Vintage postcard.
Milla Jovovich (1975) is an American actress, supermodel and musician of Serbian and Russian descent. She is best known for her roles in Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element (1997) and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), and especially for the action horror film franchise Resident Evil (2002-2016).
Milla Jovovich was born Milica Bogdanovna Yovovich in 1975 in Kyiv, in what was then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and now Ukraine. She is the daughter of Bogdan Jovović, a Serbian doctor and Galina Loginova Jovović, a Russian actress. When Jovovich was five years old, her family emigrated from the Soviet Union to London in 1981 for political reasons. They then moved to the United States and lived in Sacramento, California, before moving to Los Angeles seven months later. A short time later, her parents separated. They eventually divorced, because her father was arrested and spent several years in prison. In Los Angeles, her mother tried to get acting jobs but failed because of language barriers. She eventually resorted to cleaning houses to earn money. Milla’s mother supported her in her plans to become an actress, and so Jovovich enrolled at a professional acting school in California in 1985. When she was 11, Jovovich was noticed by photographer Richard Avedon and left seventh grade to focus on modelling. In October 1987, she appeared on the cover of Italian fashion magazine Lei, photographed by Herb Ritts. This was the first of many covers in her career. In 1988, she played her first professional role in the television film The Night Train to Kathmandu (Robert Wiemer, 1988) as Lily McLeod. In the same year, she had a small role as Samantha Delongpre in the erotic thriller Two Moon Junction (Zalman King, 1988) starring Sherilyn Fenn. When she was 15, Jovovich had a leading role in the romantic South Seas adventure Return to the Blue Lagoon (William A. Graham, 1991), a sequel to The Blue Lagoon (Randal Kleiser,1980) starring Brooke Shields. The role was controversial as, like Shields, Jovovich appeared nude in the film. The film was not financially successful, grossing just $2.8 million on an $11 million budget. Like its predecessor, it received negative reviews from critics. In 1992, she starred alongside Christian Slater in the action comedy Kuffs (Bruce A. Evans, 1992) and landed a small role as Mildred Harris in the biopic Chaplin (Richard Attenborough, 1992) starring Robert Downey Jr. The following year, she starred in the cult film Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993) as Michelle Burroughs, the girlfriend of Pickford (Shawn Andrews). During filming, Andrews also became her boyfriend in real life. The 16-year-old Jovovich married him, but the marriage was annulled less than two months later at her mother's request. Strongly featured in promotions for the film, Jovovich was upset to find her role much reduced in the released film. Milla decided to take a break from acting for the next 3 years to focus on her music career. Jovovich became a US citizen in 1994. In the same year, she was signed to EMI Records. She released her first album ‘The Divine Comedy’ under this label, which she had already written at the age of 15 and recorded at 16. It received some good reviews but fell short of expectations. A concert in Austin, Texas, on 16 December 1994 - the day before her 19th birthday - was recorded live.
Milla Jovovich made her breakthrough in the cinema as Leeloo in the French Science Fiction film Le cinquième élément/The Fifth Element (Luc Besson, 1997) alongside Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman and Chris Tucker. For the role, Besson and Jovovich co-developed an alien language that had only 400 words. Besson and Jovovich held conversations and wrote letters to each other in the language as practice. By the end of filming, they were able to have full conversations in this language. Jovovich wore a costume that became known as the ‘ACE-bandage’ costume. It consisted of a revealing full-body suit made of medical bandages and was designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. At the time, Le cinquième élément/The Fifth Element was the most expensive film ever produced outside of Hollywood The film was the opening film at the Cannes Film Festival and grossed a total of US$263 million, more than three times its budget of $80 million. Jovovich was nominated for several awards including the MTV Movie Award for Best Fight Scene but also a Golden Raspberry. In an interview in 2003, she revealed that the role of Leeloo was her favourite role. In 1997 she married Luc Besson. She played abused prostitute Dakota Burns in Spike Lee's drama He’s Got Game (1998) opposite Denzel Washington. Besson directed her as the French national heroine and saint in Jeanne d'Arc /The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (Luc Besson, 1999), but later that year the couple divorced. Although she received good reviews for the film overall, she was also nominated for a Golden Raspberry for her role. Jovovich played the troubled Eloise opposite Mel Gibson in Wim Wenders' thriller The Million Dollar Hotel (Wim Wenders, 2000), based on a screenplay by Bono of the band U2 and Nicholas Klein. Jovovich also sang some of the songs on the film's soundtrack. She then played the bar owner Lucia in the British Western The Empire and the Glory (Michael Winterbottom, 2000) and the diabolical Katinka in the comedy Zoolander (Ben Stiller, 2001). This satire on the fashion industry was both a critical and box-office success. Jovovich had a huge success as the star of Resident Evil (2002), based on the popular video game series. She played Alice who fights against zombies and the diabolical Umbrella Corporation. She took on the role because she and her brother were fans of the video game series. She did most stunts herself and trained in karate, kickboxing and other martial arts for the film. Resident Evil grossed 102 million US dollars.
