Vintage Pulp | Bad Sports Mar 6 2010
JOLTIN' JOE
Joe Louis was indomitable during his prime, but was forced to fight long after his youth was gone.

Above we have a National Police Gazette with a boxing cover, from sixty years ago this month, with the editors’ warning to the retired Joe Louis to stay out of the ring. But what the Gazette didn’t know was that the 36 year-old Louis was under investigation by the IRS, and he suspected the outcome wouldn’t be good. In May 1950 Louis was jolted when the authorities declared that he owed half a million dollars in back taxes. With only one way to earn the cash, he cut a deal to box for prize money to put toward his debt. He fought and lost to Ezzard Charles in September, and the next year was knocked clean out of the ring by Rocky Marciano. But for all his efforts he was still in debt. The purses had been low because no one wanted to pay to see Louis—who was the first African-American considered a national hero by both blacks and whites—beaten to a pulp. After the Marciano debacle, the fight offers dried up. Louis retired again, and this one stuck. We’re going to get back to Joe Louis at a later date, because his is one of the more interesting and inspiring stories you’ll run across. His financial troubles were not so much a failure of character as a failure to comprehend the corrupting force of money, and the need to hire not just a lawyer, a manager, and an accountant, but a lawyer to watch your lawyer, a manager to watch your manager, and especially an accountant to watch your accountant. We have some Gazette interior pages below, and you can see the other Gazette boxing covers here and here. 

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Vintage Pulp Mar 3 2010
FUNNY FACE
Audrey Hepburn demonstrates the first extreme makeover.

We could hardly claim to be the go-to site for vintage tabloids if we didn’t include the National Enquirer. This actually isn’t a stretch, because the Enquirer first began publishing during the heyday of vintage tabs in the early fifties, and had published under another name for decades before that. The Enquirer’s paper stock was cheap, its printing low rent, and its use of color rare to non-existent, but the formula worked. Where the expensive tabs dazzled with their kaleidoscopes of color, the Enquirer offered single ideas paired with large, bold images. The formula set the paper apart, and it is the only vintage tabloid that survives today. This issue, with Belgian-born superstar Audrey Hepburn, was published March 3, 1963. 

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Vintage Pulp Mar 2 2010
ERROL IN JUDGMENT
Fifty years after his death, people are still telling us who Errol Flynn was.

Above is a Hush-Hush from March 1960 with a spotlight on Errol Flynn’s “perverse fling with his Lolita.” They’re talking about fifteen-year old Beverly Aadland, left, who we’ve mentioned before. The article is the beginning of a long tradition of journalists writing the truth—or at least their version of it—about Flynn. Since his death he’s been tagged as a bisexual, a fascist, and a Nazi spy. As recently as 1988 Aadland offered her truth about Flynn in a People interview, and a 1990 book by biographer Tony Thomas rejected the fascist claims, pointing out instead that Flynn had left-leaning politics, though he had made racist comments in letters and conversation. But Thomas claimed Flynn’s true feelings were evidenced by his support for the Loyalists during the Spanish Civil War, and his friendship with Fidel Castro. Flynn has also been depicted with assorted personality quirks in films such as 1996’s The Australian, with guy Pearce, and 2004’s The Aviator, with Leonardo DiCaprio. So, suffice it to say that he’s never gone out of style. But as far as whose story to believe concerning who Flynn was, we can’t say. We doubt the conflicting accounts will ever truly be settled—with the passing of Beverly Aadland just last month, all the people who knew Flynn personally are dead.

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Mondo Bizarro | Vintage Pulp Feb 20 2010
FREE ENTERPRISE
Daze of future passed.

National Free Press, published February 1967. This is as cheap as it gets, folks. There are exactly zero actual stories in here. The highlight is a column by the crackpot psychic The Great Criswell, aka The Amazing Criswell. Criswell was pretty famous in the 60s, and appeared on The Jack Paar Show, as well as others. Our favorite predictions of his are the complete destruction of Denver by a mysterious jelly, the destruction of London by a meteor, and the relocation of the U.S. capital from Washington, D.C., to Kansas. Criswell’s book, entitled Criswell Predicts from Now to the Year 2000, boasts that 87% of his predictions have come true. We can only evaluate the ones in the Free Press, and they are as follows:

Criswell: I predict that the next generation breakfast food will have a built in hangover cure. Reality: The only hangover cure we know of is more booze, and there aren’t any alcoholic breakfast foods yet—we think.

Criswell: I predict that you will be able to camp out next summer in a clear plastic bubble that you inflate yourself and which protects you from all the elements. Reality: You know how cafés have snacks on the counter under a glass dome? Now imagine seeing that, but being a grizzly bear.
 
