 years... 100 stars is a list of 50 stars of the old age (presented by 50 modern stars, making 100). Of those, half of them were men, and are in this order:

1.Humphrey Bogart
2.Cary Grant
3.James Stewart
4.Marlon Brando
5.Fred Astaire
6.Henry Fonda
7.Clark Gable
8.James Cagney
9.Spencer Tracy
10.Charles Chaplin
11.Gary Cooper
12.Gregory Peck
13.John Wayne
14.Laurence Olivier
15.Gene Kelly
16.Orson Welles
17.Kirk Douglas
18.James Dean
19.Burt Lancaster
20.The Marx Brothers
21.Buster Keaton
22.Sidney Poitier
23.Robert Mitchum
24.Edward G. Robinson
25.William Holden

You will see many of the names we have given are on the list, and many other on the list have also been praised in the forum. In Spain we call a man like Gary Cooper, Cary Grant or Fred Astaire a 'galán' (from french 'galant', in english gallant, I believe), defined by the Royal Academy of Spanish as:

1. Man of good appearance, well-proportioned and graceful in the management of his person.

2. Man that seduces women.

3. Actor of theater or movies that represents main roles, precisely love themed.

And I think several men in the list fit in all these three definitions, in fact most probably the third definition came from the fact that those actors were in those times very often gallants in the first definition and the second definition, therefore it came to be synonym, an actor in a romantic movie with a sartorial master.

NJS, I would add to the list of 'new' masters Paul Newman. But we must agree that nowadays actors aren't gallants, not even the elder ones.

[storeynicholas]

Interestingly, in England, a man who qualified in each of these categories might well be termed a 'Don Juan'! Very important omissions from the names so far are George Sanders and Ronald Colman. I agree Paul Newman - can't think of any after him though. They seem rather light-weight to me - no real star quality - all manufactured and manipulated to appeal, for the purposes of the box office, to modern ideas and ideals which generally ends with pandering to the lowest common denominator.
NJS

[countdemoney]

Lots of great names, and great dressers, but some favorite personalities:

I learned of menjou through this forum, and any man who titles his autobiography, "It took 9 tailors" will always have a soft spot with me.

I would also give another nod to Fairbanks Sr. whose style so impressed a young Cary Grant and lived on in some wonderful photos of his son.

[storeynicholas]

Fairbanks Sr certainly did impress Archie Leach and Cary Grant's year-round sun tan (most obvious in To Catch A Thief) was part of the result. I attempt the same but end up looking like a stupid purple gringo and more Des O'Connor than Cary Grant.
NJS

[alden]

I would second the motion regarding George Saunders.

Here is a picture of Mr. Fairbanks. Zounds, his buttons are fastened!



Its pretty well known Hollywood's target audience is 12 year old girls, so we have the cuddly koala androgynous T. Cruise look to survive. Our TV producer member confirmed the same holds true for Korean mass entertainment. A man like Gable or Cooper would scare the poor little things to death.



On a positive note, for the first time in about 3 decades, an actor actually earned the "best actor" award at the Oscars. Thought that might not happen again...

Cheers