| Sex Files | Nov 3 2021 |
National Informer guest columnist bares his soul and more.
This issue of National Informer was published today in 1974. In these later editions the editors seem to have discovered the value of a little dick, which is to say they began featuring male frontal nudes. The Pulp Intl. girlfriends used to wonder why we had so few nude men on the site. They actually thought it was up to us. We were like, “Baby, vintage actors didn't do nude promo shots.” Well, except for Fred Williamson, but he's Fred Williamson. Burt Reynolds did it for Cosmopolitan, but we don't have that shot because we don't collect Cosmo. So the best you get is these randos in low rent tabloids.
The models, whoever they were, got to experience what women had been experiencing for a long time, which was the shock of realizing their secret nudes had hit daylight on a drugstore newsstand without their knowledge—or financial remuneration. And as with the women, the photos were used in articles that had nothing to do with them. In this case the accompanying feature is about a porn actor who wants to move into legit cinema. It's a silly article filled with nothingness written by J.W.—presumably Johnny Wadd, aka John Holmes. At least that's what readers were supposed to think.
Do we buy it? Not really. For one, it reads like the same house hacks who wrote all Informer's articles (we love the part where he defines the term “persona non grata”), but second, why would a guy who's flashed his gooch to millions need to hide his identity? But it's very specific in terms of the hints the author drops, so maybe it really is him. But with or without Holmes, there's quality schlong on the anonymous model. The Pulp Intl. girlfriends say he could use a circumcision, but whatever, they can't say we never tried to give them some eye candy. More Informer coming later.
| Intl. Notebook | Sex Files | Oct 27 2021 |
It's not how you start. It's how you finish.
We've talked before about the mid-century tabloid interest in transexuals, and how several trans burlesque performers achieved widespread fame. Those old tabloid covers serve to contradict people who claim that trans issues are a product of the new millennium, or that “it didn't happen in their day.” They just didn't notice. As the links in the above post show, transexual entertainers regularly made headlines in tabloids that sold millions of issues per month. To the list you can now add Gayle Sherman, who you see on this cover of The National Insider published today in 1963. This wasn't the height of her fame. A year later Novel Books would publish I Want To Be a Woman!, touted as the autobiography of a female impersonator. And still, she was just getting started.
Sherman started life as Gary Paradis, but became Sherman after a name change at age sixteen. As a transvestite she scored a job dancing for the Jewel Box Revue, which was a comedic drag queen show that criss-crossed the U.S. for more than thirty years. Probably the Jewel Box Revue 
deserves a write-up of its own, but the shorter version is it was the most popular extravaganza of its kind, and was run by gay management who were marketing to straight audiences.
deserves a write-up of its own, but the shorter version is it was the most popular extravaganza of its kind, and was run by gay management who were marketing to straight audiences.Sherman moved on from the revue and worked mainly in Chicago, appearing at places such as the Nite Life, where her act sometimes involved dressing as a witch doctor and roasting a fake baby over a fire while singing Yma Sumac songs. Sometime later she underwent gender reassignment surgery, and all the while was passing through a string of pseudonyms, among them Gerri Weise, Brandy Alexander, and Geraldine Parades.
She eventually opted for breast enlargement surgery and at that point became Alexandria the Great 48, a stage name under which she would become a national celebrity. The number of course referenced her bust size. She was sometimes dubbed “Sophia Loren's twin,” but when audiences paid to see her they got something wholly different. She had left burlesque and moved into standard stripping, sometimes appearing at porno cinemas between features. She continued dancing until 1967, when bluenose politicians in Chicago managed to outlaw nude dancing. Sherman became a hairdresser, and was out of the public eye until her death in 2019.
As we mentioned above, vintage tabloids often featured transexuals, and while those stories were always sensationalistic, they were also surprisingly non-cruel. Not always, but often. The editors' accepting stances probably weren't sincere. Because tabloid readership was generally a cross section of middle class, middle American squares, the tone of the articles tended be: “this wild stuff happens in Hollywood and Paris, but who knows, maybe it's more prevalent than you suspect where you live.” As the saying goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day—the tabs probably nailed it. 1.4 million Americans identify as transexual. There's no total from 1963, but you can bet it would be more than a few. In National Informer, the excellent money quote from the Gayle Sherman article is: “My birth certificate is stamped male, but my body is stamped female.” We have a photo of her below, and she's all woman.
