Following through on the awards thread …

If we were to give a lifetime achievement award for filmed nudity, who would be the very first recipient?

Winslet?

Connelly?

Kinski?

Bellucci?

Mirren?

Cotillard?

Green?

Moore?

Gemser?

Kidman?

Fenech?

Jolie?

Kristel?

Russ Meyer?

Jesus Franco?

Tinto Brass?

Uncle Scoopy?

other?’

Here is an interesting supplement to the discussion: “Actors And Actresses Who Spend The Most Screen Time Nude.” I have no idea whether it is accurate or who they chose to exclude. I take it that it’s just A-listers (or close), but in that case Emmanuelle Beart should qualify, as she spent more time naked in one film (La Belle Noiseuse) than any of those actresses have done in their entire careers. And how did Kate Winslet not make the list?

26 thoughts on “Following through on the awards thread …

  1. Mirren #1 all time. Not only number of scenes, but the decades we have enjoyed her contributions.

    Connelly is a personal favorite as is Merceau.

  2. Roller Girl, Diane Lane, and Pam Grier were the first three that popped into my mind of those missing from the original list. Anyone who once portrayed a cheerleader also gets on my personal list.

    1. Anybody who played a naked cheerleader, a woman in prison and a lesbian nun gets an automatic lifetime achievement award.

  3. Fenech followed by Kinski, Gloria Guida, Gemser, Bellucci and Connelly.

    Guida is my write-in candidate.

  4. Mirren, not only for volume of nude scenes (not to mention quality), but also for the unapologetic, laissez-faire attitude towards them that helped to normalize and de-stigmatize nude appearances by actresses. It’s this attitude — though she certainly want the only one — that I’d guess helped later actresses like Winslet approach nude scenes with a more willing attitude. But I might be assuming too much.

    At any rate, she’s my number one regardless of whatever impact she might’ve had on others.

  5. Adds: Quickly going thru my Mr. Skin folder …

    Ursula
    Susan Sarandon
    Barbara Hershey
    Carice_van Houten
    Corinne Clery
    Emmanuelle Béart
    Emmanuelle Seigner
    Isabelle Huppert
    Jennifer Jason Leigh
    Juliette Binoche
    Kim Basinger
    Lina Romay
    Linnea Quigley
    Maggie Gyllenhaal
    Mary-Louise Parker
    Rosamund Pike
    Rosanna Arquette
    Sharon Stone
    Theresa Russell
    Victoria Abril
    Charlotte Rampling
    Jenny Agutter
    Susannah York
    Carole Laure

    Partial to Ursula iirc The Blue Max was the 1st movie saw by myself at a theater. My dad had planes on the brain so saw it at a local wide screen theater. Oh Ursula 🙂 and the planes were nice too 😛 Trivia: All the aircraft used in the movie were made from scratch. Digressing.

    p.s. Probably could have added 20/30 lesser known French actresses. 😮

    Yielding back the balance of my time …

  6. “Following thru…” Nothing against your HOF candidates, nor everyone else’s additions, but much like the awards & nominees themselves, & like most lists & rankings or even a “mythical national championship”, little or no meaning derives from such instruments.

    I do have an observation that goes to your question, “How did Kate Winslet not make the list?” My answer would be that “most screen time” turns out to be a shitty metric. The reason I’d give is that the marginal effort of adding further seconds to a given nude scene is far smaller than adding another nude scene within a single project. Let alone adding another project with a nude scene.

    1. And seeing Bellucci’s reminds me that Laura Antonelli should not be forgetten.

      Also, Pam Grier.

  7. Mirren, especially if we are doing like the academy and often awarding someone who has missed out on earning an award in their own time.

    1. Yes, I agree. I would use her for the logo, as the NBA used Jerry West. She’s Geriatric West, and always takes it to the hoop.

      Among respected actresses she really blazed the trail. That allowed Winslet and the others the freedom to follow, and to create their own legacies.

      Her status as an awarded, respectable actress also gives her a status lift over people with comparable resumes who were merely members of the demi-monde, like Nastassja Kinski or Tinto Brass.

  8. Additions:
    1.Gretchen Mol
    2.Sherilyn Fenn
    3.Sophie Marceau
    4.Diane Lane
    5.Charlize Theron
    6.Heather Graham
    7.Sean Young

    I wouldn’t include actresses who did great nude scenes who were unhappy with nudity like
    1.Phoebe Cates
    2.Kelly Preston
    3.Laura Linney

    1. How did I miss Sophie Marceau?

      I wouldn’t place her ahead of Mirren for that very first award, but she would have to be under consideration for the first five.

    2. Laura Linney on nudity…” I’m a real tart. I’ve been naked in a lot of movies. I feel that [if] the nudity in some way will add to the story or the understanding of the character, I’ll do it.”

      1. Interesting. That’s not what she had said initially.

        For the movie Maze
        Linney had to deal with a different kind of physicality in the film, appearing nude in a lengthy scene in which her character Callie poses for Lyle in his art studio–not exactly a love scene, but with subtle sensual overtones. “It’s always difficult, at least for me,” she said. “It’s just not a natural thing to do! I’m very glad that it was Rob ,” she said, acknowledging that actors-turned-directors are “always helpful–if they’re good. They’re going to understand acting in a much freer way.”

        1. Boy, @Adam, have you got the wrong end of the stick!

          That’s a really disappointing opinion. Normally, what we see from you is a high evidentiary standard.

          Here, you’ve mistaken an honest account of a nude *debut* after which the actor expressed a degree of difficulty, which she did overcome, as though it were somehow a justification for an ongoing unwillingness or disinclination to repeat the experience. But the facts clearly refute such an interpretation.

          I mean, of course there’s some reluctance! As ISTM she explained quite well. I don’t expect it to be easy for women I desire to deliver what I might like from them. I’m grateful that they do so, as often as they do.

          Linney’s next nudity after Maze was Further Tales, half a year later. Between 2000-2010, she had nudity in a half dozen more projects after Maze.

          She also had non-nude raunchy sex scenes in Ozark & as Abigail Adams opposite Paul Giamatti in the 2008 mini series, John Adams. It had gotten to the point that fans of celeb nudity were speculating if she would ever do another project with her clothes on.

          1. Hrm.

            The only other nudity I’m familiar that she did is from Love, Actually. She also did some nude scene as a dead corpse in The Life of David Gale which I assumed at the time was some kind of dummy body.

            Don’t remember her doing any nudity in Further Tales of the City, just wearing a bikini.

          2. Ignorance is no excuse! That’s why we have LMGTFY.

            Or Nudography/MrSkin or UncleScoopy’s famous but now less often added to encyclopedia. Or AZnude or other readily available resources. I mean, let me translate: “I’m not familiar with half of Linney’s nude scenes” actually means you didn’t bother to find out. We tend to be ignorant of things we don’t care enough about to seek out the knowledge.

            But let’s be clear. Your protestation says something about you & precious little about Ms. Linney.

          3. Wasn’t she also in “Rochelle Rochelle”, a young girl’s strange, erotic journey from Milan to Minsk?

    3. I would not buy that Cates ever had a problem with nudity nor probably the others either. Cates was on record when she was doing the nudity saying that her generation had no problem with it. She stopped doing nudity when Hollywood put the clamps down on actresses doing nudity in the late 80s. She was just doing what Hollywood wanted and saying the things Hollywood wanted her say. This is pretty much true of most every actress in Hollywood.

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