 She was so good Horwitz had a second helping. 
Senta Berger makes a second appearance on a Horwitz Publications paperback cover, this time for Carter Brown's Murder Is My Mistress. We showed you the Horwitz cover for Brown's Swan Song for a Siren a while back. That actually came second of the pair and was numbered 34 in the company's Reprint by Demand series. The above is number 19 and was published in 1960. We found it on the Nick Carter & Carter Brown blog, which is a stop you should make if you want to know everything about Brown. Anyway, we've been discussing these Horwitz paperbacks for a while because of their celebrity covers. In using Berger twice the publisher chose well.
 Horwitz unclutters the view on Chandler's classic. 
Above is a nice alternate cover for Raymond Chandler's The High Window from Australia's Horwitz Publications, circa 1961. It's a cleaner, less plot revealing, and less controversial piece than the battered wife cover put out by American publishers Pocket Books in 1955. We found it on Flickr, so thanks to the original uploader. Sadly, the art is uncredited, which is the way Horwitz generally did business, those damn Aussies.
 American singer gets booked for special engagement Down Under. 
We love documenting the appropriations of celebrities by Horwitz Publications. This time the company snares U.S. nightingale Abbe Lane for its 1955 edition of Carter Brown's Swan Song for a Siren. You see the original photo they worked with below, which also features Lane's husband Xavier Cugat in the left background, erased by Horwitz's graphics guru and replaced by a man with a gun. The company would reprint this title in 1958 with Senta Berger on the cover, because once you get a taste for kidnapping celebrities you never stop. You can see that edition here. And if you want to see more examples of celebrity theft click the Horwitz keywords below.
 I want the cash, the jewelry, and the licensing fees or I'll blow your brains out.  
We're back to charting Horwitz Publications' unlicensed usage of celebrity images for its paperback covers. We've already talked about Joan Collins, Senta Berger, Elke Sommer, Lili St. Cyr, and others. This time the company borrows Belgian actress Dominique Wilms. The image chosen was originally used as a promo photo and the basis of the promo poster for her 1953 film debut La môme vert de gris, aka Poison Ivy. We're convinced now that Horwitz, which was based in Australia, did this because copyright agreements were lax or nonexistent regarding image licensing across international borders. And even if some rules were on the books, it's very possible Wilms and her management never saw the above cover, and if they did decided it wasn't worth a legal fight. The Horwitz guys were sneaky bastards. But as we've asked before, why bother? Wilms was so obscure at this point that Horwitz gained nothing from using her face. Don't get us wrong—she has a great face. But Horwitz could have simply used local models and produced identical results. That's the part we'll never get. But we've queried an expert about stolen paperback imagery and we'll share his answer soon. Note: Very soon. See here.
 Horwitz uses its best known cover star to date. 
American actress and dancer Debra Paget appears, quite strikingly, on the front of Carter Brown's Stripper You've Sinned, which was published in 1956. We've been speculating for a while whether Horwitz, headquartered 7,500 miles away from Hollywood in Sydney, Australia, licensed its celebrity covers. Our assumption has always been no. The idea of celebrity covers would be, ostensibly, to generate extra interest in the book. But if that's the case, why such obscure stars? There's really no extra publicity to gain, and a licensing fee to lose. So we've always suspected the celebs were chosen merely because they were beautiful and the shots were available as handout photos.
But now we aren't sure about that, because Paget breaks the pattern—she was pretty well known in 1956, having appeared in more than a dozen films, and in highly billed roles in a few of those productions. So now we're thinking Horwitz actually did license these images. The fees must have been tiny, though, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense fiscally. Horwitz could have put an equally beautiful Aussie model on the book covers and gotten the same result with less hassle. In any case, this is great imagery. If you want to know what the book is actually about, check the review here. And if you click the keywords “Horwitz Publications” below you'll see all our previous posts on this matter.
 As soon as I hear, “That's a wrap, Diane,” the clothes are coming off and I'm streaking out of this joint. 
