What do Julianne Moore, Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman, Keira Knightley, Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet and Halle Berry all have in common?Essentially, they’re all female Hollywood A-listers who are able to bare all to the camera whenever they please without it going on to “define” their careers.
A lot of other actresses haven’t been quite so lucky in this regard, though.
Sometimes a nude scene is rendered so iconic that it’s impossible for anybody to look at an actress without recalling it, or the scene in question is the first thing that springs to mind whenever anybody utters their name. In some cases, these actresses have gone on to do other work which has allowed them to break free from the legacy of a famous nude scene, but in a lot of cases it’s proven impossible to escape…
Here, then, are 9 actresses who – for good or for worse – are remembered today mostly for their participation in a single nude scene, whilst the rest of their work (if there is any at all) remains overshadowed by these iconic and candid exposures of flesh…
There is one scene – thank God – that some would considered rather erotic, however, and it sees Jack Nicholson’s crazed protagonist, Jack Torrance, stepping inside the elusive “Room 237″ to find a beautiful naked woman soaking it up in the bathtub. As she offers herself over to Jack, though, she is suddenly transformed into a rotten old granny – a sure-fire way kill any feelings of arousal that were starring inside you.
This is an iconic scene, though, and the actress who played the beautiful woman – model Lia Beldam – isn’t known for doing anything much else as far as the movies are concerned, but was immortalised in this terrifying bait-and-switch styled moment.
8. Lolita’s Naked Walk – Alexis Dziena – Broken Flowers
That’s to say, she’s the gorgeous daughter of Sharon Stone’s Laura, whose flirtatious nature shocks Bill Murray (who’s visiting an old girlfriend) into a stupor when she casually – and totally unexpectedly – walks through the house whilst on the telephone without so much as a care in the world (or any clothes on).
Though she’s done a few bits and pieces here and there, Dziena isn’t really known for her work outside of Broken Flowers; this scene, however, is the kind that stays lodged into your memory banks a long time after you’ve glimpsed it. It’s also the sort of scene that you have to rewind a couple of times, because it really does come out of nowhere – not really surprising, given that Broken Flowers is a Jim Jarmusch movie, but still…
7. The Steam Room – Barbara Nedeljáková & Jana Kaderabkova – Hostel
Though they’re relentlessly wonderful to look at for the span of the movie, the most memorable scene in Hostel – and, indeed, the scene that the pair are best known for – occurs when heroes Paxton, Josh and Oli join them in the steam room. The girls are naked except for a couple of towels around their waists, and it’s quite a sight to behold.
Neither girl went on to establish a major film career, which means that they’re mostly known (or only know, perhaps) for their nude scene in this film. Which is totally fine.
6. The Masked Ball – Julienne Davis – Eyes Wide Shut
This time it’s the lovely Julienne Davis, who has appeared in very little else over the course of her career as an actress, but plays a crucial role in Stanley Kubrick’s vastly underrated sex drama, which also stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
As Mandy, she acts as a friendly guide who tries to lead Cruise’s troubled Dr. Bill Hartford out of danger during the infamous masked ball sequence. Said sequence – creepy as heck – features dozens and dozens of naked woman scattered about a large country manor, though Davis is by far the most prominently featured.
Davis spends almost all of her screen-time in Eyes Wide Shut (across the span of one lengthy scene) either wearing a thong or nothing at all. Despite the fact that she can be seen wearing a mask in this particular scene, the reason as to why Kubrick picked her to star in his film couldn’t be more obvious: she’s absolutely stunning.
Despite a lack of acting credits, Davis’ iconic part in Eyes Wide Shut will ensure that she’s still remembered in years to come.
5. The Girl’s Locker Room – Kaki Hunter – Porky’s
Porky’s, something of a precursor to the American Pie flicks, is not a particularly great movie. In fact, it has dated horribly and the jokes aren’t very funny at all.
The scene in question involves a bunch of horny high school guys looking through a peep hole and into the girls’ locker room as they shower (classic fantasy, that). Hunter retired from acting not long after she’d finished with Porky’s and her character, Wendy Williams, which means that – to this day – she’s best known as “the most prominently featured girl in the Porky’s shower scene.”
How’s that for a legacy?
4. “Take Off Your Clothes…” – Natasha Henstridge – Species
That’s all to do with the fact that Species contains several brilliant moment of nudity (and one that presumably sent countless teenage boys into a frenzy), combined with the fact that she never really featured in anything quite so popular again.
The plot is ridiculous, of course: a human/alien hybrid named Eve (that’s Henstridge) sets out to multiple whilst she’s pursued by government agents. The nude scene in question – and the one she’s famous for – occurs when Henstridge takes off her bra and reveals her breasts just moments before she murders an unsuspecting victim. He asks her to get naked, she complies, and the poor chap has his face sucked off.
Henstridge went on to take her kit off in 7 other movies, but – c’mon – nobody remembers her for anything other than this sexy scene in Species, do they?
3. The Perfect Girl – Kelly Preston – Mischief
Nowadays, Kelly Preston is remembered for two things. The first: being married to John Travolta. The second: this scene from the 1985 movie Mischief, which sees the beautiful actress stripping down in a moment that literally couldn’t be sexier if it tried. Honestly: faced with this scene, it’s hard to imagine a woman more beautiful than Preston.
The defining highlight – without question, really – is this nude scene, one that is often singled out as one of the great moments of nudity in all of cinema history. For a lot of men, Preston was presumably the first fully nude girl they ever saw. Nowadays, chances are that most people think about this whenever Kelly Preston’s name is mentioned. Better that than thoughts of her making love to John Travolta.
2. Jim’s Room – Shannon Elizabeth – American Pie
There are those who might claim that actress Shannon Elizabeth is known for more than “that one scene in American Pie,” but those people are – quite frankly – kidding themselves. To all but very few human beings on Earth, Elizabeth remains almost exclusively known for the scene in the iconic ’90s comedy in which she turns up at protagonist Jim’s house and proceeds to bare her breasts in an attempt to seduce him.
It’s an inherently funny scene, one that has fun with the idea that a teenager as beautiful as Nadia would really go for a dweeb that looked and acted like Jason Biggs (“Hey, it could happen: she’s foreign!” is the movie’s optimistic take on that) and the fact that Jim climaxes too early when Shannon Elizabeth forces his hand onto her private parts.
Elizabeth has made appearances in lots of below average films ever since American Pie, but this nude scene is what she will be forever known for. And hey, given that said scene has given so much pleasure to so many, is that really such a bad thing?
1. The Poolside Fantasy – Phoebe Cates – Fast Times At Ridgemont High
Phoebe Cates starred in a number of other things (the most famous of which is probably Gremlins), and yet this is the thing that she is remembered for beyond anything else. It’s the iconic scene in Fast Times At Ridgemont High, of course, in which Judge Reinhart’s character has a masturbation fantasy and dreams up this really sublime fantasy…
It’s hard to blame him for the thought; Cates is inarguably perfect as she climbs out of the swimming pool in slow-motion. The way that the scene unfolds on-screen – with her red swim suit unclasping from the middle – is a stroke of genius, to the point where said scene is often referred to as the greatest nude scene in all of cinema history.
Cates hasn’t really done any acting since 2001, of course, which further cements her as the person who is mostly remembered via this scene. If you say the words “Phoebe Cates” nowadays, this is – almost exclusively – what people think of. Nothing wrong with that – there are far worser things to be remembered for than being insanely sexy.