Hollywoodland | Aug 6 2011 |
We’re back to the gossip magazine Uncensored today, with its info-packed cover telling us about gay Toronto, lesbian Hollywood, Sean Connery’s sex secrets and rumors about Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. But the standout item here (aside from the appearance of the non-word “rejuvination” and the misused term “capitol”) is the one on Cary Grant and his experimentation with LSD. Before the Beatles, Timothy Leary, and Carlos Castaneda, LSD was the drug of choice for a rarefied circle of glamorous elites who ingested it as part of their psychiatric therapy sessions. We’re talking about people as famous and diverse as aquatic actress Esther Williams, Time publisher Henry Luce, director Sidney Lumet, authors Aldous Huxley and Anais Nin, and composer André Previn.
Cary Grant never tried to keep his LSD use secret. In fact, he spoke glowingly about it in a 1959 interview with Look magazine, saying that it had brought him close to happiness for the first time in his life. He also said that LSD taught him immense compassion for other people, and had helped him conquer his own shyness and insecurity.
But by 1968 the U.S. government—which had experimented extensively with LSD in hopes of using it as a truth serum or a form of chemical warfare, and had dosed thousands of people both willingly and unwillingly—was moving toward declaring the drug illegal. Grant’s wife Dyan Cannon had famously cited LSD usage as a primary factor in seeking a 1967 divorce, and the counterculture embrace of the drug was beginning to frighten middle America and the White House. That’s the backdrop against which this August 1968 Uncensored appeared, and by October of the year LSD was illegal. But the fact that public opinion had shifted—or more accurately, had been pushed by a steady, government-initiated anti-LSD campaign—did not particularly harm Grant’s public standing.
When he died in 1986 he was still one of the most revered Hollywood actors ever. And about his LSD usage he had no regrets. Quite the opposite—he commented: “Yes, it takes a long time for happiness to break through either to the individual or nations. It will take just as long as people themselves continue to confound it. You’ll find that nowadays they put you away for singing and dancing in the street. ‘Here now, let’s have none of that happiness, my boy. You cut that out; waking up the neighbors!’ Those darn neighbors need waking up, I can tell you, constable!”
Vintage Pulp | Dec 23 2010 |
Above is the cover of a December 1963 Uncensored, with Ava Gardner, Richard Burton, Carroll Baker and Steve McQueen. Inside, you get them, plus Suzy Parker, Elizabeth Taylor, Gemel Abdel Nasser, Cary Grant, Marlon Brando, Ursula Andress, Sean Connery, and the great Jean Seberg. And as a bonus, you can learn about hypnotism. We did it, and it really works. *wiggling fingers* Yooou will retuuurn to our website eeeevery daaaay. See all of our Uncensored posts here.
Intl. Notebook | Aug 26 2010 |
You’d never put blue, orange and yellow together in an outfit, but those colors coordinate nicely on this Uncensored from August 1971. The magazine had launched in 1953 and become a heavy hitter in the tabloid market by the end of the decade, but by now was running on fumes. However, that didn’t stop it from taking swipes at big targets—in this case England’s royal family in the person of Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon.
Born Margaret Rose, the princess had a rebellious spirit and had married late—at age twenty-nine—to a commoner named Anthony Armstrong-Jones. Jones was a photographer, and if you’re going to slander a photographer, of course you call him a pornographer. There’s no evidence Jones—who became Lord Snowdon—was head of a smut ring, as Uncensored claims, but he did shoot his share of nudes, like the image of Gloria Higdon below, dating from 1959.
His marriage to Princess Margaret was known to be on shaky ground, and by the time the above cover appeared, the couple were leading separate lives. Margaret indulged in a series of indiscreet affairs, and had unconfirmed liaisons with the likes of Mick Jagger, David Niven, and Peter Sellers. Snowdon, on the other hand, became a royal favorite, shooting official portraits for the Queen and other family members.
Lord Snowdon and his wife finally divorced in 1978, and Princess Margaret died at the relatively early age of seventy-two after many years of drinking and consuming prescription drugs. We may actually revisit her at some point—her life reads like just the sort of melodrama we're interested in here.
Intl. Notebook | Jun 23 2010 |
June 1954 issue of Uncensored entirely devoted to the art of burlesque, with legendary dancers Lili St. Cyr on the cover and in panels eleven and twenty, Chile Pepper in panel seven, Lilly Christine in panels eight through ten, and Tempest Storm in panel fourteen. Finding this magazine reminds us that we've collected quite a few vintage images of burlesque shows, so since sooner is better than later, look for us to post the entire hoard in the next few days.
Hollywoodland | May 26 2009 |
This May 1958 cover of Uncensored features the usual dose of innuendo, exaggeration, and pseudo-science, mixed with a few facts. One truthful story here involves Mario Lanza, who did indeed blow five million dollars. He earned about that amount on his 1951 film The Great Caruso, but was bankrupt by 1954. His tendency to spend money frivolously may have contributed to his death. In 1959, already in poor health from a lifetime of overeating and crash diets, he underwent a radical weight loss program known as Twilight Sleep Treatment, which involved being kept immobilized and sedated for prolonged periods. Immediately after finishing the program he suffered a pulmonary embolism and died, aged thirty-eight.
Intl. Notebook | Apr 12 2009 |
April 1970 issue of Uncensored, with a different look from the 1950s version we posted previously. FYI, Alicia Purdom was the wife of British actor Edmund Purdom. She claimed she had an affair with JFK in 1951, while they were both still single, and would have married him had not Joseph Kennedy stepped in and nixed their plans.
Hollywoodland | Mar 14 2009 |
March 1957 issue of Uncensored magazine, with James Dean, Xavier Cugat (Cugie), Mrs. Bruce Cabot (Adrienne Ames) and a pretty funny juxtaposition at lower right that makes Winston (Churchill) appear to leer at Ethel Barrymore.