Criswell: I predict that a future President of the United States will be a hopeless alcoholic. Reality: Just the opposite—the voters must have been hopelessly drunk to put some of these guys into office.
 
Criswell: I predict that after 1978 your marriage license will have to be renewed each year. Reality: Impossible, because the following scene would play out in millions of households: “Sorry dear, I totally spaced going. Guess we’re divorced now. Let me microwave a chimichanga real quick, then I’ll help you with your suitcases.”

Clearly, 87% percent of Criswell’s predictions did not come true in our little test. But you have to give him credit—he was bold. What else can you say about a guy who once claimed the world would succumb to mass cannibalism? But here’s one prediction that will definitely come true: We will have more on The (not so) Great Criswell down the line.

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Vintage Pulp Feb 18 2010
HUSH TO JUDGMENT
First rule of tabloid publishing—promise the readers sex even when there isn’t any.

February 1964 Hush-Hush with Anita Ekberg and Vivian Malone. Malone was the woman who Alabama Governor George Wallace barred from entering the University of Alabama during the fall of 1963 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation unconstitutional. Wallace had state troopers at his back that morning, but when John F. Kennedy nationalized the Alabama National Guard later that day, they escorted Malone to school and the troopers were forced to step aside. Thanks to the court ruling, and Kennedy’s executive order, Malone earned a degree and worked in the U.S. State Department for thirty-one years. Interestingly, her brother-in-law is the current U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder. The cover blurb on Malone reads vaguely sexual, but of course the story has nothing to do with that. The Ekberg story is similarly smoke sans fire. You also get a feature on Frank Sinatra and Jill St. John. The two worked together in Come Blow Your Horn in 1963 and Tony Rome in 1967, but most sources say their brief involvement didn’t commence until 1971. However St. John was part of Sinatra’s “in-crowd” for years, and to be seen palling around with Frank was to be accused of waking up in his bed. Every actress in Hollywood knew that, and few seemed terribly concerned. Finally, after making readers think about sex for most of the issue, Hush-Hush makes them afraid to do it themselves with a story on America’s syphilis epidemic. The mid-century tabs were very much like slasher movies in that way—in the end, sex must always be punished. We found a nice shot on Ebay of Sinatra and St. John together on the set of Tony Rome, and we've posted it below. Our next trick will be to try and find a tabloid that doesn't have Sinatra inside. We think we have our work cut out for us.

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Vintage Pulp Feb 12 2010
WRESTLING WITH A PROBLEM
If the Police Gazette has your back, you’re pretty much guaranteed to lose.

Above is another great boxing cover from the National Police Gazette, February 1951, along with some of the more interesting interior pages. The cover stars this time are Willie Pep and Sandy Saddler. Gazette editors were on the Pep bandwagon, but poor Willie, whose real name was Guglielmo Papaleo, didn’t get his title back. Saddler ko’d him in the ninth, beating him for the third time in four meetings. We’ve noticed the Gazette tends to back the guys who lose. We don’t think it’s due to a lack of boxing acumen, but rather the result of a deliberate strategy to snare readers by building up underdogs. In any case, if they’re in your corner, you better get an ambulance ready. You may also notice, looking at panel four, that this is the second time they’ve touted this Gotch character in their “Greatest Wrestlers of the Past” series. His name sounds like something you’d kill with an anti-fungal cream, but when we looked him up we discovered that Frank Alvin Gotch was the guy who popularized wrestling in the United States. He was one of the longest reigning champs ever, and was so beloved he even appeared regularly on stage, before dying in 1917. So there you go—not so much something to be creamed, as a guy who did the creaming. By the way, did you notice that the Gazette made an appearance in the new Sherlock Holmes film? Well, it excited us. Does that make us geeks? Don't answer that.

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Vintage Pulp Feb 9 2010
LIVING THE HUSH LIFE
Hush-Hush News publisher Myron Fass was the king of sleaze.

