Above, the cover and some interior scans from the Dutch cinema magazine Cheerio! #117, featuring an eclectic selection of international stars, 1956. 

Above is the cover of the NYC based tabloid Suppressed from this month in 1955. This issue shows Suppressed in full bloom—bold, brash, fearless. Within the next two years a series of Hollywood lawsuits against scandal magazines would begin to make editors wary of being dragged into court for committing libel and slander, but 1955 was still the heyday for celeb bashing, and Supressed engaged in what might be best described as open warfare against film stars. Here’s a small sampling of some of the gut punches in this magazine:

We could go on, but you get the point. We’ve written many times on this website that nothing in media is truly new, and this is yet another example. Click over to any muckraking celebrity blog right now and you’d think journalism, as well as simple grammar, went down the toilet around the year 2000. But no, they were always in the toilet. Remember, Suppressed and its brethren Confidential, Whisper, On the QT, Hush-Hush, et.al., were not fringe. By itself Confidential was the biggest newsstand sellerin the U.S. These publications were powerful. Like modern American cable news, they assumed leading roles in making the public swallow false political memes—a commie under every bed, a black man in every bed, and the loose women who made it all possible.

We’re showing you this August 1966 Continental Film Review for one reason—Raquel Welch. She appears in both the front and back of the magazine, and the latter photo was made while she was in the Canary Islands filming One Million Years B.C. That photo session featuring a blonde, windblown Welch was incredibly fruitful, at least if we’re to judge by the many different places we’ve seen frames from the shoot, including here, here, here and especially here. There had not been a sex symbol quite like Welch before, and in 1966 she had reached the apex of her allure, where she’d stay for quite a while.

On the cover of the magazine are Christina Schollin and Jarl Kulle, pictured during a tender moment from the Swedish romantic comedy Änglar, finns dom? aka Love Mates. Inside you get features on the Berlin and San Sebastian film festivals, Sophia Loren, Nieves Navarro, Anita Ekberg, and more. CFR had launched in 1952, and now, fourteen years later, was one of Britain’s leading publications on foreign film. It was also a leading publication in showing nude actresses, and in fact by the 1970s was probably more noteworthy for its nudity than its journalism. The move probably undermined its credibility, but most magazines—whether fashion, film, or erotic—began showing more in the 1970s. CFR was simply following the trend, and reached its raciest level around 1973, as in the issue here. Fifteen scans below. 

Folies de Paris et de Hollywood gets a little more naked than usual in this issue dedicated to the zodiac. This was issue #228, published in 1961, and in addition to the 28 pages of interesting and provocative unknown models—some of whom have received the ole disappearing pubes treatment—you get an Anita Ekberg cover and a nice final image of French film star Mylène Demongeot. We especially like the Demongeot shot, because its cuteness stands out in what is a rather racy collection. See for yourself, below. 

This issue of the tabloid Exposed, with cover stars Anita Ekberg, Tony Steel, Edward G. Robinson, Elvis Presley, and Elizabeth Taylor, has a rather pleasing color scheme, but the usual rumor-mongering and innuendo inside. The “true story” of Anita Ekberg’s sudden wedding to Tony Steel isn’t really all that scintillating. Steel had met Ekberg when they worked together on the British motion picture Storm Over the Nile, which was filmed in 1955 and released the last week of December. Steel was smitten from the moment he saw Ekberg. In fact, he was so in love with her that he decided to break his contract with the film production company The Rank Organisation and follow her to Hollywood. They married in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Italy, on 22 May, 1956, in a civil ceremony that was open to the public (the couple had asked the city government to bar spectators from the event but the request had been denied).

The press, however were restricted to a roped area just outside, which happened to be near a famous statue of David. According to several of the reporters present, when Ekberg passed by the nude sculpture after the ceremony she glanced up at its endowment and quipped, “My! Almost as big as Frank Sinatra’s.” You just knew Sinatra was involved in this somewhere, right? It’s like there were six or seven of him wandering around during the 1950s, so often does he pop up in other people’s personal business. Anyway, that statue of David—which is a copy of Michelangelo’s original masterpiece that stands in the Galleria dell’Accademia—has an incredibly small penis proportionate to the eighteen-foot-high body. At least, it seems small to us. Ahem. But we can assume Ekberg’s comment meant just the opposite, and concerned the non-proportionate size of the organ—i.e., quite a handful, taken on its own merits.

Now, should a bride really start married life with a public comment about another man’s dick? We think not, but we’re old-fashioned that way. Ekberg and Steel jetted off to Hollywood, where both hoped to expand their film careers. For Ekberg, that’s exactly what happened. But Steel struggled, possibly because of vitriol emanating from The Rank Organisation. He did find some work, but never attained the stature hecraved. In short order, his marriage to Ekberg was in trouble, their domestic woes either exacerbated by or rooted in his career problems. Either that or he never forgave her for that Sinatra comment. We kid, of course. Steel and Ekberg had serious difficulties, but Frankie wasn't one of them. In any case, in 1959 the couple divorced, and Tony Steel was pretty much yesterday’s news. Life goes on, after all, in the tabloids and in the world. 

