All this research about Sarah Bernhardt has lead me to rediscover what is called the Belle Epoch, or Beautiful Age. We recently used the label Beautiful People on some of the standouts of the 60s and 70s. Apparently we have always had Beautiful People, it’s just that we didn’t have a lot of photos to prove it.

It certainly became a thing in the 1870s, 1880s, and right up to the 1930s. It does seem that the Hollywood starlets pushed the Belle Epoch folks off the newsprint,

I have collected nearly one hundred images. Here are a few of my favorates.