Can you name the five stars in the constellation Ludlow the Genius?
Above you see five pin-up paintings that came from the brush of Mike Ludlow, an artist we featured the first time only recently. He rose from humble beginnings in Buffalo, New York, to become an acclaimed figure that at his zenith painted portraits of major actresses for Esquire magazine. That's where all these pieces were originally published, and if you haven't identified them all, they are, top to bottom, Anita Ekberg, Gina Lollobrigida, Virginia Mayo, Denise Darcel, and Betsy von Furstenberg. All these stars have been featured on Pulp Intl., and you can see interesting posts on them at the following links: Ekberg, Lollobrigida, Mayo, Darcel, von Furstenberg.
Everyone loves a Parade. Since we were just talking a couple of days ago about websites where it’s possible to download vintage magazines, we thought we’d shine the spotlight on two more. Vintage Girlie Mags and Dad’s Stash, which are basically alter egos of each other, both have full scans. The main difference is vintagegirliemags gives away the scans for free, while dads-stash charges a minimal amount for downloads. The May 1950 issue of Beauty Parade you see above is available at the latter site, though ours didn’t come from there. The cover art on this issue is by the great Peter Driben, and inside you get Yvonne de Carlo, Denise Darcel, Ann Sheridan, Lana Turner, and page after page of other beauties. Many scans below for your Friday enjoyment.
Two ships passing in the night. Confidential magazine, more so than other mid-century tabloids, could be counted on to report upon Hollywood’s interracial romances. Generally, the editors took no definitive stance on the divisive issue, but by placing such stories front and center were clearly pandering to their mostly conservative readership’s prejudices. In this issue from March 1956, it’s Billy Eckstine and Denise Darcel who are put under hot lights. Eckstine was a popular crooner sometimes referred to as the “black Sinatra”, the “sepia Sinatra” or even the “bronze balladeer”; Darcel was a French-born actress. When they met he was separated from a wife he would later divorce and was enjoying the NYC party circuit; she was an émigré from France circa 1947, newly divorced, and trying to establish a film career. What broke them up? Even Confidential doesn’t know for sure, but career pressure is a likely culprit. Eckstine lost a movie contract when word got out that he was spending time with Darcel. It was a significant blow, because leading movie roles for African-Americans—rare today—were pretty much non-existent back then. Eckstine had already carved out a pan-racial popularity in music, but was denied a chance to do the same in cinema. He wouldn’t appear in a movie as an actor until 1975’s Let’s Do It Again. His music career survived, however, and he remained a hitmaker for another ten years. As for Darcel, she made some Hollywood films, but never broke big. On a few French websites we learned that her career was possibly damaged by Howard Hughes after she refused his advances, but we can’t confirm that in a language we’re actually fluent in, so don’t quote us. We do know that at age forty she went on to a career in burlesque, which you see below. Asked why she had made the move into erotic dance, she replied, "Because that's where the money is." However, that period didn't last long—three years, more or less. In any case, Eckstine and Darcel certainly look happy on the cover of Confidential. The photo is from the party where they met. Asked that night about Eckstine by a reporter, Darcel said, “Billy is sooo wonderful!”
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
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. 1912—Pravda Is Founded
The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country's leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid. 1983—Hitler's Diaries Found
The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler's diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess's flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison. 1918—The Red Baron Is Shot Down
German WWI fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as The Red Baron, sustains a fatal wound while flying over Vaux sur Somme in France. Von Richthofen, shot through the heart, manages a hasty emergency landing before dying in the cockpit of his plane. His last word, according to one witness, is "Kaputt." The Red Baron was the most successful flying ace during the war, having shot down at least 80 enemy airplanes. 1964—Satellite Spreads Radioactivity
An American-made Transit satellite, which had been designed to track submarines, fails to reach orbit after launch and disperses its highly radioactive two pound plutonium power source over a wide area as it breaks up re-entering the atmosphere.
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