We had Faces Then

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Greta Garbo, 1931, photo by Clarence Sinclair Bull

Marian Marsh, 1931, part of the Warners Brothers publicity campaign for Svengali

Silent film star Theda Bara

Le Petit Soldat (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)

Designer Elsa Schiaparelli, 1932, photo by George Hoyningen-Huene

Peter Lawford and Ava Gardner, 1944, on a studio-arranged date

Henry Fonda in The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock, 1956).
Hitchcock film on being unjustly accused and wrongly imprisoned.

Irene Dunne, 1932, photo by Roman Freulich

Gloria Grahame, 1954, in a publicity shot for Human Desire

Roland Barthes, 1943, while at a sanatorium for the treatment of his tuberculosis
 

Martha Graham, 1922, as a student at the Denishawn School in Los Angeles

Mildred Rogers: “You cad, you dirty swine! I never cared for you, not once! I was always makin’ a fool of ya! Ya bored me stiff; I hated ya! It made me SICK when I had to let ya kiss me. I only did it because ya begged me, ya hounded me and drove me crazy! And after ya kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth! WIPE MY MOUTH!”

Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage (John Cromwell, 1934)