Women who sparkle

Years back, Chilean artist Claudio Bravo commented, "Beautiful women shouldn’t wear jewelry." That’s why he drew women with a minimum of jewelry. I hope husbands didn’t hear him because that would be their excuse to be kuripot. Gosh, it’s difficult for women to resist smooth metal and faceted stones, like green emeralds, red rubies, white diamonds and dark blue sapphires. They have all enhanced women’s faces and bodies and tempted men through centuries.

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One Sunday, as I leafed through a coffee-table book about the movie stars by Papi and Rhodes in their Famous Jewelry Collections, I couldn’t help but ooh and aah over the glamorous Hollywood actresses of the ’40s and their amazing biographies – their struggles to survive twists in their fortunes and their possessions. The book immortalized them as they dressed rightly, as expected of females, than in their individual or particular publicists’ tastes, that they were beautiful daring, stunning and unique.

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Who can forget Ava Gardner with her sensuous lips and slanting eyes, the screen goddess from the tobacco farm of North Carolina? In 1929, with the subsequent fall in the price of tobacco, her father lost his farm. That led their family to sheer hardship, that had Ava later remarking, "When you are poor, dirt poor, and there is no way of concealing it, life is hell." Fortunately for Ava, her sister was married to a professional photographer from New York, who placed Ava’s photos in his studio window. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer talent scout forwarded them to the California studio and a screen test in New York was arranged.

Ava’s deep Southern drawl was impossible to understand, but George Sydney, the director who watched the tests in Hollywood said, "Ship her out! She’s a good piece of merchandise." Merchandise! That’s exactly how those men thought of women, their would-be moneymakers.

In 1941, she signed a seven-year contract with MGM at an initial salary of $50 a week. Her jewelry? After marriages with Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw, and Frank Sinatra, she had jewelry from the world renowned Van Cleef & Arpels, makers of nearly all her important jewels.

In 1989, she decided to sell part of her jewelry collection in New York. Ava’s jewelry collection was extremely classic in content and dated mainly from the 1960s. She also loved pearls. For her marriage to Frank Sinatra in 1951, she chose to wear a double-row pearl necklace and matching pearl and diamond earrings.

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Determined to succeed, Joan Crawford arrived in Hollywood in 1925. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer recorded her profile as plain, with light brown hair, and weighing 145 pounds. By 1937, Life Magazine had given her the title of "First Queen of the Movies."

Joan Crawford, alias Lucille Fay LeSeuer, came from an poor family. Fortunately, Lucile married Henry Cassin, the owner of a small opera house that inspired young Lucille to become a star. In 1923, she was working as a dancer in Detroit in strip joints and bars. That was her beginning. In a year, she moved on to be a member of the chorus line.

Despite discouraging screen tests, she arrived in Hollywood in 1925 with a six-month contract with MGM, and her name was changed to Joan Crawford.

In 1955, she married Alfred Steele who gave her jewels with affectionate messages engraved in them, like "Joan, I love you, Alfred." Among the gifts, which she received from two of her less successful marriages, one is inscribed "Joan Love Franchot." A ruby and diamond floral wristwatch was inscribed with "Dearest wife Joan, every second says I love you, Phillip, 21st July 1943." Miss Crawford became Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks, wife to the late president of Pepsi Cola. The majority of her jewels throughout her years were termed bold.

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Papi and Rhodes wrote, "Merle Oberon had an unusual exotic beauty and the grace of British elegance that secured her a sparkling Hollywood career. She was born in Bombay where her father was employed in the railways. For various reasons, including racial prejudice, her parentage and place of birth were always falsified. She was in fact the daughter of a Eurasian mother and an English father. Her father volunteered to go to the battlefields of France, which made Merle Oberon and her mother move to Calcutta. She was first to experience the feeling of shame for her dark-skinned mother, a feeling that would remain with her all her life, beginning as a telephonist."

Migrating to London, she found jobs as a dance hostess. Eventually she acquired the much-coveted job of a hostess at the Café de Paris, which catered to high society and royalty. Given small acting parts during the day, she was hard at work at Elyree Studios.

Merle appeared in minor roles in a few films of Alexander Korda, who had noticed her talent and unusual beauty. Her brief role as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII with Charles Laughton as the King was a financial success in 1933. It was at this period that she acquired one of her most treasured jewels, an emerald necklace from Cartier, a pair of emerald and diamond ear clips from David Webb, and a cabochon emerald and diamond ring from Harry Winston. From Bulgari, she acquired a striking diamond brooch, the central step-cut stone weighing over 15 carats. In early 1970, a turquoise and diamond necklace brooch and earrings by Van Cleef & Arpels were included in the sale of her jewels.

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Jewels represent a person’s taste (whether good or bad) affordability and power.

On the other hand, they could represent a person’s overambitiousness, gaudiness in its lack of quality when quantity is the objective.

I like to attach my jewelry to sentimental memories. When you attach them to a story rather than their price tag, they become extremely precious. I think messages engraved on jewelry are the most romantic to treasure.