Eliza Gilbert, a.k.a. Lola Montez, b. 1818. "La Grande Horizontale."

Top Five Reasons She's Our Favorite Tiny Dancer:

1. This Irish native and "Spanish dancer" sometimes claimed to be the illegitimate daughter of Lord Byron...and sometimes claimed her father was a matador. (Dream big, darlin'.)

2. Was rumored to have stabbed and shot at her lovers when they disappointed her in the bedroom. (And you thought your temper was bad.)

3. Seduced King Ludwig of Bavaria by slitting her dress open with a knife. After he made her a countess, she caused a revolt that eventually forced him to abdicate. She left the next night for California. (If only they'd been making movies back then...)

4. Declared her intentions to "capture" California during the gold rush and name herself queen of her newly annexed "Lolaland." (Where I come from, we call that "entrepreneurial spirit.")

5. The lady was persistent--after failing as an actress, she moved on to dancing. When an editor gave her infamous "spider dance" a bad review, she challenged him to a duel.

Luisa Casati Stampa di Soncino, b. 1881. "Futurism's Dark Lady."

Top Five Reasons She's Our Favorite Fashionista:

1. She was famous for walking her two pet cheetahs through the streets of Venice while wearing nothing but a fur coat. Toy dogs are so last season.

2. Once the wealthiest woman in Italy, and a huge patron of the arts, she was $25 million in debt by the 1920s. Gotta love a woman who spends her fortune on art.

3. The lady knew how to set goals. A muse to a host of artists, writers, and designers--including Jack Kerouac and Umberto Boccioni--she once proclaimed, "I want to be a living work of art."

4. Fashionable to the end, she was buried wearing a leopard print cape and false eyelashes. She probably never went to the grocery store without make-up.

5. And then there was the movie! The inspiration for countless plays, novels, and fashion lines, she was later immortalized in film by Vivien Leigh and Ingrid Bergman.