Dame Helen Mirren looked sensational while holidaying in Puglia, Italy this weekYet it's not so much the bright red two-piece causing the sensation but the show-stopping, 62-year-old body of Dame Helen Mirren that fills it.
These jaw-dropping snaps of the Oscar-winning actress frolicking on rocks with her husband in Italy evoke memories of sexpots Ursula Andress and Brigitte Bardot in their heyday.
As one British commentator remarked, Mirren looks better in a bikini than most women four decades younger than her could.
When the photographs were published in Britain's Daily Mail newspaper last week - and replicated extensively online - they caused a frenzy.
Bikini queen: The actress flaunted her enviable curvesAfter establishing there was no digital mischief involved, that Mirren's body appeared to be the product of good, old-fashioned exercise, readers posted gushing messages of admiration and, in some cases, envy.
"Yes, she does look great BUT she has never had children! Do not make us mothers feel bad, also it is her job to look good! I do admire her but this is also a very blurry shot ..." wrote one woman.
The majority, however, were more along the lines of: "Wow Helen! You look fantastic. I wish I looked as good as you and I am 10 years younger!"
Actress Joan Collins, no slouch herself at 75, was moved enough by the public's palpable surprise in finding a woman in her 60s truly sexy that she wrote a newspaper article about it.
"Everyone seemed rather amazed that she was looking so good just days short of her 63rd birthday," Collins said last week.
"Yet there are flocks of women in their 50s, 60s and 70s who still look sexy and absolutely wonderful whether in or out of a swimsuit.
"I certainly applaud Dame Helen for wearing a bikini on which she obviously thought was an extremely secluded stretch of beach."
The photographs were taken in Puglia, on the southern tip of Italy, where Mirren and her American film-director husband Taylor Hackford, 63, own a 500-year-old castle.
The grounds feature a mature vineyard and overlook the Mediterranean sea. Mirren reportedly bought the property to celebrate her Best Actress Oscar win for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II.
Long known as the thinking man's sex symbol through her work in theatre and films, Dame Helen achieved mainstream fame playing the no-nonsense Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison in the television series Prime Suspect.
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