Gwen Welles
Nude

Dark red hair, a freckled face, and clear, wide eyes, Gwen Welles was captivatingly charming, and unabashed in sharing her nudity on screen. Best known for her role as Sueleen Gay, an aspiring singer in Robert Altman’s Nashville(1975), winner of 24 awards and 26 nominations, including four Oscar nods and one win; Gwen herself earning a Best Supporting Actress nod from BAFTA, this is also one of the films where the Tennessee-born sweetheart stripped down for a rowdy group of guys. Her first naked moment, though, was in 1972 as the title character Hellé in the French film of the same name, directed by Roger Vadim (the guy who discovered Brigitte Bardot and created Barbarella); audiences get to see both Gwen’s bare breasts, as well as her furry triangle. She repeated the boobage as Sherry Nielson in Hit! (1973) with Billy Dee Williams and Richard Pryor, and again as Laura in Between the Lines (1977) with Jeff Goldblum and Lindsay Crouse, and got sexy as a brunette in a bra in Desert Hearts (1985). In clothed roles, she appeared as Susan Peters in another Robert Altman flick, California Split (1974) with George Segal and Elliott Gould; was Bari in A Safe Place (1971) with Tuesday Weld, Orson Welles, and Jack Nicholson; had a small role as a Playboy Mansion party-goer in Bob Fosse’s Star 80 (1983) with Mariel Hemingway; and played Shirley in Nobody’s Fool (1986) with Rosanna Arquette and Mare Winningham. Gwen was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in 1992, and died in October 1993. A documentary about her death, Angel on My Shoulder was released in 1998 by her friend, director/producer Donna Deitch.