Since 2002, Milla Jovovich has been with director Paul W.S. Anderson, who she met on the film set of Resident Evil. They got engaged in 2003 and married in 2009. They have three daughters Osian Lark Elliot Jovovich-Anderson, Dashiel Edan Anderson and Ever Anderson. Milla appeared in ad campaigns for Chanel, Versace, Emporio Armani, Donna Karen, and DKNY. In 2004, she made $10.4 million, becoming the highest-paid supermodel in the world. Modelling and advertising work gave her the financial security she needed to make critically acclaimed films such as the crime thriller No Good Deed (Bob Rafelson, 2002) with Samuel L. Jackson, and the romantic comedy-drama Dummy (Greg Pritikin, 2003) with Adrien Brody. She returned as Alice in the sequel Resident Evil: Apocalypse (Alexander Witt, 2004). It is set directly after the events of the first film, where Alice escaped from an underground facility overrun by zombies. She now bands together with other survivors to escape the zombie outbreak. The sequel received worse reviews than the first part but had greater commercial success. Next, she appeared in the Science Fiction film Ultraviolet (Kurt Wimmer, 2006) which performed poorly at the box office. The third instalment of the Resident Evil series, Resident Evil: Extinction (Russell Mulcahy, 2007) grossed $24 million on its opening weekend in the United States and $147 million worldwide against a $45 million budget. She then played Lucetta, the wife of an imprisoned arsonist (Edward Norton), in the psychological thriller Stone (John Curran, 2010) alongside Robert De Niro. She returned as Alice in the fourth instalment of the Resident Evil saga. Resident Evil: Afterlife (Paul W. S. Anderson, 2010), produced by her husband Paul W. S. Anderson. It was the first film in the series to be shot entirely in 3D. Jovovich starred as Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers (Paul W. S. Anderson, 2011), which was also produced by her husband. Jovovich appeared as a Ukrainian con artist in Famke Janssen's directorial debut film Bringing Up Bobby (2011) and played a leading role in the Russian relationship comedy Vykrutasy/Lucky Trouble (Levan Gabriadze, 2011). This was followed in by Resident Evil: Retribution (Paul W.S. Anderson, 2012), another instalment in the Resident Evil saga. Since 2014, she appeared in at least one film every year. Jovovich once again played the lead role in the sixth and final instalment of the Resident Evil series Resident Evil: Retribution (2016). The Final Chapter was the highest-grossing film in the franchise, earning over US$312 million worldwide. Time Out: "While the franchise has slackened into dependably dumb post-apocalyptic thrills, star Milla Jovovich has only gotten better, seasoning her long-legged athleticism with a commanding stare". Lately, Milla Jovovich could be seen in the American Science Fiction thriller Breathe (Stefon Bristol, 2024) also starring Jennifer Hudson.
Sources: Wikipedia (Dutch, German and English) and IMDb.
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British postcard by Heroes, London, no. PC 544.
Grace Jones (1948) is a Jamaican singer, supermodel, and actress. Classic is her album Nightclubbing (1981) and unforgettable are her hits La Vie en Rose, Pull Up to the Bumper and I've Seen That Face Before. She was also memorable as a James Bond villain in A View to a Kill (1985). But foremost, the unusual, androgynous, bold, dark-skinned artist was a style icon for the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Beverly Grace Jones was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, in 1948. Her parents were Marjorie (née Williams) and Reverend Robert W. Jones, a local politician and Apostolic clergyman. Her grandfather (on her mother's side) was a musician who traveled with Nat 'King' Cole. As her parents were working in the United States, Grace and her siblings were raised by her grandparents. Jones had a strict upbringing under the influence of Jamaica's Pentecostal church and went to church three times a week. At 13 she moved to her parents' home in Syracuse, New York. She studied theatre (some sources say Spanish) at Syracuse University. Halfway through college, a drama professor proposed her to work with him in a play he was putting on in Philadelphia, she accepted. At 18, she moved back to New York, and signed on as a model with Wilhelmina Modelling agency. Her androgynous, dark-skinned looks were not successfully received in the USA, and in 1970, she moved to Paris, just like Josephine Baker had done 50 years before her. In Paris, the fashion scene was receptive to Jones' unusual, bold appearance. Yves St. Laurent, Claude Montana, and Kenzo Takada hired her for runway modelling, and she appeared on the covers of Elle, Vogue, and Stern working with Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, and Hans Feurer. Jones frequented Club Sept, one of Paris's most popular gay clubs of the 1970s and 1980s, and socialised with Giorgio Armani and Karl Lagerfeld. She also became one of the faces of New York City's hedonistic Studio 54 disco scene.
