When most people think about the women of the 1940s and 1950s, they think about the Betty Grable pin-up girl or the Marilyn Monroe sex symbol. While I love both of those ladies (especially Marilyn) and the genres they represent, I want to take a moment to pay homage to the mysterious, seductive and deadly women — the femmes fatales.

These are the ladies who will capture your heart and poison your drink! They’re beautiful, sexy and alluring, and bad girls through and through.

In the early 1920s, the femme fatale was portrayed more as a vampiress. Theda Bara was perhaps the most famous vamp of them all. But with the increase in popularity of film noir in the 1940s and 1950s came a growing interest in the femmes fatales. Unlike the femmes of the 1920s, this new breed of heroines were cunning and curvaceous and played by stars such as Carole Landis, Rita Hayworth, Gene Tierney, Veronica Lake, Hedy Lamarr, Joan Crawford, Lauren Bacall and, one of my favorites, Jane Russell.

Recently, I’ve been working a lot with Melody Smith of Twilight Images, a photography studio in Hopewell, to create some modern-day femmes fatales. Melody’s work is amazing and it has been a privilege to work with her. For those who are interested, you can check out some of our work together in my portfolio.

As a hair and make-up artist, I’m always behind-the-scenes. But yesterday I moved from behind the camera to in front of it, to become a modern-day femme fatale!

Here are a few images from our shoot together:

(My Joan Crawford face)

On a side note, Twilight Images will be doing its first-ever themed group photo session Saturday, Aug. 16. It will be a film noir theme. Contact Melody at twilightimages@gmail.com for more information and price.