Ever since that Saturday afternoon in late Summer 1989 when my precociousness - and Al Pacino crush - led me to sneak a peek of the very R-rated Sea of Love on my way back from a bathroom break of the Michael Keaton mental-illness comedy classic, The Dream Team, I have had a steadfast "thing" for Ellen Barkin.
She wasn't a conventional beauty like other mid-to-late '80s leading blondes such as Kelly McGillis (Top Gun), Rebecca De Mornay (Risky Business) or Kathleen Turner (Peggy Sue Got Married), but even at 9 years old, even in the short 20 seconds I watched her bring Helen Cruger to life as the wrong-side-of-the-tracks temptress who could make even straight-shooting detective Frank Keller cross the line, I knew Ellen had that intangible something that separates those who simply act on-screen and those who own the screen.
As I moved on from Trapper Keepers and Al Pacino to Coach purses and Gene Hackman, Ellen fell off my movie star radar. In fact, she fell off everyone's radar. It wasn't until her turn a decade later as the perma-drunk trailer park pageant-Mom in Drop Dead Gorgeous opposite a deliciously skanky Allison Janney and a surprisingly un-annoying Kirsten Dunst and then again last year when she publicly announced her intention to auction off the entirety of the jewellery collection she'd amassed while married to estranged billionaire husband Ron Perelman - a collection valued at more than 15 million dollars - that I began to remember why and how much I wanted to be just a wee bit like Ms. Barkin when I finally grow up.
Unless you've made a concerted effort not to know about Ocean's Thirteen, its 13-star cast and month-long circuit of high-profile international premieres, you've probably come across photos of a now 53-year-old Ellen Barkin walking the red carpet in a melange of her trademark fitted tea-length sheaths.
George, Matt, Al or Brad?
Um, try Ellen. Hands-down.
For more evidence of Ellen's enviable-at-any-age figure setting the standard for how to wear a fitted tea-length sheath, see below:
In pale grey at the Los Angeles premiere of Ocean's Thirteen
In steel-blue metallic at the CFDA Awards 
In coral sequins at the Las Vegas premiere of Ocean's s Thirteen
