The National Police Gazette reveals on this cover from today in 1960 that Hollywood said no to Brigitte Bardot. The accompanying story quotes an unnamed independent producer, who says that the problem is that Bardot's deficient acting skills limited her to sex kitten roles, but American censorship meant Hollywood couldn't make those kinds of movies. He adds that, at $150,000 salary per project, Bardot is too expensive for Hollywood. A second “well-informed source” tells Gazette that studios are afraid of Bardot’s unbridled sexuality, claiming that her image is “so sexually devastating, that [Hollywood] quivers in fear before the slight, curvaceous French girl with the moist, pouted lips.” So, basically two of three reasons Police Gazette gives for Bardot not featuring in Hollywood films have to do with the influence of legions of American prudes. So maybe it wasn’t really a case of Hollywood saying no to Bardot as much as it was saying yes to sexual repressives. Bardot, it should be noted, simply continued on as the biggest star in the world. Elsewhere in this issue you get the plot-of-the-month attributed to Fidel Castro, tales of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, Jack Paar’s fears, and a nice portrait of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Scans of all that below, and more Gazette coming soon. 

This March 1973 issue of The National Police Gazette sports an eye-catching color scheme cleverly copied from the dress of actress Raquel Welch, who you see at lower left. Welch discusses her early first marriage, which resulted in two children, and laments her restrictive personal/professional relationship with her manager/second husband, who shaped her into an internationally famous cinematic sexpot. As a basically shy person, Welch claims to feel trapped by her image, and says she’s reached the point where she’s fed up with it. Moving forward, she explains, she will be interested only in serious film roles, and will refuse any scripts focusing on her sexuality.

We always find it curious when actors try to make a sharp turn away from what made them famous in the first place. Both men and women do it—among men it’s often comedians and action stars, and among women it’s sex symbols. These career shifts fail far greater than nine times out of ten. In Welch’s case, she was quickly consigned to the purgatory of television movies. Later, she reversed course on whole sexuality thing and posed for Playboy, but scored roles only sporadically for the rest of her career.

But in our opinion, her failure to escape the sex symbol trap wasn't due to a lack of talent. It probably had simply to do with the fact that she had passed the dreaded thirty-year-old barrier and didn’t look like an ingénue anymore. Nowadays actresses last long past thirty, but tellingly, are still not allowed to look their age. Entire websites dedicated to bad cosmetic surgery testify to that fact. In Welch's case, her sudden relegation to second tier status just goes to show what poor taste Hollywood producers have. Because ingénue or not, Raquel is Raquel.

The National Police Gazette presents readers with an interesting array of hat wearing Harry Trumans on this February 1952 cover, offering up the president in a fedora, pith helmet, fez, and more. Truman collected hats, but the Gazette’s real purpose here is to call Truman a flip-flopper. Of course, that term didn’t exist in 1952, at least not with regard to politicians, but Gazette journo Tris Coffin claims Truman changes his mind quite a bit, issuing “conflicting orders, one after the other, with a cheerful smile.” Coffin goes on to cite Truman reversing his stance on price controls on meat, anti-trust controls on oil companies, security commissions keeping tabs on American citizens, and more. All very interesting, but what really caught our eye was Truman’s response to questions about nuclear proliferation. He said the U.S. was the only country with atomic bombs, and he’d keep it that way. Of course, that proved impossible, and it remains impossible today, because nuclear weapons are the only true national security. Many IAEA officials expect the number of nuclear states to double within twenty years. In addition, they expect the rise of at least ten virtual nuclear states—i.e., countries that develop the technology to the point where they can make the bombs, if needed, more quickly than an invasion against them can be mounted. We’ve uploaded some Gazette pages below, including a nice pin-up of Barbara Nichols, and a poster of old time boxer Peter Jackson. And since this is the Gazette, editors remind readers for the umpteenth time that Hitler lives.

Maybe he doesn’t look so impressive getting his face flattened by Joe Louis on this National Police Gazette cover form this month in 1950, but Billy Conn is actually one of boxing’s legendary figures. His final record of 64-12-1 was quite good, but it was his two losses to Louis that were enshrined in boxing lore. The first time they fought, in 1941, Conn stepped up in class from light-heavy to heavy without actually putting on any extra weight. It was an unheard of move, but it paid off. During the fight, his superior mobility helped him get ahead on points, and he sustained the lead the entire bout. But when he got greedy in round thirteen and tried to knock Louis out, a few counterpunches from the Brown Bomber put Conn on the canvas. Following the fight he quipped, “I lost my head and a million bucks.” After both men served a stint in the army during World War II, they met again in 1946. Conn was still the more agile of the two, and before the fight a reporter suggested to Joe Louis that Conn might stay out of reach and try for a victory on points. Louis responded with a line that people repeat to this day, but most likely with no idea where it came from: “He can run, but he can’t hide.” Louis won that bout too. The Gazette cover is from their first battle. We’ve posted the original photo they used just below, along with others. 

