Anita Ekberg graces the cover of this February 1957 issue of Sir! magazine, laid back, colorized, and looking good. She gets in depth treatment inside, with a focus on a nude statue of her made by Hungarian sculptor Sepy Dobronyi. The story was perfect for Hollywood gossip rags, and accordingly they all reported breathlessly that Dobronyi wanted to make the statue a nude, and since he was headed back to his studio in Cuba and couldn't have Ekberg sit for him, took a series of nude reference photos. Dobronyi was a scuba diver in his spare time and had collected gold coins from sunken Spanish galleons to use in his art, some of which he applied to Ekberg's likeness, leading to this boob-related witticism from Sir! editors: “Anita's statue has a real honest-to-goodness treasure chest.” The sculpture was mostly bronze, though, and became known as the Ekberg Bronze, which when last seen was in a Norwegian museum, though Ekberg was actually Swedish.

Elsewhere in Sir! you get the short feature, “A Homo Speaks Out.” The title alone. Really. The author, working in confessional form, admits to deep feelings of regret, shame, self-loathing, and so forth at his “condition”—basically writing everything mid-century homophobes would have wanted to read. It ain't pretty, so we won't transcribe any of it. Readers also learn about marriage rites on the Pacific islands of New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), where tribal ceremonies involve all the male members of the groom's family having first crack at the bride. Is that true? We have no idea, and really aren't inclined to find out. To each culture their own, we say—as Americans, we come from the weirdest one on the planet. Other stories deal with Elvis Presley, burlesque, and prostitution. While Sir! wasn't one of the top mid-century tabs, it outdid itself with the Ekberg cover alone, which we consider one of the most eye-catching images of her we've seen.

This is a rather nice 1959 edition of Bernard O’Donnell’s The World’s Worst Women, a collection of bios on assorted female murderers. Among them are Belle Gunness, who we wrote about several years ago, Martha Wise, who was known as the “Borgia of America,” Vera Renczi, who poisoned thirty-five people in Bucharest, Romania, and Anna Marie Hahn, who killed five people in Cincinnati, Ohio. Other famed killers include such colorfully named characters as the Red Witch of Buchenwald (Ilse Koch), the Poison Widow of Liege (Marie Alexandrine Becker), the Ogress of Paris (Jeanne Weber), and the Angel Makers of Nagyrév, a group of women who poisoned up to 300 people in Hungary. We were just kidding about a sequel dealing with men. Finding enough paper to print something like that would wipe out half the world’s forests…  

Jayne Mansfield rides off into the night with her new husband, Hungarian bodybuilder and former Mr. Universe Miklós Hargitay, better known as Mickey Hartigay, after their wedding in Portuguese Bend, California, today in 1958. In addition to riding off with Mansfield, Hargitay rode into the pages of the tabloids. As a noted figure in the fitness and bodybuilding world, he had been moderately famous before, but now, as a superstar’s husband, his every excursion, utterance, change in appearance, and career rumor was exhaustively documented and sold to the public. The marriage lasted six years, which is not bad by Hollywood standards, and the pair had three children, one of whom is actress Mariska Hargitay. See more on Mickey here.

We’ve seen these paperback covers in different places around the internet and thought they’d make an interesting collective post showing the progression of their dance-themed covers. The first is from 1950 with art by Rudolph Belarski, the next is from an unknown who nonetheless painted a nice rear cover as well, and the last is from Harry Shaare. Macamba concerns a group of characters in Curaçao, and how one in particular struggles to deal with his biracial background as he grows to manhood. He first tries to become a witch doctor, then excels at conventional learning in university, and eventually ships off to World War II and becomes a hero. Returning home, he has many romances and seeks to find his place in the world. You may wonder if there’s any actual dancing in the book, and indeed there is—the main character watches a performance of the tamboe or tambú, a native dance and music that the Dutch colonizers of Curaçao had made illegal.  

Lilla Van Saher captures certain aspects of indigenous culture in Curaçao, even sprinkling the dialogue with some Papiamento, but the book is not derived directly from her personal experiences. She was born Lilla Alexander in Budapest, lived an upper class life, modeled, acted in French fims, married a Dutch lawyer named August Edward Van Saher, and through him was introduced to Dutch culture and its island possessions. During her first trip to Curaçao she claims to have been imprisoned by natives in a church because they thought she was a local saint.

In private life, she was a close friend of Tennessee Williams, traveling with him aboard the S.S. Queen Federica in the early 1950s, entertaining him in New York City, and accompanying him during a press junket of Sweden, acting almost as an agent and introducing him to the upper crust of Stockholm, where she was well known. During this time she was Lilla van Saher-Riwkin, and often appears by that name in biographies of Williams as part of his retinue of admirers and associates, though not always in a flattering light. Later she did what many globetrotting dilletantes do—published a cookbook. Hers was called Exotic Cooking, which is as good a description of Macamba as we can imagine.

This photo shows American actress Jean Wallace and Hungarian actor Cornel Wilde, née Kornél Lajos Weisz, emerging from Los Angeles Superior Court after their marriage ceremony, which took place five days after Wilde was granted a divorce from his first wife Patricia Knight. Press stories described the wedding as quick because Wallace and Wilde had dated for perhaps five months. One newspaper told readers Wallace “married actor Cornel Wilde in a hasty ceremony… kissed the flustered Mr. Wilde hastily [and] hastily brushed aside the honeymoon…” Hasty or not, the marriage lasted three decades—a success by many measures, especially in Hollywood. The photo is from today in 1951. Side note: Wilde was famous for his haircut, which was unusual at the time and provided ample sport for gossip columnists, but his shaggy 'do influenced a generation of young men.