ChicagoThe National InsiderNovel BooksGary ParadisGayle ShermanGerri WeiseBrandy AlexanderGeraldine ParadesAlexandria the Great 48burlesquetabloidnuditylgbt
| Sex Files | Oct 6 2021 |
All the news that's fit to sucker people out of their cash.
Yellow press is a term for newspapers that presented little or no legitimate news, instead attracting readers with empty sensationalism. While the term was most widely used a century ago, 1960-70s tabloid National Informer may qualify. This issue was published today in 1974 and is pure sex from cover to cover. Among the jewels: “Is It Normal To Be a Girl Watcher?” and “Do Older or Younger Women Make the Best Sex Partners?” As always, the photos accompanying these stories are random handouts, but sometimes they feature semi-famous figures. In this case, one of the photos accompanying the girl watcher story is of glamour model Lois Mitchell. The other two models on that page are probably well known too, but we can't place them. In true yellow press tradition, there's nothing substantial in Informer at all, but as always, its nothingness is well worth documentation, which we've done with nineteen scans below. And yes, we have still more issues. We'll get to those later. Meanwhile, if you want to see more from National Informer, National Informer Weekly Reader, and more than four hundred other tabloids we've already uploaded, just click here.
| Intl. Notebook | Aug 26 2021 |
She didn't make it to the top of Hollywood just to accept being second banana in Monaco.
Yes, people were stupidly fawning over the rich long before 2021, as this issue of the tabloid Exposed published this month in 1957 proves. There are stories on one percenters ranging from Princess Grace of Monaco on down. Of course, there's an aspirational innocence to these old stories, because very few people, if any, begrudged the rich anything in this era. Those times have gone. Companies make hundreds of billions now and pay zero taxes. The rich have a thousand ways to hide their income, to the tune of 40 trillion dollars in cash hidden in tax havens around the world.
Something else different about the rich of yesterday—they didn't have dick-shaped rocket ships. Instead they had dick shaped yachts. And that's what the feud hinted at on the cover between Grace Kelly and Tina Onassis was about—in part at least. It was also about who threw the best parties, who had the richest and most influential friends, who had the best designer clothes, and who was the greatest beauty. Of course, Kelly was legendarily lovely, but because beauty marries money even when the money is as butt-ugly as Aristotle Onassis, Tina was no slouch.
Exposed tells us of one competitive episode the night Kelly was celebrating the birth of her daughter Caroline, which had happened a day earlier. Kelly lived in Grimaldi Palace, overlooking Monaco harbor, where Aristotle Onassis lived on an 1,800 ton former Canadian navy destroyer retrofitted as a luxury yacht. The night of Kelly's celebration Onassis left his boat totally dark in the harbor, then at one point flipped a switch that illuminated hundreds of light bulbs strung from prow to stern. Kelly's clan took it as an attempt to show her up. Sounds petty, right? Well, Exposed was a tabloid, and its readers absolutely devoured stories showing that they and the next door neighbor they hated weren't so very different from the one percent.
After that boat episode, according to Exposed, Kelly and Onassis barely saw each other in tiny Monaco, such was their determination to avoid each other. Again, the half-century old public obsession with these two seems quaint compared to people's interest in the Musks and Bransons of today. There are opinions and facts, and here is a fact—the U.S. is falling apart and miniscule taxes on the rich and corporations are the reason. During the year this issue of Exposed was published, a year many people now cast their misty eyes toward with longing and nostalgia, the tax rate for top income earners was 91%. No wonder things functioned so well, eh? High taxes kept the government flush and the rich weak.
But the highlight of the issue as far as we're concerned is Vikki Dougan, who we told you would return to Pulp Intl. soon, and who shows up at a party thrown by Hollywood astrologer Carroll Righter wearing one of her infamous buttcrack baring backless dresses. Exposed indeed. Since this is about as low as her gowns went, we zoomed in a bit so you can get a good look at the San Fernando Valley. Dougan by the way, is still around at age 92. Elsewhere in Exposed you get Joan Collins and her romances, restaurateur Mike Romanoff and his legal troubles, Paulette Goddard and her love of money, and vice in New York City. Thirty scans below.
