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Curtsying lessons - actress and Princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly (1929-1982)

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Actor James Dean (1931-1955), with actress Pier Angeli (1932-1971)

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Actress Linda Darnell (1923-1965)

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Madonna (b. 1958), channeling Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) *An earlier version of this post erroneously captioned the image as Marilyn Monroe. This is in fact a tribute to Monroe with Madonna as the subject. 

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Model Veronica Scott. Photographed by Brian Kirley, c. 1953

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"The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful" - Actress Barbara La Marr (1896-1926), c. 1920 

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"We have to celebrate all that women have achieved in such a short period of time. This is the most exciting time to be dressing a woman. Never before has a woman been so in control of her destiny. My inspiration is always the anonymous woman on the street, the woman with a busy, full life. I think about her needs and what she will want to wear. My role as a designer has always been to design clothes that address a woman's life and make her feel beautiful - that is what continues to inspire me creatively..."

Oscar de la Renta, in an undated interview with Vivian Chen

Designer Oscar de la Renta (1932-2014), working with American débutante Beatrice Lodge, c. 1956.

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"'I wasn't interested in getting married,'' she recalled. ''I was involved in the theater.'' [Louis] Schweitzer pursued her. During a business trip to France he telephoned and told her he was sending a ticket and that they would get married in Paris. Friends persuaded her to accept -- ''You can always get a divorce,'' they said..."

-Excerpt from an obituary for Lucille Lortel, published in The New York Times, April 1999. 

Stage actress Lucille Lortel (née Waldel; 1900-1999)

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“I have only danced my life. As a child I danced the spontaneous joy of growing things. As an adolescent, I danced with joy turning to apprehension of the first realization of tragic undercurrents; apprehension of the pitiless brutality and crushing progress of life.”  - Isadora Duncan (1877-1927)

Dancer Anna Duncan (née Densler), photographed by Arnold Genthe *Originally posted via secretvintage

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"I honestly believe Bebe Daniels is the most popular girl in Hollywood. Mary Pickford is undoubtedly the most loved woman in Hollywood. Betty Compson has perhaps more close personal friends and admirers than anyone else. But the most popular girl in Hollywood is Bebe Daniels..."

Adele Rogers St. Johns, on Bebe Daniels, in Photoplay, November 1922.

Actress Bebe Daniels (1901-1971)

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"You know, Carole, for a long time now whenever a girl or a woman has come to me weeping or bitter because some love affair has ended[,] I’ve always thought of you. And wished the girl or woman in question might have a little of the swell, healthy philosophy which marks you in these matters. So often you’ve said to me,'When I feel a love affair is drawing to close I end it—and remain friends with the guy!' And when I’ve questioned you as to how you’ve been able to tell when a love affair was about to end you’ve given me one of your square looks, laughed, and said: “We women with our sensitive antennae always can tell about such things, you know we can. It’s just that we’re romantic and that we hope against hope and—hang on!'[...] [Y]ou manage to be healthily mindful of some of the things the man gave you, of the pleasure you had with him to have spent so much time with him, and of other things too, depending upon the man..."

-Adele Whitley Fletcher, in a letter addressed to Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, 1936. 

Actress Carole Lombard (1908-1942)

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"...I must say, for a charming, intelligent girl, you certainly surrounded yourself with a remarkable collection of dopes." -Dana Andrews, as Detective McPherson, to Gene Tierney, in Otto Preminger's film, Laura, 1944

Actress Gene Tierney (1920-1991)

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"[Harlow was] a blonde bombshell whose bleached hair, voluptuous body, and bawdy humor inspired a fervent cult following that remains to this day. [...] [Yet] Harlow had to be someone she wasn't, because she never knew who she was..."

-Biographer David Stenn, on Jean Harlow, in Bombshell: The Life and Death of Jean Harlow, 2000. 

Actress Jean Harlow (1911-1937), c. 1932-3. 

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"Do not be so bloody vulnerable. To hell with God damned "L'Amour." It always causes far more trouble than it is worth. Don't run after it. Don't court it. Keep it waiting off stage until you're good and ready for it and even then treat it with the suspicious disdain that it deserves [...] I am sick to death of you waiting about in empty houses and apartments with your ears strained for the telephone to ring. Snap out of it, girl! [Living] does not consist of staring in at other people's windows and waiting for crumbs to be thrown to you. You've carried on this hole in corner, overcharged, romantic, unrealistic nonsense long enough..."

-Noël Coward, in a letter to Marlene Dietrich, c. 1956.

Actress Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992), in Morocco, 1930. 

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"I didn't give a damn about [being a sex symbol]...it was better to be there and be sexy than ugly [...] I am shocking, impertinent[,] and insolent [and] that's how it is." Brigitte Bardot, in a brief interview with Ella Alexander of Vogue UK, 2010. 

Actress Brigitte Bardot (b. 1934)

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"She was talented, funny, vulnerable, helpless in awful pain, with no hope, and some worth and not a liar, not vicious, not catty, and with a history of orphanism that was killing to hear. She was like all Charlie Chaplin's heroines in one [...] She was a little stray cat when I knew her..."

Elia Kazan (1909-2003), discussing his affair with Marilyn Monroe in a letter, 1955. 

Actress Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962)

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Actress Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993), with photographer Richard Avedon (1923-2004), on the set of Stanley Donen's Funny Face, 1957.