Slinky Bible Babes III, Now with dancing, singing, and some science fictiony goodness

Finally! Part III of my occassional series on SLINKY BIBLE BABES!

Go here for Part I, and here for Part II.

And a big thanks to Hal P.  for sending me the Queen of Sheba pic below (and therefore, reminding me that Part III was long overdue):

QUEEN OF SHEBA

I’ve featured the Queen in Part 1 (Gina Lolabrigida in Solomon and Sheba) but since Hal was so kind, revisiting the easily impressed Sheban monarch is hardly a chore!  He send this photo of Betty Blythe in the 1921 Fox feature, The Queen of Sheba. According to Wikipedia, no copy of the film survived a fire in the 1930s. Alas.

But who else needs a mention? I’ve featured Eve, Jezebel, Delilah, Bathsheba, Ruth, Esther, Sarah, Rebecca, Mary Magdalene, Whore of Babylon, Potiphar’s wife, Solomon’s Egyptian Mrs.!

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Well, first, lets go for the most famous:

Mary the “Virgin”.

Here is Keisha Castle-Hughes who starred as Mary in the 2006 film, The Nativity Story. You can tell from this publicity photo that she is well suited to playing the role of the pious virgin. She is wearing white, and turning her back on a golden idol of some god who forgot his pants. Some gods are so silly.

The good Virgin made an earlier appearance at Dr. Jim’s, albeit in an altogether different context, in which Vatican condemned a fashion show by Chilean designer Ricardo Oyarzun.

The Blessed Virgin, of course, famously makes appearances all over the world. This includes a gig at a Glasgow art school:

And she sells Mexican Magazines, being a patron saint of literature, or something.

Of course, Mary is not the only slinky Bible Babe associated with the Nativity.

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Elizabeth

Mary’s relative Elizabeth was also there. she ended up being the mother of John the Baptist (and aunt of Bill the Presbyterian).

Shohreh Aghdashloo as Elizabeth in The Nativity Story. Now, she seemed an natural for the role, since she, well, looks good in blue:

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SALOME

And just so no one thinks this is all just sexist droolings, I thought we should introduce some art, and so, we cannot miss the dancing Salome, over whom men loose their heads (with apologies to Elizabeth, above, concerning her bouncing baby baptist).

Theda Bara, in a still from the 1918 film, Salome.

Rita Hayworth also played Salome in 1953.

Ah, but there are classics:

Fritzi Schaffer as Salome, ca. 1910.

An interesting one is the 2002  Salome, which is done flamenco style. The staring role is played by Aida Gomez.

From IMDB: The story of Salomé told as one of extreme love and vengeance. A director prepares a troupe of flamenco dancers for a performance. He summarizes the story and describes his spring for the drama’s action: Salomé’s attraction to John the Baptist. When the prophet rejects her, she seeks revenge. We meet the principals. We watch rehearsals, a dress rehearsal, and then the performance. The movie is both about the performance and about preparation for performance.

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Michal

Well, let’s get Old Testamenty: Here’s Michal, one of King Dave’s lawfully wedded squeezes, and daughter of the guy God drove mad, Saul. Here she is, played by Cherie Lunghi in the 1985 film, King David (played by Richard Gere).

And before her, Guilia Rubini, in the 1960 film “David and Goliath” with Orson Wells as dear old daddy, Saul. Here Mical isn’t quite so, well, dangly.

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Abigail

Now, another of Dave’s brides is Abigail, who either inadvertently delivered a quasi-prophetic, hopelessly  pietistic, honestly humble and obsequious statement of David’s destiny as God’s chosen king, or masterfully played to his vanity and manipulated him like he was dumb as a stick (depends if you are following traditional exegesis or something with intelligence behind it), or both.

I found this photo allegedly of Abigail twisting David around her little finger (or just before she twisted herself around his legs, which sound like it might have been fun to be David) but no information was given as to who the actress is or which film version of the biblical story.

 

On the other hand, Lina Sastri played Abigail in the Gere film noted above.

I’ve already posted one Rebecca (Mrs. Isaac, Daughter in Law to the Great Daddy Abraham in Part 2 (Rachel Stirling in “In the Beginning”). At that point I was too lazy to look too hard for pics of Rebecca’s two daughters in law, the sisters Rachel and Leah (both Mrs. Jacob).

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Rachel and Leah

But I tried again. The 1995 T.V. film Joseph, however, has Alice Krige playing Rachel and Dominique Sanda as Leah. Well, I still couldn’t find any good stills of the sisters.  But I did find this, which is Alice Krige. Apparently.

 

Obviously, Jacob didn’t marry Rachel for her body. Just sayin’.  Ms. Krige is no stranger to Bible productions, appearing as Bathsheba in 1985 and we will get onto that in a moment. As far as sister Leah, I did find this picture of Dominique Sanda:

 

Oh yeah, and there is this one:

I wonder which one was Jacob’s favourite?

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Bathsheba

As noted already, Alice Krige played Bathsheba in 1985. Here is what she looked like in that movie.

Of course, Bathsheba is famous for bathing in plain sight, letting David get an eyeful. You can tell that from the time her Bathsheba role in 1985 to her disembodies Star Trek appearence, she has learned a little discretion. But all of this is seems to be destiny. Here is another still of her Bathsheba:

She is already getting a little borgy, don’t you think? I think I liked Michal’s bangly danglies (see above) a little better.

Here is Susan Hayward’s 1951 Bathsheba, a bathin’ she be, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Rahab

I’ll have to end this soon, so here is one more. The “working girl” from Jericho herself, Rahab. As we all know, when the Israelites were preparing to invade Canaan, they sent two spies to check out the situation in the first major city on the invasion path, Jericho. Like all good soldiers, the first thing they did was visit the local bordello. In the 1978 film Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, Sondra Currie played her.  Lindsay Kaufman was Rahab in the 2005, Bible Battles TV show.  Sadly I can’t find any still’s of either actresses performances in these production (and not one at all of of Kaufman), but here’s Sondra Currie and a song!

Well, be fore we get to the song, here is Morena Baccarin, who played space hooker Inara in TV’s Firefly series.

Our singer is none other than Nichelle Nichols of Star Trek fame!

Go here for Slinky Bible Babes Part I, and here for Part II.