MonacoExposedGrace KellyTina OnassisAristotle OnassisPrince Rainier IIIJoan CollinsPaulette GoddardJoanne ConnellyMike RomanoffCarroll RighterVikki DouganMaxwell ReedArthur Loew Jr.Charlie ChaplinBurgess MeredithSydney ChaplinNela BogackiSid Rosstabloid
| Mondo Bizarro | Aug 14 2021 |
Tabloid crosses line between science and science fiction.
Our examples of the cheapie tabloid National Examiner all have art on their front pages, but when you have a scoop like this cow blockbuster, typography alone is more than adequate. Needless to say—but we'll do it anyway because in this millennium people believe in illuminati pedophile rings in pizza parlors—a cow never gave birth to a baby boy. Hope that wasn't disappointing to hear. The story, from this issue that hit newsstands today in 1967, claims that it happened in Russia when a woman named Natasha Kropotkin was critically ill and her fetus was transferred to a cow in order to save its life. The fetus, not the cow. Anyway, the achievement stands second only to the launch of Sputnik in Soviet scientific annals. Kropotkin is a Russian word meaning gullible, by the way. If the child had been real, though, he'd be in his fifties today, and we imagine him working in the field of animal husbandry, middle management level. Medically speaking, other than involuntarily mooing at times of stress and having a tremendous problem with gas, we picture him as normal in every way. He'd also be hung like a bull. Elsewhere inside Examiner are many more bizarre stories, and a couple of nice photos of Italian actress Maria Grazia Bucella. You can see plenty more mid-century tabloids in our comprehensive index located here.
| Sex Files | Jul 15 2021 |
Clear your schedule. National Informer is back.
National Informer Weekly Reader is one of the more amusing vintage tabloids we've collected. This one is from today in 1973, and has time killing features such as two narrative brainteasers and a slate of predictions for the future by the inimitable seer Mark Travis, he of the 6.9% accuracy rate. It also has what purports to be an interview about zany fame with television and film star Goldie Hawn, but it's just a few lines and we didn't bother to scan it. But we did scan a hilarious story on Gloria Simpson, who editors tell us is in love with own body. Shouldn't we all be in love with our bodies? We mean in a perfect world, as the great rhythmic philosopher George Benson put it when he said that learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all? Well, we haven't yet achieved that utopia, so you'll have to be told about self love by Gloria. We made a nice box containing her tale so that, for strictly educational purposes, you can read some hardcore porn masquerading as journalism. Enjoy that, and the boner it's supposed to give you. National Informer Weekly Reader will return.
| Intl. Notebook | Sex Files | Apr 10 2021 |
Dors gets caught short of blonde dye.
We always note that one reason mid-century tabloids have historical value is because of their rare shots of significant celebrities, and here's a perfect example. Diana Dors appears on the cover of a National Enquirer published today in 1960, and in this photo we've never seen anywhere else she's sporting deep black Frida Kahlo eyebrows. Dors was one of the most interesting figures of her time, and the blurb on this Enquirer references her marriage to Dennis Hamilton, a union which led to her being lent as a sexual plaything to various producers and leading actors, and which also gave Hamilton the incandescent idea of hiring photographer Horace Roye to make Dors the star attraction of two racy photo collections. One of those was in 3D, and we bet those batwing eyebrows of hers really jumped off the page. For a bit more about Dors' strange and remarkable life, check here.
| Hollywoodland | Apr 3 2021 |
Another case of he said (they did) she said (they didn't).
Above is a cover of National Enquirer that hit newsstands today in 1960 with a cheery looking Debbie Reynolds on the cover. Editors promise the truth about her romance with Glenn Ford, but the quotes around “romance” tell the story—she there wasn't one. The two starred together in the films It Started with a Kiss and The Gazebo, both released in 1959, and the affair rumors quickly sprang up.
Have you noticed a pattern of actors saying there were sexual relationships but actresses saying there weren't? If we were dealing with regular people we'd side with the men maybe 10% of the time, but in the case of movie stars we aren't sure actors had much to gain by lying. On the other hand, during the sexually unliberated years of the ’50s and ’60s actresses had plenty to gain by appearing to be as close to virginal as possible.