We like this fun blue cover of Confidential from January 1968, but it’s just a bit misleading. The image of Nancy Sinatra is doctored to imply that she's naked. The original, which you see below, was shot around the time she was filming her 1966 comedy caper The Last of the Secret Agents? In the movie there’s a scene in which her dress gets snagged on something and accidentally torn off. The moment is played for laughs, in a public setting. The ensemble she wore in that scene is exactly what she has on in the photo, which suggests it was probably shot to promote the film.

Nancy in her undies could not save The Last of the Secret Agents? from bad reviews and an underwhelming run, but while the movie was a dud, the undies photo became quite famous and was used on many magazines, including a cover of The National Police Gazette that we showed you a couple of years ago. Leave it to Confidential to suggest that more came off during the filming of Secret Agents than ended up in the final version of the film, but as far as we know, Sinatra never appeared fully nude in any medium until 1995, when she was 54 years old and did a layout for Playboy. Before that she had shot a promo photo in which she appeared to be bare, but with arms and legs arranged to hide the naughty bits. The Playboy spread, by contrast, hid nothing. And Confidential? It hid the truth.

This January 1957 cover of The National Police Gazette introduces America to Javier Pereira, a Zenú Indian from Colombia who claimed to have been born in 1789, a birth year that would have made him 167 at the time the magazine hit newsstands. Pereira had been unknown to the world until he crossed paths in 1955 with a Colombian journalist named Suarez Santander Branger, who ran a paper called Ecos de Córdoba. Branger announced his stunning discovery and very quickly everyone in Colombia wanted to meet the world’s oldest man. Branger orchestrated public appearances for Pereira all over the country, where he was feted alongside the likes of Miss Colombia titleholder Luz Marina Zuluaga, and acclaimed author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Around this time, Douglas Storer, the president of Believe It Or Not, Inc.—which was the parent corporation of Ripley’s—was touring South America looking for strange and unexplainable oddities for the Ripley's Museum in Florida. Storer caught wind of Pereira and swung by Colombia to have a gander at the old man for himself. He must have liked what he saw, because shortly thereafter, Storer flew Pereira to New York City for what he said would be a medical examination. But by “examination” Storer also meant spectacle. He had hordes of press waiting on the tarmac for Pereira when the plane landed, and later paraded him down Fifth Avenue atop a Rolls Royce as New Yorkers turned out to gawk.

Though international fame seemed to suit Pereira just fine, it wasn’t okay with Suarez Santander Branger, who’d received no advance notice of Pereira’s sudden departure from Colombia, and feared losing control of his discovery. Leaving aside the presumptuousness of Branger considering another person to be his property, it's worth noting that he wasn’t just being paranoid. U.S. papers labeled Pereira as Douglas Storer’s discovery. Branger’s name was nowhere to be found. He retaliated by writing an editorial entitled “Javier Pereira es mío,” or, “Javier Pereira Is Mine,” which appeared in most of Colombia’s dailies. In the editorial, he threatened to sue Storer for $167 million—i.e., one million dollars for each year of Pereira’s life. Whether Storer was cowed by Branger or was simply finished with Pereira we don’t know, but he sent the old man back to Colombia and a crisis was averted.

During all of Javier Pereira’s travels he was, of course, asked one question over and over: How have you lived so long? Pereira had a simple answer—he said he chewed cocoa beans, drank lots of coffee, smoked the occasional large cigar, and didn’t worry too much. As to whether he was really 167, the youngest any doctor ever estimated his age to be was 120, and even that doctor prefaced the estimate with the qualifying phrase “at least.” However, the anecdotal evidence for Pereira being older was interesting. For example, though he could not read or write, he had detailed knowledge of historical events that had taken place when he would have been in his twenties and thirties. And many third parties confirmed his age, for example an eighty-six-year-old woman from his town, who recounted meeting him when she was a little girl and he was already an old man.

