Elizabeth Taylor nude! Those sneaks at Whisper raised the hopes of millions of readers who bought this March 1965 issue, but inside revealed that the whited-out silhouette on the cover with Richard Burton is in reality a wooden statue of Taylor made to promote her role in The Sandpiper. It was to be unveiled at a party aboard the Queen Mary, but producer Joseph E. Levine connived a way for the sculpture to be stowed below decks so his star Carroll Baker wouldn’t be upstaged. In the end, nobody at the party saw the Taylor statue and Carroll Baker—once again wearing that amazing dress, by the way—ruled the day.

Above is a nice studio shot of legendary burlesque dancer Lili St. Cyr from Modern Man magazine of August 1956. St. Cyr, who we’ve written about extensively, died today in 1999. The image came from the blog Vintage Scans. 

Last year we posted the front and back covers of an issue of He magazine. As usual, it’s taken us longer than we intended, but today we’re back with more. The above cover appeared this month in 1953 and features a masked model shot at New York City’s annual Artists Equity Ball, which, according to He, pretty much turned into an orgy. We don’t know about that, but the photos do reveal a rather racy scene. You also get shots of (we think) Rocky Marciano knocking out someone or other and lightweight champ Jimmy Carter mashing some hapless opponent’s face, photos of Laurie Anders, Lili St. Cyr, Lilly Christine, Daniele Lamar, and other celebs of the day, an amazing still of Julie Newmar, aka Julie Newmeyer, dancing in Slaves of Babylon, plus a back cover featuring highly touted but ultimately underachieving actress Mara Corday. We don’t have to bother too much with a description today, because these digest-sized magazines have text that scans large enough to be read even on small computers. So read and enjoy. 

We’re back to the Hong Kong shelf today, for the first time in a while. Hollywood-centric Hong Kong produced a large number of movie magazines during the mid-century. The cover of this one from 1955 is beautiful of course, because of Marilyn Monroe, but the inside is nothing great. Along with Monroe (in the same shot as on the cover) you get Silvana Mangano, Anna Magnani, Lili St. Cyr and others, but like many HK mags from the 1950s, it was printed on cheap paper via a substandard process. A few scans below give you the idea. 

July 13: Small town: a place where there’s no recreation for single folks once the sun goes down.

This mugshot of Lili St. Cyr appears on literally hundreds of sites around the internet, but we’re posting it anyway so we can correct some misinformation. Every source we saw—all of them—refer to this as St. Cyr’s September 1951 booking photo, but it’s actually from today in 1947, a fact that should be abundantly clear from the date under her chin: 12/17/47. The arrest, which was for lewd behavior, occurred in Los Angeles, and when St. Cyr appeared in court several months later she lost her case and was fined fifty dollars—a slap on the wrist. Things didn’t go so leniently for the owner of the Follies Theater, where St. Cyr had performed. He was sentenced to thirty-nine days in jail. See plenty more St. Cyr by clicking her keywords below.

We found this issue of the magazine Paris Frou Frou with cover star Lili St. Cyr, always lovely but wearing a crown this time, which is a fitting accessory for one of the queens of burlesque. The issue was incomplete, but below are a few interior pages, including one with the semi-famous 1950s dancer who billed herself as Miss Kalantan. Also mixed in were some clippings from a second issue of Paris Frou Frou, and we’ve added those pages too. All the images date from the mid-1950s. 

These are pretty cool. You're seeing the front and rear cover of He magazine, yet another American men’s publication from the 1950s. It has Lili St. Cyr on the front and Lilly Christine on the reverse. They were arguably the two most famous performers in the field of burlesque at that time. The art of burlesque has died, save for a precious few revues here and there, but you can see more Lili here and here, and more Lilly here and here. And if you missed it, our comprehensive photo post on burlesque—the first of several we'll be doing, by the way—is here. 

Tabloid month continues with the New York City-based Exposed, one of the middle tier entrants onto the scandal sheet scene. The magazine came on the scene a bit later than the heavyweights, at a time when the tabloid market was already packed with better-produced, better-funded rivals. Little wonder then, that Exposed folded quickly—we’ve seen issues numbering up to 18 but no further. Inside this March 1956 issue, numbered 4, we have the usual victims—Brando, Lili St. Cyr, and Ali Khan. The clever lawyer mentioned here in connection with St. Cyr is Jerry Giesler. You see St. Cyr and Giesler hugging below, just after St. Cyr’s acquittal in Los Angeles from charges of indecent exposure at the nightclub Ciro’s. We talked about the trial a couple of years ago, but since then, the website Paradise Released has posted a more detailed version of that unusual day in court. We recommend giving it a read. And if you just can’t get enough, there’s another recent account at Pincurlmag, here, with some additional details. We’ll have more from Exposed, including some interior pages, a little later. 

Above, a promo photo of American burlesque dancer Lili St. Cyr, circa 1958. St. Cyr, who was born Willis Marie Van Schaack and during her fame was known as the Anatomic Bomb, died today in 1999. You can read all about her at our comprehensive post from last year.