So it's another classic case of Hollywood he said/she said. Ford's biographer, who happens to be his son, said there was a physical relationship. How can he be sure? Several ways, perhaps, but notably, Glenn Ford taped all his calls—which is a story we may get into another time—so maybe there was confirmation from those that he and Reynolds were doing the nasty. In any case, we're really just interested in this cool cover shot. Reynolds does polka dots with style.
| Hollywoodland | Mar 25 2021 |
Want to keep a secret? Don't try it in Hollywood.
We wonder if any modern celebrity romances will be talked about half a century from now the way the old romances were. The way the Taylor/Burtons and Monroe/DiMaggios were talked about. We doubt it. Mid-century Hollywood and public romance seemed go hand in hand, and near the top of the legendary romance pyramid perches Sammy Davis, Jr.'s and Kim Novak's doomed love. Why doomed? Not to put too fine a point on it, but a 1958 Gallup poll showed that a mere 4% of Americans approved of interracial marriage. Four percent! There has never been a scientific study that showed anything other than deeply entrenched racial inequality and animosity in the U.S., and that includes today. But four percent? That's the dark ages.
We've marveled over Kim Novak before, but in case you need a visual reminder look here. Yeah. So Sammy was smitten, and so was all of America. And Novak? She saw in Sammy... charisma maybe? It wasn't devastating looks. Even Davis spoke of himself disparagingly in terms of physical appeal. But he had it. Everyone said so. His it and Novak's it were magnetically attracted and led to a relationship they tried and failed to keep relatively quiet. It's here, though, where we must note that the many Hollywood insiders who say Davis and Novak were knocking boots don't include Novak. She claims they were never more than friends. But when two megastars continually show up—however discreetly—in public together, people will talk. More importantly, tabloids will talk. And perhaps most concerning of all, Whisper will talk.
The above issue published this month in 1960 purports to have new info about the maybe-affair that shook Hollywood to its foundations, and also claims to have the scoop on Sammy's post-Kim fling Joan Stuart. We've seen many stories about his Swedish wife Mai Britt—also called a Kim copy by tabloids—but this is the first we've seen about Stuart. She wasn't Davis's first post-Novak partner. He married actress Loray White in 1958, but divorced her in 1960. Rumor is he married her under duress, having been told by certain Mafia figures to marry a black woman or else lose another eye. Whisper says that story isn't true.
Stuart was a Canadian actress, just starting out in show business. Whisper gets quotes from her parents about their daughter's relationship with Davis, and they aren't supportive. Shocking as that may be. The magazine's final take is this: “Boy meets girl. Boy gets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy meets another girl just like the girl he had before. Boy gets girl. And boy seems to be going to keep girl.” Davis did want to keep her, telling friends and reporters he wanted to marry her, but their pairing didn't last. Stuart went on to appear in some television shows and one movie—1978's In Praise of Older Women—but did not have a notable career. Did romance with Sammy Davis, Jr. hurt her? You'd have to think so—with about 96% of the public. We have some scans below, and more from Whisper to come.
WhisperIn Praise of Older WomenSammy David Jr.Kim NovakJoan StuartLoray WhiteErrol FlynnBeverly AadlandMay Britttabloid
| Hollywoodland | Jan 29 2021 |
Always be careful what you say to a tabloid.
This National Enquirer published today in 1963 features the free-floating head of U.S. actress Shirley Bonne with a quote where she calls herself a “dimwit.” Enquirer often splashed shocking, sexual, or confessional quotes from stars across its covers. We have little doubt Bonne was just joshing around, if she ever said it, which we tend to doubt. She isn't well known today. Though she amassed hundreds of magazine covers, as an actress she had zero credited cinematic roles. All her credits, including movies, were on television, where she appeared on shows such as Bonanza, That Girl, Medical Center, starred in the sitcom My Sister Eileen, and was in the all-time dog of a television horror flick It's Alive. Her zenith, at least in terms being appreciated by a fandom, is having guest starred in one of the best Star Trek episodes ever—1966's “Shore Leave.” That's the one where the Enterprise crew land on a planet that makes anything they think about come true. Kirk thinks about a long lost love and Shirley Bonne appears—head, body, and all. Pretty smart thinking.
National EnquirerStar TrekBonanzaThat GirlMedical CenterMy Sister EileenIt's AliveShirley Bonnetelevisiontabloid
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