Who's gonna ride your wild horses? Erotic fiction has always been a major subset of pulp literature, and for a while sex was likewise part of American cinema. Bo Derek personifies sexual nudity on film as much as any actress we can remember. She was originally presented to the world by her Svengali husband John Derek, who had also helped his second and third wives, Ursula Andress and Linda Evans, become stars. The difference was they could act. Bo couldn’t. But Bolero isn’t godawful because Bo acted in it—it’s godawful because John Derek wrote it. Yet for all its flaws, Bolero is a landmark because it’s one of the last full-blown, joyful, erotic American films. From this point forward, nudity in American cinema seemed to consist of either breast-flashing slapstick, or result in severely negative consequences. Cinema sex as an expression of simple joy still existed, but actual nudity was becoming more and more political. Was it AIDS that did this? Was it simply an overdue cultural shift? We can’t say. Fast forward to 2009 and we have American directors shooting clothed sex scenes, then explaining—as if every other director in town hadn't also shot a clothed sex scene—that not showing skin is much sexier than having actors parading around naked. We disagree, and the stills below prove our point, but we understand that times change. Bolero makes clear just how much. It was one of the worst films of that or any year, but it made sex a celebration. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1984.
We bought this magazine strictly for the articles. April 1975 issue of Screen from Japan, with cover star Sylvia Kristel. If this shot looks familiar, it’s because we already showed you the version used for the Japanese Emmanuelle promo poster, but the bright colors of Screen’s graphics makes this slightly different version well worth a viewing.
Liz Taylor may be the last big star who came out of Hollywood’s old studio system. It’s amazing how few people these days know Elizabeth Taylor is a highly regarded two-time Oscar winner who ruled Tinseltown for twenty solid years. Though she's certainly well-known, the reasons for her fame are beginning to fade from popular memory. But she was a once-in-a-generation talent who scored four Oscar nominations in her career, notching her two wins for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? She was also the most highly paid performer in the world, and one of the first true tabloid queens, with paparazzi dogging her every step from Hollywood to Rome. Looking at this Life cover from sixty-two years ago today, we get a glimpse of the beauty that fueled the worldwide Taylor obsession.
Austrian sex symbol proves difficult to date.
Above, a rare promo photo of Austrian actress and sex symbol Marisa Mell, who starred in the all-time camp classic Diabolik. We don't know the year on this image, but we think it was around 1970. Update: Right, well, we weren't close on the date. Below is a cover for the German magazine Neue Illustrierte Revue featuring the same shot dated December 1976, and we saw another frame from the session that was used in a November 1976 Playboy. So 1976 it is. Nice cover too.
Usually I like to hunt and kill rabbits and birds, but some days I just curl up in the den with a good book. Publicity still from Siempre hay una primera vez, featuring Mexican actress Helena Rojo, aka María Elena Lamadrid Ruiz, circa 1971. Rojo was most recently seen on an episode of the U.S. television series Ugly Betty.
It's easy to See what all the fuss was about.
May 1954 and 1955 covers of the celebrity monthly See, with revered Hollywood beauty Ava Gardner.
American stars regularly graced the covers of ’60s-era Yugoslav mags. This nice issue of Ilustrovana Politika, or Illustrated Politic, was published in the former Yugoslavia. During that unpleasantness known as the Cold War the country was communist ruled but non-aligned, a political stance that resulted in an influx of both Soviet and Western European influences. Movie stars such as Sofia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, and Virna Lisi were featured on hundreds of Yugoslav magazines. American stars snuck in too. This particular cover, featuring Jane Fonda, appeared forty-two years ago this month.
Marilyn Chambers dies at age fifty-six. Six days ago we posted about Marilyn Chambers, and now she's been found dead in her trailer home in Santa Clarita, California. Cause of death is as yet unknown.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1953—Hemingway Wins Pulitzer
American author Ernest Hemingway, who had already written such literary classics as The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls, is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novella The Old Man and the Sea, the story of an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. 1970—Mass Shooting at Kent State
In the U.S., Ohio National Guard troops, who had been sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, open fire on a group of unarmed students, killing four and wounding nine. Some of the students had been protesting the United States' invasion of Cambodia, but others had been walking nearby or observing from a distance. The incident triggered a mass protest of four million college students nationwide, and eight of the guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury, but charges against all of them were eventually dismissed. 2003—Suzy Parker Dies
American model and actress Suzy Parker, who appeared the films Funny Face and Kiss Them for Me, was the first model to earn more than $100,000 a year, and who was a favorite target of the mid-century tabloids, dies at home in Montecito, California, surrounded by family friends, after electing to discontinue dialysis treatments. 1920—Negro National Baseball League Debuts
The first game of Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis, Indiana. The league, one of several that would be formed, was composed of The Chicago American Giants, The Detroit Stars, The Kansas City Monarchs, The Indianapolis ABCs, The St. Louis Giants, The Cuban Stars, The Dayton Marcos, and The Chicago Giants. 1955—Williams Wins Pulitzer
American playwright Tennessee Williams wins the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his controversial play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which tells the story of a southern family in crisis, explicitly deals with alcoholism, and contains a veiled subtext concerning homosexuality in southern society. In 1958 the play becomes a motion picture starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman.
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