Hush-Hush News is a fresh addition to the Pulp Intl. tabloid collection, and though it’s an obscure imprint, it was owned by Myron Fass, who was one of the kings of American sleaze publishing during the sixties and seventies. He started as a comic book artist in 1946, and worked in that field until the mid 1950s. The satire magazine Lunatickle was his first publishing venture, and he moved into tabloid publishing soon afterward. Fass specialized in one-offs—editions meant to be printed only once. During the height of his empire he published fifty titles a month, covering any subject matter he thought would sell—wrestling, UFOs, punk music, horror movies, conspiracy, psychic phenomena, and so forth. His celebrity mags included Cockeyed, Exposed, The National Mirror, and Pic, all of which we’ll show you later. The above paper hit the streets today in 1971, and it features the usual combination of sexual teasing and race-baiting, but the most interesting thing to us is the shift we see inside from old to new school Hollywood. People like Stacy Keach, Patty Duke, and Steve McQueen are featured, while Hollywood gods like Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant have virtually faded from the scene. But the new school stars perhaps didn’t capture imaginations like the old guard, because in a few more years, a market that had once been glutted with tabloids would feature only a few. We’ll have more issues of Hush-Hush News in the future. 

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Vintage Pulp Feb 6 2010
GEORGE AND THE JUNGLE
All of America seemed to want George Hamilton sent to Southeast Asia.

We’re doubling up on Confidential this weekend because we have so many. Here’s another February issue, this one from 1967, with an unusual white cover featuring actor George Hamilton. What was the big deal about him joining the army? Well, he was dating Lynda Bird Johnson, who happened to be the daughter of Lady Bird Johnson, who happened to be the wife of president Lyndon Baines Johnson. Pro-Vietnam War Confidential is urging him to prove to America that he was not passed over in the draft because of his connection to the White House. The idea of pressing for men such as Hamilton to be inducted also seemed to make sense to the anti-war left, which believed putting the scions of high society in jeopardy would hasten the end of the country’s Asian misadventure. You see that strategy being carried out below, by three members of the Ad Hoc Committee to Draft George Hamilton. We have no data on whetherpushing for more upper class draftees hastened the end of the war, and we doubt any exists. But it’s true that minority participation and casualties fell as the conflict progressed—though the numbers didn’t shift as radically as many people think. As far as whether Hamilton’s relationship with Lynda Bird Johnson actually kept him out of Southeast Asia, officially at least, Hamilton was passed over because he represented the sole means of support for his mother. 

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Vintage Pulp | Politique Diabolique Feb 5 2010
STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
History depends on who’s doing the telling.

The above issue of Confidential is less visually chaotic than usual on the cover, but packs a wallop inside. The communist tag they’ve slapped on Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus stems from his having attended a leftist school. His political opponent in a 1954 election run-off tried to use it against him, but Faubus won anyway. In 1957, Faubus, at the time facing a serious primary challenge from an unapologetic segregationist, called in the National Guard to close high schools in Little Rock in an effort to prevent black students from attending them. The event made him, for a time, the face of the conservative South, as photos of Faubus speaking to crowds from the front stairs of Central High School circulated around the world. Two years afterward, in 1959, Confidential published this issue. So Faubus was branded a leftist, then a rightist. then a leftist again.

Many historians argue that Faubus, who was actually a lifelong desegrega- tionist, harbored few if any racist beliefs, but by closing schools was merely trying to win an election by proving to the sizable racist electorate in Arkansas that, yes, he too could deny equal rights to African Americans. There’s also the question of whether he did it to prevent white mobs from taking violent action against black kids, and it could be argued that if his rightwing rival had defeated him, years of Faubus’s progressive work might have been jeopardized. The first reading paints Faubus as an opportunist, the second as a good-intentioned pragmatist. Both speak to the reality of politics, where sticking to your principles becomes a dodgy proposition when doing it might cost your job. But viewed from the perspective of a black highschooler, any man who enforces the prevailing apartheid is a bad man—political realities nothwithstanding. So what was Faubus in the end? We may never know. 

But enough politics—the story that really sings here is the one on Bing’s brat pack. American crooner Bing Crosby’s four sons, all born in the 1930s, followed their father into show business and formed a vocal group called The Crosby Boys. Gary, Dennis, Phillip, and Lindsey performed at nightclubs and on the Ed Sullivan Show, but their careers never reached the heights of their father's, who sold something like five-hundred million records. Confidential tells stories of the boys misbehaving all over Hollywood and generally acting like spoiled kids with serious problems. The possible root of their troubles became public knowledge in 1983, when eldest sibling Gary Crosby wrote Going My Own Way, a biography of his now-deceased father that detailed mental and physical abuse—not just hide tannings of the type common in those days, but whippings that drew blood. 

Needless to say, quite a furor erupted over the revelations. Even today, you can find apologist websites explaining that Bing’s childrearing techniques were not so harsh for the times, and attack websites that paint him as a murderous tyrant. Phillip Crosby disputed many of the claims inhis brother’s book, but Lindsey and Dennis backed Gary’s account. Their suicides by gunshot, six and eight years later, respectively, serve as the debate’s curious exclamation points. But Bing Crosby—whether monstrous abuser or victim of slander—remains an American icon to this day, and books written by other family members portray him as a loving father. As with Governor Faubus, in the end, we may never know what he really was. Both stories prove the old adage true: History depends on who’s doing the telling.

