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.
Horwitz showed a keen eye but were their covers legal?
We’ve already commented on the good taste Aussie publishers Horwitz showed when selecting images for its Carter Brown covers. We found this 1954 edition of Murder! She Says! in the University of Queensland’s online Carter Brown archive, and the lovely woman on the front is British actress Joan Collins. Joan’s short-haired period didn’t last long—she had this boycut for just a few years—but it’s a very good look that obviously caught the eye of Horwitz editors. The previous Horwitz celeb covers we showed you used actresses—Elke Sommer and Senta Berger—who were barely known at the time, which led us to believe their images were simply appropriated. But by 1954 Collins was already a legit star. That suggests official licensing, but what would have been the benefit for either Collins or the actual owners of the copyright, The Rank Organisation, and why would Horwitz pay money for the image then fail to even identify Collins as their cover star? Where’s the gain there? Why not just use a local model? Or maybe trademark infringement didn’t exist in 1954 the way we understand it today and they simply came across the photo and liked it. Anyway, it’s an interesting side note to a very eye-catching piece of art. See the other Horwitz ingénue covers here and here.
It’s the unseeded players that really need to watch out. In honor of Wimbledon, here’s a Horwitz cover for 1964’s The Love Game by Donald Hann. We had to search far and wide for a good tennis cover, but finally found this one at a webpage maintained by New Zealand’s University of Otago, which also has many other covers worth viewing. Donald Hann was a pseudonym belonging to author Ken Macauley, and the art here is uncredited.
Horwitz uses another rising celebrity as a cover star. Last month we shared a reprint-by-demand Horwitz cover for Carter Brown’s Death of Doll that featured a young Elke Sommer. We got to wondering if other celebs had been used on Horwitz covers and decided to have a look. Above you see Brown’s Swan Song for a Siren, which Horwitz printed in 1958, and the face staring out at you is that of Austrian actress Senta Berger. That’s her, right? Full lips. Sensuous eyes. Hawk eyebrows. Gotta be. Like they had with Sommer, Australia-based Horwitz appropriated Berger’s image when she was barely famous, having appeared in only four films to that point, none in starring roles. We have a photo of Berger below for comparison, and we think you’ll agree it’s her. We’ll dig up a few more of these Horwitz celebrity covers later.
This particular heat wave is indisputably man made. Above is a nice little find—Bruce Beaver’s The Hot Summer, for the Australian publisher Horwitz, 1963. Beaver made his fame as a poet, winning several prizes for his work, but here he’s in sleaze mode, writing about sex, love, and taboos in Mundulla, New South Wales. The cover art is worn, but still nice. Horwitz had a habit of not crediting artists, so the creator of this is unknown.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1951—The Rosenbergs Are Convicted of Espionage
Americans Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage as a result of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. While declassified documents seem to confirm Julius Rosenberg's role as a spy, Ethel Rosenberg's involvement is still a matter of dispute. Both Rosenbergs were executed on June 19, 1953. 1910—First Seaplane Takes Flight
Frenchman Henri Fabre, who had studied airplane and propeller designs and had also patented a system of flotation devices, accomplishes the first take-off from water at Martinque, France, in a plane he called Le Canard, or "the duck." 1953—Jim Thorpe Dies
American athlete Jim Thorpe, who was one of the most prolific sportsmen ever and won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, played American football at the collegiate and professional levels, and also played professional baseball and basketball, dies of a heart attack. 1958—Khrushchev Becomes Premier
Nikita Khrushchev becomes premier of the Soviet Union. During his time in power he is responsible for the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, and presides over the rise of the early Soviet space program, but his many policy failures lead to him being deposed in October 1964. After his removal he is pensioned off and lives quietly the rest of his life, eventually dying of heart disease in 1971.
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