Pereira's stint in the spotlight had faded by the end of 1957. For a time he resided in a nursing home, but we can’t confirm his whereabouts or the exact circumstances of his death, in March 1958, of heart failure. Today, age-wise, he falls into the inconclusive category. But whatever the actual number, for a while he amazed the world. In Colombia he was sorevered that the government even introduced two 1956 postage stamps bearing his likeness. For those who’d like to see Pereira in action, here's a video clip of his 1955 arrival in New York City, and at this link you can see a silent film of him smooching a flight attendant—the very moment the Police Gazette used for its excellent cover photo-illustration. 

Those scamps at The National Police Gazette are at it again in this issue from November 1971, the cover of which screams: The 3 Ways Wives Murder Their Husbands—and get away with it! What ways would those be, we wonder? Well, murder method one is: Feed Him To Death. Here’s the juicy bit from that section: Women prepare the meals. If the husband is overweight, has high blood pressure, and has been warned by his doctor to avoid certain foods, the truly concerned wife will follow the instructions. But we know of case after case where the wife insidiously fed her husband what he shouldn’t have had, worsening his condition until the fatal heart attack. The scenario runs on for a bit, but you can imagine the rest.

Murder method two is: Nag Him To Death. Our favorite line is this: Nothing can weaken a man’s will to live as much as a nagging wife, a leading psychiatrist has stated. She can undermine his health just as surely as an invading virus. What follows are some quotes from various quacks supporting the thesis, backstopped by a bogus study. But we aren’t buying. The Pulp Intl. wives are nothing but rays of sunshine. And we’re not saying that because they’d beat us if we didn’t. Murder method three is: Sex As a Weapon. The money quote: Sexologists have long known that certain acts associated with love play are super tension-producing. Oral sex, for example, can make dangerously inordinate demands on the husband’s blood pumping system. Heh. Blood pumping system.

Gazette asserts that the vast majority of murders committed by wives fall into the three categories listed, making them impossible to prosecute. Their advice? Know about the deadly weapons at your wife’s disposal, and develop the proper defenses. No word on what those defenses might be, though not being an asshole and making your wife want to kill you comes readily to mind. Did we mention our girlfriends are rays of sunshine? Elsewhere in this Gazette you get Jean Harlow, Jacqueline Bisset, and more. We’ve uploaded a few scans, and of course we still have a stack of Gazettes to post later.

This later period National Police Gazette published this month in 1972 is packed with scandal and intrigue, with stories on Vegas dealers, Washington, D.C. politics, Soviet assassins, and Hollywood activism. The activism story focuses on Jane Fonda and her shunning of Tinseltown trappings to devote herself to various causes. The most cringe-worthy line is when editors express curiosity at her advocating for “redskins.” Readers are reminded that even though Fonda was lately wearing her hair short and dressing in jeans and t-shirts, she was once a babe, and for proof they include a photo of her in costume as Barbarella. The story itself serves as an indication of one thing the women’s lib movement was fighting—the male perception that women could be only one of three things: beautiful ornaments, loyal partners, or royal pains. Fonda’s intellect was inconvenient for fans and studio execs alike, but her status forced people to listen to what she said.

The Washington story is a bit more convoluted. Editors claim that the Kennedy clan forced 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern to axe his original vice presidential running mate Tom Eagleton in favor of Sargent Shriver, who happened to be a Kennedy in-law. The story carries no quotes, attributions, or corroborating sources of any sort. It’s written as a narrative and is disdainful in tone. In a sense, it’s similar to the responsibility-free journalism seen on American cable television today. But was the story true? Very possibly. The Kennedys had substantial influence in the Democratic Party at the time. Did their choice matter? No. McGovern lost anyway. Scans below. 

The National Police Gazette shows signs of fatigue in this November 1969 issue that is tellingly thin, with just 32 pages, and offers no stories of great interest. It has a Femi Benussi cover, which is a plus, but Benussi is labeled Russian even though she was actually born in what is now Croatia and acted in Italy. Seems like Gazette editors weren’t trying very hard. Once a tentpole of the tabloid market, the magazine was 125 years old by this point and losing readers. After one more month it would change its trademark cover style slightly to this, but the magazine continued to decline. Downmarket tabloids like National Enquirer had sprinted past the Gazette in celeb and scandal coverage, and its sports coverage now looked woefully inadequate compared to the glossy sports mags that were on the newsstands. Gazette hung on for seven more years, then quietly folded. We have thirteen more scans below, and many issues of Gazette from all stages of its long life to share later.