Your Daily Horoscope by Madame Clairevoyant: July 2, 2026
The moon in Aquarius might make it harder to access your feelings.
Saint Peter: Hujar’s Contact Sheets at the Morgan
“The story that unfolds among the contact sheets is sometimes quite funny (Hujar at the dentist in a houndstooth sweater).”
Paola Pitagora: The Intense Beauty of 1960s Italian Cinema
Paola Pitagora (born 1941) is an Italian actress celebrated for her intense, expressive performances and striking beauty in the 1960s and ’70s.
With her dark, soulful eyes and passionate screen presence, Pitagora became one of the most respected dramatic actresses of postwar Italian cinema. She is best remembered for her powerful and emotionally charged role as Giulia in Luchino Visconti’s Sandra (1965), as well as appearances in films such as The Bible: In the Beginning… (1966) and The Lady of Monza (1969).
Pitagora brought depth, sensitivity, and dramatic intensity to her roles, often portraying complex and tormented women. These striking vintage photos capture the dark, soulful eyes, passionate presence, and dramatic intensity of Paola Pitagora, one of the most compelling and respected actresses of postwar Italian cinema.
1951 Atlas Babycar 2S: A Charming Post-War Microcar
The 1951 Atlas Babycar 2S is a fascinating and exceptionally rare microcar that perfectly captures the post-WWII European spirit of minimalist, budget-friendly transportation.
Manufactured in France by Société Industrielle de Livry, this charming “bubble car” features a strikingly aerodynamic, toy-like fiberglass body with open-top styling and a distinctively rounded front end. Powered by a tiny, rear-mounted 175cc single-cylinder AMC engine, the Babycar 2S was built purely for short, economical city commutes rather than high-speed performance.
With only a handful of units ever produced and even fewer surviving today, this quirky two-seater is highly coveted by automotive collectors as a whimsical masterpiece of early mid-century micro-engineering. These charming photos beautifully capture the whimsical design, compact proportions, and pioneering spirit of the 1951 Atlas Babycar 2S, a delightful relic of postwar French ingenuity and one of the most endearing microcars of its time.
35 Glamorous Portraits of Olivia de Havilland in the 1950s
Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland (July 1, 1916 – July 26, 2020) was a British, American and French actress. She appeared in 49 feature films throughout her career, with the major works of her cinematic career spanning from 1935 to 1988.
The 1950s marked a decade of profound transformation for Havilland. Having already won two Academy Awards in the 1940s (To Each His Own and The Heiress) and successfully broken the restrictive studio contract system with her landmark 1944 legal victory, she entered the 1950s with complete artistic freedom. Instead of chasing Hollywood blockbusters, she chose to redefine her career, pivot to the theater, and uproot her entire personal life by moving to Europe.
At the start of the decade, de Havilland intentionally stepped away from the camera to fulfill a long-held ambition: performing on Broadway. In 1951, she made her Broadway debut playing Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. While critics were lukewarm on the production itself, her dedication to the stage led her to follow it up with a successful national tour of Candida in 1952.
When she did return to film, she gravitated toward mature, complex, and sometimes ambiguous characters rather than traditional romantic leads. Starring opposite a young Richard Burton in his American film debut My Cousin Rachel (1952), she played the enigmatic Rachel Sangalletti. Her performance brilliantly balanced vulnerability with a subtle undercurrent of malice, leaving audiences guessing whether her character was a victim or a murderer. She played a dedicated, self-sacrificing nurse trapped in a cold marriage to an ambitious doctor (played by Robert Mitchum) in Not as a Stranger (1955), showcasing her talent for grounded, emotionally heavy drama. She starred alongside Alan Ladd, playing a tough, independent frontier woman in The Proud Rebel (1958), a rugged post-Civil War Western.
The most permanent change of de Havilland’s life occurred in 1953 when she traveled to the Cannes Film Festival. There, she met Pierre Galante, an editor for the prominent magazine Paris Match. They married in 1955, and she made the definitive decision to leave Hollywood behind and relocate to a classic three-story house in the Bois de Boulogne section of Paris. Living in France allowed her to step out of the relentless Hollywood fishbowl. She became a beloved high-society figure in Paris, hosted literary salons, and later wrote a lighthearted, bestselling memoir about her experiences adapting to French culture titled Every Frenchman Has a Courteous Heart (1962).
By the close of the 1950s, Olivia de Havilland had transitioned seamlessly from a peak Golden Age movie star into a sophisticated, independent international actress who prioritized her personal happiness and artistic autonomy over studio fame.
