Free Women's Blog

Happy Birthday To “The Odd Couple” star Jack Klugman (1922)

KISS guitarist Ace Frehley (1951)

“The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” actor William Moseley (1987)

Prolific disc-jockey/voice actor Casey Kasem (1932)

“Fall Out Boy” singer Patrick Stump (1984)

Scottish singer Sheena Easton (1959)

English actress and model Kylie Travis (1970)

British television presenter Tess Daly (1971)

American actor David Lascher (1972)

Canadian professional wrestler Johnny Devine (1974)

American actor Jerry Trainor (1977)

Greek actress Adamantia Kontogiorgi (1978)

American actress Katrina Johnson (1982)

American actress Ari Graynor (1983)

Canadian actress Emma Taylor-Isherwood (1987)

American actress Emily Rios (1989)

Soul singer Ann Peebles (1947)

“The Main Ingredient” singer Cuba Gooding, Sr. (1944)

British actress and comedian Judy Carne (1939)

“April Wine” rock drummer Jerry Mercer (1939)

“The B-52′s” singer Kate Pierson (1948)

French singer and actress Arielle Dombasle (1953)

Canadian actor and stand-up comedian Michel Barrette (1957)

British actor Neil Pearson (1959)

American actor James LeGros (1962)

Canadian actress Cali Timmins (1963)

American actress Lisa Wilcox (1964)

British singer and presenter Mica Paris (1969)

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Oscar winner Sandy Dennis (1937; d. 1992)

Baseball legend Enos Slaughter (1916; d. 2002)

Baseball legend Rogers Hornsby (1896; d. 1963)

American professional wrestler Frank Alvin Gotch (1878; d. 1917)

Canadian actress Florence La Badie (1888; d. 1917)

WWII Pin-Up Artist George Petty (1894; d. 1975)

“Woody Woodpecker” cartoonist Walter Lantz (1899; d. 1994)

English philosopher and early feminist, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Mary Wollstonecraft (1759; d. 1797)

Civil War General and 18th President of The United States Ulysses S. Grant (1822; d. 1885)

Happy Birthday All

Paris has banned the new poster for Coco avant Chanel, starring Audrey Tautou. The reason? In the posters, Audrey (as Coco) is smoking a cigarette. 

The city of Paris has banned posters of the actress Audrey Tautou in her new role as Coco Chanel because she is holding a cigarette.

The transport authority’s decision to remove the posters because they were “unhealthy and inappropriate” was condemned as “ridiculous” by Chanel fans and even by the man who drew up France’s draconian anti-smoking laws.

The posters show Tautou as the chain-smoking French creator of the little black dress, gazing sensuously at the camera in silk pyjamas, with a cigarette smouldering in her right hand.

Chanel was 87 when she died in 1971, despite smoking several packets of cigarettes a day for most of her life. It is rare to find photos or her without a cigarette. However, Metrobus, the company which runs advertising on Paris’ buses and trains, said that the law came before historical accuracy.

“Cigarettes are banned on our entire transport system, and there is no reason why we should be giving them free advertising through this film poster,” a spokesman said.

The film’s producers were obliged to provide an alternative poster showing Tautou with the male lead. But a representative of Warner France said that “for us, the real poster is where Coco Chanel is smoking in a natural pose that translates her strong personality and her modernity”.

The ban comes days after a poster of Jacques Tati, one of France’s most enduring comic characters, was altered to conform to French rules prohibiting the “direct or indirect” promotion of tobacco products. The actor-director’s trademark pipe was replaced with a yellow windmill – a move which one cinema expert said would have made him “die laughing”.

Roselyne Bachelot, the health minister, admitted that the rules were being taken too far. “We’re getting pretty ridiculous with this,” she said.

Even Claude Evin, the politician behind a 1991 anti-smoking law, said the ban should not extend to “cultural heritage”. There is already concern that another film due out later this year about Serge Gainsbourg, the Gauloise-puffing crooner, will fall foul of the no smoking rules. One of his songs is entitled God smokes Havana cigars.

Coco Before Chanel, the new film starring Tatou, opened in France this week to wide critical acclaim. It focuses on the early years of Gabrielle Chanel, nicknamed “Coco” during her failed attempt to launch a singing career. The film sees her move from poverty-stricken orphan to early catwalk success, but stops short of her controversial affair with a Nazi officer at Paris’s Ritz hotel during the Occupation.

Source The Telegraph

I’m against the anti-smoking movement, In America.  Or will the next step be banning all images of sex or liquor from films, art, and television, all for the sake of the recovering addicts and would-be addicts?  It is really simple if you don’t want to be around smoke don’t go into a place that allows smoking. That should be the owner of the business choice.  Your thought are welcome.