Goodnight Mrs. Ziegfeld, Wherever You Are

And as the year ends, another chapter closes...

Winner Takes All

As Oscar dawns all the way over there on the other side of this Good Earth, I'd like to take a moment to consider the prize's oldest living winner - yes, it's two-time Best Actress Luise Rainer, seen here in tweeds and faraway expression.  "The Viennese Teardrop" is 102 now, and when last seen a year or so ago she was even more enchanting than in her unlikely mid-thirties heyday. 

In The Great Ziegfeld she stole the show in the Telephone Scene of All Time, and while her turn as a Chinese peasant in her second Oscar vehicle may cause more than the occasional wince today, you don't beat Garbo (and in Camille, maybe only the best thing ever put on celluloid that doesn't star Al Parker) just by showing up.

Whatever are we going to do when the very last of these fabulous creatures leaves us?  I just don't see getting all fired about up about Michelle Williams in 70-odd years, do you?