Yes, it's Diane Webber on the cover of this Horwitz second edition of Carter Brown's No Future Fair Lady, and amazingly, she's fully clothed, a phenomenon we've never seen from the most famous nudist model of her generation. Looking closer, though, the dress could be painted on. Wouldn't surprise us. You don't become a nudist icon in the buttoned down 1950s by letting the Man tell you what to do. At any rate, this is yet another example of Horwitz using unlicensed (we suspect) celeb photos on their Carter Brown paperbacks. Since we feature a lot of tabloids on Pulp Intl., we have to point out that the protagonist in this story works for a tab called Smear. We love that. The copyright here is 1960, and we have several other examples of Horwitz celeb covers you can see by clicking this link.
 Fluff the hair, fix the lipstick, commit third degree felony... 
Above is another in our ongoing explorations of Horwitz Publications' usage of rising stars as cover figures for its series of Carter Brown paperbacks. Others we've had trouble identifying, but there's no doubt who this is—Mamie Van Doren, who made this hair lifting move one of her signature poses. Copyright on this is 1956.
 Who needs an entire bouquet when you already have a Lili? 
We've talked before about Horwitz Publications' habit of using celebrities on its Carter Brown paperback covers. Previous examples include Elke Sommer, Joan Collins, and Senta Berger. Above you see another borrowed celeb—none other than Lili St. Cyr—fronting Brown's 1965 thriller Homicide Harem in a cone bra outfit that brings to mind the fashion of Jean Paul Gaultier. There's no doubt it's her. We've spent a lot of time on her and recognized her high arching eyebrows and cleft chin immediately. But just to assuage any doubts you may have, we found a photo of her wearing the same outfit (though with different shoes), which you see below. We think Horwitz used unlicensed handout photos of moderately famous stars to create their covers. Lili was pretty famous by 1955, but perhaps not in Australia, since she wasn't really in movies to the extent that anything she'd done would have played there. Possibly 1955's Son of Sinbad made it there, but we have no data on that. Anyway, we're still a bit baffled why Horwitz didn't just use local models. It isn't as if there has ever been a shortage of beautiful women down under. This will remain a mystery, we suspect. 
 Future cat shows her slinky side for Horwitz. 
 It's another Horwitz Publications celeb paperback. You know the drill by now—the Aussie publisher licenses (or just appropriates) the image of an up-and-coming star for their Carter Brown series. We've already shown you what they did with Joan Collins, Senta Berger and Elke Sommer. Do you recognize the woman on the front of 1959's amusingly titled Blonde, Beautiful, and – Blam!? Take a sec. No? It's everyone's favorite Catwoman Julie Newmar, seen at age twenty-six when she was still going by Julie Newmeyer, and it's one of the rare images of her with close-cropped hair. Just so you believe us, there she is at right, looking a bit more recognizable. Check out the other Horwitz celeb covers here, here, and here.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1940—Trotsky Iced in Mexico
In Mexico City exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded with an ice axe (not an ice pick) by Soviet agent Ramon Mercader. Trotsky dies the next day. 1968—Prague Spring Ends
200,000 Warsaw Pact troops backed by 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to end the Prague Spring political liberalization movement. 1986—Sherrill Goes Postal
In Edmond, Oklahoma, United States postal employee Patrick Sherrill shoots and kills fourteen of his co-workers and then commits suicide. 1953—Mohammed Mossadegh Overthrown in Iran
At the instigation of the CIA, Prime Minster of Iran Mohammed Mossadegh is overthrown and the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi is installed as leader of the country. 1920—U.S. Women Gain Right To Vote
The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified despite heavy conservative opposition. It states that no U.S. citizen can be denied the right to vote because of their gender. 1958—Lolita is Published in the U.S.
Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita, about a man's sexual obsession with a pre-pubescent girl, is published in the United States. It had been originally published in Paris three years earlier.
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