Please, Look at Isabella Rossellini Not Looking at You

Her parents are Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini. She starred in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, then dated the director for five years. As the face of Lancôme for an unprecedented 14 years, she was long considered the most beautiful woman in the world. In 1988, the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris held an exhibit called “Portrait of a Woman” consisting entirely of photos of her. Today, she makes short films about animal sex. It’s safe to say that Isabella Rossellini is cooler than you. Than any of us.

But you don’t need the biography to know that. Just check out this picture, dated 1988. During what appears to be a film shoot—there’s gaffer tape below the wrecked side-view mirror—Rossellini stares into the middle distance, not bored, not haughty, just apart. Her ensemble is Hollywood-on-Errands, with a Hard Rock Café cap and neutral cardigan, but even pedestrian clothes can’t dim The Look that sold thousands of magazines when it graced Vogue in 1982. Isabella Rossellini, doing nothing, is a greater spectacle than most scenes from Cirque de Soleil.

You’ll understand, then, that Ms. Rossellini won’t be making an overture. Good day.