Grace Jones' statuesque and flamboyant look was such a hit in the New York City nightclub scene that she was signed by Island Records. They put her in the studio with disco record producer, Tom Moulton. In 1977 the album Portfolio,was released, which featured a seven-minute reinterpretation of Édith Piaf's La Vie en rose and finished with I Need a Man, Jones' first club hit.The artwork to the album was designed by Richard Bernstein, an artist for Interview magazine. In the following years, she made two more disco albums, Fame (1978) and Muse (1979). These two albums failed to break the singer commercially, but Jones amassed a substantial following among gay men with her sexually charged live show, leading to her title at the time of 'Queen of the Gay Discos.' In 1980 Jones transitioned into New Wave music with the album Warm Leatherette, on which she collaborated with the Compass Point All Stars. The album included covers of songs by The Normal (Warm Leatherette), The Pretenders (Private Life), and Roxy Music (Love is the Drug). The 1981 release of Nightclubbing included Jones' covers of songs by Iggy Pop/David Bowie ("Nightclubbing") and Ástor Piazzolla ("I've Seen That Face Before"). Jones herself co-wrote Pull Up to the Bumper and Sting wrote Demolition Man. The strong rhythm of the album was produced by Compass Point All Stars, including Sly and Robbie. The album entered in the Top 5 in four countries, and became Jones' highest-ranking record in the US .She scored Top 40 hits with Pull Up to the Bumper, and I've Seen That Face Before. Another popular album was Slave to the Rhythm (1985), the last of her recordings for Island. In 1983, Jones's One Man Show was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Long-Form Music Video. 1986's album Inside Story; with production chores by Chic's Nile Rodgers, spawned one of Jones' last successful singles, I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect for You).
During the 1970s and early 1980s, Grace Jones appeared in some low-budget films. In the U.S., she appeared in the action film Gordon's War (Ossie Davis, 1973) starring Paul Winfield, and in Italy, she played a club singer in the Poliziottesco (Italian crime film genre) Quelli della Calibro 38/Colt 38 Special Squad (Massimo Dallamano, 1976) starring Marcel Bozzuffi and Carole André. Her first mainstream film role was Zula the Amazonian in the fantasy-action film Conan the Destroyer (Richard Fleischer, 1984) alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was followed by her turn as May Day, henchman to villain Max Zorin (Christopher Walken) in the 14th James Bond film A View to a Kill (John Glen, 1985), featuring Roger Moore. With her boyfriend Dolph Lundgren, Jones posed nude for Playboy. In 1986 she played as Katrina, an Egyptian queen vampire in the vampire film Vamp (Richard Wenk, 1986). The following year, Jones appeared in two films, Straight to Hell (Alex Cox, 1989), and Siesta (Mary Lambert, 1989) for which Jones was nominated for Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress. She also acted in and contributed a song to the Eddie Murphy film Boomerang (Reginald Hudlin, 1993) and played in the Science Fiction film Cyber Bandits (Erik Fleming, 1995), starring Martin Kemp of the Band Spandau ballet. A decade later, she appeared as Christoph/Christine, an intersexed circus performer in the horror thriller Wolf Girl (Thom Fitzgerald, 2001) with Tim Curry. As a style icon, Jones influenced the cross-dressing movement of the 1980s. She has been an inspiration for artists including Annie Lennox, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Björk, Madonna, and Róisín Murphy. Through her relationship with long-time collaborator Jean-Paul Goude, Jones has one son, Paulo. From Paulo, Jones has one granddaughter. Jones married Atila Altaunbay in 1996.
Sources: Greg Prato (AllMusic), Tony R. Vario (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.
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