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Vintage Pulp Jan 31 2010
SURPRISING EXPLOITS
Even the ultra low-rent Exploiter is valuable as a window into history.

Here’s another issue of The Exploiter, from today in 1971. First off—and you’ll want to be sitting down for this—there’s no such thing as an orgy inspector. The story is actually about Ken Russell’s movie The Devils, and consists of stills from the set along with quotes stolen from interviews in better magazines. And concerning the Raquel Welch item, that story is about a movie too—her 1967 French comedy Les plus vieux métier du monde, aka The Oldest Profession. Inside The Exploiter you get more of the same cockteasing, including a story about Sharon Tate. But just when we were about to pronounce this issue a total loss, we reached a story entitled “Girl Killer Escapes from Prison.”

Apparently, in 1969 an eighteen-year-old girl named Margo Freshwater was sentenced to 99 years in prison for the murder of a Tennessee man named Hillman Robbins, Sr. He’d been shot five times in the head by Freshwater’s boyfriend as she stood by and watched. But not long after she was sent to the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville, Freshwater escaped (supposedly by sexually servicing the guards, but we take that with a grain of salt considering the highly dubious source). The Exploiter’s coverage ends there, like an old-fashioned cliffhanger: we know that Freshwater is at large, and that she achieved it by (maybe) blowing some guards.
 
Well, we were curious, so we used a handy new research tool called the Interweb—you may have heard of it—and discovered that, amazingly, Freshwater remained at large, established a new life as a model citizen, married, had children and even became a grandmother. Authorities finally tracked her down in 2002, arrested her in front of her shocked family, and sent her back to the same Tennessee prison from which she had escaped. In July of 2009 she was denied a new trial for the third time, and unless she gets a chance to face a jury and prove she was nothing more than a helpless witness to her boyfriend’s crime, it looks like she’ll be spending the rest of her life in jail.

So the lesson here is even the lowest rent tabloid—and The Exploiter is as low as they get—is worth reading from cover to cover because you never know what enlightening historical tidbits might be tucked inside. Oh, and crime doesn’t pay. That’s a lesson too. Well, it doesn’t pay unless you’re clever. Then you can get away with almost anything. Also, if you’re rich. You can pretty much call your own shots if you’re rich. Unless you screw a person or entity even richer than you. Then you might actually go to jail. But if you do, a blowjob or two can (allegedly) get you out. But only (we assume) if you're really good at it. If the moral complexity of all this is tiring, feel free to soothe your weary soul with a better version below of the Welch shot from The Exploiter’s cover. So Sunday isn’t a total loss.

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History Rewind
The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
March 11
1927—Roxy Theatre Opens
In New York City, showman and impresario Samuel Roxy Rothafel opens the Roxy Theatre, a 5,920-seat cinema. Rothafel would later open Radio City Music Hall in 1932, which featured the precision dance troupe the Roxyettes, later renamed the Rockettes. Rothafel died in 1936, but his Roxy remained one of America's greatest film palaces until it was closed and demolished in 1960.
1977—Polanski Is Charged with Statutory Rape
Polish-born film director Roman Polanski is charged with raping a 13-year-old girl at the home of Hollywood star Jack Nicholson. Polanski allegedly had sex with the girl in a hot tub after plying her with Quaaludes and champagne. Rather than risk prison Polanski fled the U.S. for Europe, but was eventually arrested in Switzerland in 2009.
March 10
1945—U.S. Bombs Tokyo
335 American B29 bombers raid Tokyo, dropping so many incendiary bombs that the resulting firestorm kills more than 100,000 people, mostly civilians. The number of injured is estimated to have topped a million, and another million were left homeless, but these figures have been called low by numerous historians, both Japanese and American.
March 09
1954—Murrow Blasts McCarthy
In an event that would mark a turning point in American history, newsman Edward R. Murrow blasts anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy on a nighttime news show called See It Now. The broadcast used mainly McCarthy's own words to make its case that the senator had abused his position and perverted the rule of law, and, despite McCarthy's power, America agreed, as response to the episode ran 15 to 1 in favor of Murrow.
1959—Barbie Doll Debuts
The Barbie fashion doll, manufactured by the American toy-company Mattel after being designed by Ruth Handler, debuts in U.S. stores. Barbie, whose full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts, was inspired by a German doll called Bild Lilli, and has sold in the hundreds of millions.

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