As Sam Baker celebrates her red hair in the October issue, we look back at history's defining red heads.
KATHARINE HEPBURN
Like her predecessor Sarah Bernhardt, Katharine Hepburn – also an ambitious, versatile and fiery flame-haired actor – enjoyed a long and successful career from the 1920s onwards.
While Bernhardt had only dabbled with silent cinema when it first came about, Hepburn was one of the first stars to cross over from theatre to the silver screen and achieve mainstream success as a Hollywood icon.
Hepburn starred in 44 feature films such as Little Women and Holiday – cast opposite Cary Grant – and can boast the most amount of Academy Awards ever received, taking home four Oscars and nominated for 12.
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NICOLE KIDMAN
Back in the States, an Australian actor shot to fame in the 1990s when she married Hollywood’s leading man Tom Cruise after meeting him on set for their film Days of Thunder.
The flame-haired actress soon became a house-hold name and Nicole Kidman has since starred in fifty movies to date, nominated for three Academy Awards and winning an Oscar for her performance in The Hours in 2003.
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FLORENCE WELCH
Lead singer of Florence + the Machine, Florence Welch is the red-haired musician and muse to Gucci's Frida Giannini and was a Bazaar cover star this year. Interestingly, Welch cites the Pre-Raphaelite paintings – like The Lady of Shalott and Ophelia – as inspiration to her own work.
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JESSICA CHASTAIN
It’s hard to believe that one of Jessica Chastain’s stand-out features, her hair, was the very reason she found it difficult to get her acting career off the ground. Luckily for the film industry, but not for our hair envy, she was cast in 2008 indie flick Jolene. She has since gone on to land an Oscar nomination for her performance in the The Help and been named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.
JESSICA CHASTAIN
It’s hard to believe that one of Jessica Chastain’s stand-out features, her hair, was the very reason she found it difficult to get her acting career off the ground. Luckily for the film industry, but not for our hair envy, she was cast in 2008 indie flick Jolene. She has since gone on to land an Oscar nomination for her performance in the The Help and been named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.
EMMA STONE
There are few things not to like about American actress Emma Stone and her glossy strawberry-blonde hair is certainly not one of them. Quirky, funny and extremely pretty, boys want to be with her and girls want to be her – but they’d also happily settle for being her best friend. See her next with Naomi Watts in Birdman.
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When someone tells me I'm a sex symbol I'm like, 'What?' But I'll take what I can get. That'll teach all those boys back in junior high school. In fact, I hope my very first boyfriend, the guy I dated for one month and who broke up with me at the Valentine's Day dance, I hope that boy reads this! It's a huge compliment when someone says you're attractive, especially when I was such an awkward kid, I was very tomboyish, with very short red hair, running around with cowboy boots on. - Jessica Chastain