Sex, celebs, and swindles make up the bulk of this Inside Story from October 1958 with Swedish bombshell Anita Ekberg starring on the cover. All tabloids had a snappy slogan. Inside Story’s is “Tells the facts about people, the news, and the world we live in.” Doesn’t exactly send chills down the spine, does it? Maybe that’s why Inside Story was always strictly a middle of the pack tab, never achieving the rarefied heights of Confidential or Police Gazette. But on to the stories. In this issue readers are told that a relationship with Anita Ekberg comes at a high cost—not in money, but in frayed nerves due to her demanding behavior, alleged examples of which are detailed from London (caught by police having sex in a parked car) to Rio de Janeiro (abandoned her boyfriend and flew back to Sweden without a goodbye). Inside Story also expounds on Marlon Brando and Anna Kashfi, as well as Gloria de Haven and the unnamed Central American dictator’s son (Ramfis Trujillo, discussed last year) who was so struck by her beauty that he spent a fortune in time and money trying to get her into bed. Errol Flynn's supposedly inflated reputation as a lover also takes a hit, and both the horse racing industry and restaurant business provide material for insider horror stories. All in all, it’s a nice slate of articles, well worth the twenty-five cent asking price. We have twenty pages of all this for your enjoyment below, including a large scan of Diana Dors, because, well, she’s Diana Dors. 

Swedish actress Anita Ekberg was known for her bombshell body (Bob Hope once quipped that her parents received a Nobel Prize for architecture), but we think this shot showing just a shoulder and part of her face underneath a black bowler is one of the best we’ve seen of her. It dates from 1965. 

For fans of pulp, Anita Ekberg’s adventure Back from Eternity might be a must see—or at least a good laugh. When stormy weather forces a plane to crash land in the South American jungle, the passengers must survive the conditions, themselves, and angry Jivaro indians who want to make them into a post-flight meal. This is actually director John Farrow’s remake of his earlier film, the plot-spoilingly titled Five Came Back. But even without the earlier title, it's quickly clear that not everyone will get out of this jungle alive, and that who does depends mostly on Rod Steiger, whose character is a criminal on his way to be executed. Try to find this film if you can. It was made on the cheap by RKO, and the airplane footage is hilarious because it’s a plastic model, but you get Ekberg in a wet catfight with Phyllis Kirk, and that alone makes it worth watching, right? Back from Eternity premiered in the U.S. today in 1957. Check the trailer here. 

Rave, for which you see a cover above, was a low budget U.S.-based magazine that launched in 1953 as a celeb publication, quickly moved into scandal and gossip, but didn’t survive beyond 1956, as far as we can tell. The graphic design was revamped twice, and so we suspect it just never found its niche in a crowded tabloid market. But it wasn’t for lack of providing celebrity rumormongers what they craved. This August 1955 issue discusses Serge Rubinstein’s murder, Anita Ekberg’s bombshell status, Jackie Gleason and more, but of special note are two stories: one about Sonja Henie, and another about Sheree North.

Sheree North, not well known today, was a dancer-turned-actress who in the mid-1950s was groomed (like so many other women) as the next Marilyn Monroe. She even made the cover of Life with the caption: “Sheree North Takes Over from Marilyn Monroe.” But it didn’t happen. Though North had a couple of hit films, her on-deck status was quickly usurped by another bottled blonde named Jayne Mansfield. North had done some burlesque early in her career, and Rave claims she had a few stag reels floating around. We don’t know about that, but there was a 1951 clip called the “Tiger Dance” that certainly pushed the bounds of contemporary sexiness. We found an upload of it, and you can see it here.

The story on Sonja Henie is a bit more interesting. A Norwegian-born world and Olympic champion figure skater, Henie shot to international fame at age fourteen and turned that recognition into a Hollywood career. She became extremely popular as a screen star, and the same drive that sparked that success fueled her personal life. She married three times and had numerous affairs, including with Tyrone Power and allegedlywith champion boxer Joe Louis. But the mystery man Rave hints at on its cover is none other than Liberace, just above. If you know anything about Liberace then we know what you’re thinking. But if Liberace was gay or bi—something he denied until his dying day—then dating women would have been a completely understandable strategy to avoid being outed and losing his career.

Henie, on the other hand, rarely let controversy get in the way of her decisions if she thought the result would ultimately be a net gain. This is possibly why she publicly greeted Adolf Hitler with a Nazi salute at a Berlin exposition in 1936, and why she sought Joseph Goebbels’ help in distributing one of her films in Germany. Yet you have to assume that anyone who would hang out with and possibly sleep with Joe Louis didn’t have rock solid racist views. But as millions died, her behavior can only be seen as shameful. However she returned to Norway with Holiday on Ice in 1953 and again the year Rave published the above cover and was warmly greeted, if not quite totally forgiven. Henie died of cancer in 1969, but as another fascinating product of a complex time, we suspect her name will come up on this website again.

Below, assorted covers of Hayat, which became one of Turkey’s most popular celebrity magazines beginning in the 1950s. From top to bottom the cover stars are Jayne Mansfield, Ursula Andress, Anita Ekberg, no idea because we can't read Turkish and her name isn't on the cover, Marilyn Monroe, Debra Paget, Ava Gardner, Natalie Wood, Ann-Margret, and Brigitte Bardot.