Photo of Hawaiian-born actress, singer and model Agnes Lum, aka Lum-chan, who during the late 1970s was a star in Japan and one of the most recognizable sex symbols in the world. She specialized in "gravure", a Japanese style of provocative but nudity-free modeling, and most images feature her in the above mode—as an embodiment of summertime. 

We’re back folks, and what a lovely trip it was—at least, the parts we remember. Above you see a Japanese poster for Deep Throat and Deep Throat Part 2, which we gather ran as a double bill in Japan sometime in the mid-1970s. Deep Throat and its sequel starred Linda Lovelace as a woman whose clitoris was in her throat, and the first installment was the first truly mainstream porn film. 

Promo photo of French actress Marina Vlady, née Marina de Poliakoff-Baidaroff, circa 1955. Vlady began her film career as a typical bombshell and even earned the nickname “Miss Body of 1960”, but she went on to become an award-winning actress. 

Above are the cover and several interior pages from Spain’s Triunfo, with Swiss actress Ursula Andress, who according to the magazine was the most beautiful woman in the world. Andress was starring opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo in the French action adventure Les tribulations d’une Chinois in Chine, based on Jules Verne’s Tribulations of a Chinaman in China, and released in the U.S. as Up to His Ears. The article discusses among other things how Andress injured herself during the first week of the physically demanding shoot, and you can see a scab on her knee and calf, as well as a bandage on her thigh. While she perhaps didn’t have a gazelle’s grace, she did seem to possess a siren’s allure—her rumored affair with Belmondo supposedly ruined her marriage to John Derek, and this may not have been her first affair. However, it seems possible that the marriage failed for reasons other than fidelity, since John Derek did not seem to be a possessive husband (if his willingness to share his fourth wife Bo is any indication). Anyway, not be overlooked is Pamela Tiffin, who appears in the centerfold. We’ll have more on Tiffin later. 

Promo photo of American actress Raquel Welch practicing her penalty shots. Too bad she didn’t take that kick for Ghana against Uruguay—our favorite team would still be in the World Cup. Alas, now we have no choice but to back Spain. 

Burlesque queen Lilly Christine (here referred to as Lily), on the cover of Folies de Paris et de Hollywood, looking positively radioactive thanks to some overzealous photo retouching,1956. More below.

Yes, it’s Marilyn Monroe again. She turns up everywhere. We even saw her face in a satellite image of the British Petroleum oil spill. Today, here she is on the cover of a June 19, 1953 Motor World, comparing her chassis to that of a British-made Singer SM 1500C. Marilyn endorsed, directly or indirectly, everything from diamonds to lipstick, but in the case of the Singer, even her stamp of approval was not able save the car from cancellation. Six years after the Singer went away, Marilyn herself disappeared from the scene. 

We've always known Raquel Welch was one of the biggest sex symbols of her time, but the amount of material we come across on her is still shocking. Only Marilyn Monroe pops up more during our digging. Rather than the blonde bombshell of the late ’50s as typified by Monroe, Mansfield, Van Doren and others, Welch came in the mid-’60s and was exotic, dark, and smolderingly sexual. The combination made for a global appeal, as the magazine covers above attest. And below, as a bonus, we thought we'd show you a few interior images from the French publication Dolce Vita. Look for more Welch later this summer.

That’s Sylva Koscina on a June 1969 cover of Filmski Svet, aka Movie World, from the former Yugoslavia. The photo would be what publicists call a “handout”, which is simply an image given upon request to a publication planning a story or photo essay on a certain celeb. All the second tier publications are given handout photos, and similar images from the same photographic series will often appear in other publications. Obviously, second-tier magazines prefer to look as though celeb photos were taken just for them, so in this case Filmski Svet cleverly solved that problem by superimposing and reversing Koscina onto a new background, with nice results. Once we figured that out, we were able to locate another shot from the same session. It’s hard work, all this sleuthing, but if we don’t do it, who will? 

Ciné-Revue with Brigitte Bardot on the cover, published today in 1957, with a shot from her film Une parisienne.