Elke snags seashells by the seashore.
German star Elke Sommer shows her beach bum in this shot made during a photo session in Haiti in 1978, and first published in the the U.S. magazine Eros. Sommer is another of those performers who was huge during her time, but doesn't have what today most film buffs consider many quality efforts among her nearly one hundred movies. A Shot in the Dark and The Prize are probably the best remembered from her mainstream output, while cult fans tend to gravitate toward Lisa and the Devil, The Wrecking Crew, and of course Deadlier Than the Male, which we've seen and written about more than once (feel free to click its keywords just below). We're going to explore a few more of those hundred movies of hers, so maybe we'll uncover a treasure the way Sommer has uncovered the giant conch shell she's hanging onto.
Sommer time and the living is easy. The above issue of the venerable National Police Gazette from July 1969 stars German bombshell Elke Sommer, who is described as “Hollywood’s No.1 Nudie.” In the interview, Sommer reveals that when she paints on a hilltop outside her Beverly Hills house she does so naked. The reason? "It's the best way to get a tan all over." She also states that she thinks film nudity is fine as long as it isn’t done for purely erotic purposes. Very interesting, considering she had already posed—purely erotically in our opinion—for Playboy magazine, and would appear nude in men's magazines several more times. The photos in panel two (at top) are from Sommer's 1963 war drama The Victors, and as happened often in those days, even though she did not appear completely nude in the finished film, she performed the scenes that way. Which of course means the excised frames ended up in various people's pockets, and soon became public. Whether this was an accident or a publicity technique is impossible to say, but we suspect the latter. In any case, it's clear Gazette editors had an uncensored shot. Back then they had to cover Sommer's naughty bits, but we don't, and you can see the uncovered version, along with another image from the same scene, just below. Elsewhere in this issue you get Aristotle Onassis, Jake LaMotta, Denny McLain, the hidden sex problems of American husbands, and more.
|
|
The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves. 1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission. 1986—Otto Preminger Dies
Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 1998—James Earl Ray Dies
The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray's fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King's killing, but with Ray's death such questions became moot.
|
|
|
It's easy. We have an uploader that makes it a snap. Use it to submit your art, text, header, and subhead. Your post can be funny, serious, or anything in between, as long as it's vintage pulp. You'll get a byline and experience the fleeting pride of free authorship. We'll edit your post for typos, but the rest is up to you. Click here to give us your best shot.
|
|