AMANDA'S BIT OF SKIRT
Petula Clark
Reason to be adored: Pretty and perky Pet showed the Swinging Sixties that you could still be ‘fab’ if you were over thirty, posh and married. Also has a fabulous voice.
Classic Moment: Downtown, Don’t Sleep in the Subway and brilliant performance as ‘Mrs Chipps’.
Adoration Level: 4 goddess points out of 5.
In short: We all think that Madonna was the pioneer of self-reinvention, but we’d best think again. Petula Clark started life as a child-star, entertaining the Forces during WW11. She then became a teenage actress in the Ealing Comedies of the mid-‘50s. Later in the decade, Pet topped the charts with ‘yeh yeh’ type twisting records and crooning ballads. Everyone said she was a ‘has been’ by the time the Sixties swung into being – how wrong they all were. Joining forces with songwriters Hatch and Trent, Petula stormed the charts, giving even The Beatles a run for their money. Still going strong, Petula has found Millennium success on Broadway and the West End with starring roles in Blood Brothers and Sunset Boulevard. In short, Pet Clark swings like a pendulum do!
Carol White
Reason to be adored: The only film star people say I look like, this tragic ‘tart-with-a-heart’ Sixties Brit actress had more talent than any of her generation.
Classic Moment: Scene in Poor Cow when she loses her toddler.
Adoration Level: 4 goddess points out of 5.
In short: Everyone called her ‘The Poor Man’s Julie Christie’, but in reality, the two were nothing alike. Nicknamed the ‘Battersea Bardot’, Carol White’s messy beehive and Woolworth earrings helped give a face to the ‘other’ side of Swinging England; the factory workers, prostitutes and single mums she often played. Dying tragically young from a combination of booze, drugs and just being Carol White, this fabulous actress should be remembered as one of British Cinema’s ‘greats’; she was certainly one of its ‘originals’.
Dusty Springfield
Reason to be adored: Shy and self-deprecating, this wonderful humanitarianism hid beneath her peroxide wigs and false eye-lashes her depth of feeling for both man and animals.
Classic Moment: First female artist to refuse to perform in Apartheid South Africa.
Adoration Level: 5 goddess points out of 5.
In short: Sexy, classy and incredibly talented, Dusty’s way with a song would be enough in itself to put her on this list. However, when we remember her bravery, warmth and genuine compassion, it soon becomes apparent that Dusty was not only an icon, but a goddess. ‘We don’t have to say we love you’, Dusty – wherever you are, you must already know it.
Professor Filiz Eda Burhan
Reason to be adored: Brainy, funny, kind, brilliant and gorgeous to boot, Filiz Burhan is the woman we all want to grow up to be.
Classic Moment: Too many to name, but a high-point was surely telling ‘Miss V’ that she’d flunked Junior Seminar.
Adoration Level: 5 goddess points out of 5.
In short: Filiz Burhan is a leading light in the field of Art History, but also a fabulous pedagogue who enjoys teaching as much as she enjoys Gauguin (and stuff like that.) Strangely, the diminutive blonde has the great talent of striking terror into the hearts of most of her students; however, they’re often just too young to realise that it isn’t actually ‘terror’ that they’re experiencing, but RESPECT! Filiz paid her own way through her various universities with a variety of jobs which belie her genius (the most impressive being BOUNCER in a night-club…RESPECT!) Prof Burhan was a bit of a mentor to me whilst I was doing my B.A, and has since become a totally brilliant friend and all-time-favourite person. Basically, she’s just unbelievably wonderful, cool, fab and I love her.
Caitlyn Hallman
Reason to be adored: Co-founder of KIU, Caitlyn’s enigmatic demeanour is just the tip of an iceberg of deep intelligence, creative flare and ‘no-nonsense’ approach to dealing with life (and the many fools in it.) She’s also incredibly pretty.
Classic Moment: Standing on a freezing street in Paris and firing Sean Casey ‘en plein air’.
Adoration Level: 5 goddess points out of 5.
In short: Caitlyn Hallman is the Barbara Striesand of the ‘now’ generation; she acts, writes, sings, dances, edits, knows everything there is to know about William Shakespeare and is the
absolute authority on contemporary pop. The only woman ever to blend punk with Jane Austin, Caitlyn’s personal style is as shocking as her acerbic wit. home
