KNOCK ON WOOD

Good at getting married, bad at staying that way.

National Enquirer isn’t a tabloid you think of as being vintage, but it goes back more than half a century, which makes it concurrent with revered publications like Confidential and Hush-Hush. This cover featuring Lana Wood caught our eye because, well, because she’s Lana Wood. It also says she had three husbands before age twenty. That’s true. She married Jack Wrather, Jr. in 1962, when she was sixteen, followed by Karl Brent and Stephen Oliver. Interestingly, all online sources say the Oliver marriage was in 1967, but this Enquirer dates from a year earlier, in fact from today in 1966. So someone’s seriously wrong. Since we have evidence, we’re saying all the online sources are mistaken. Wouldn’t be the first time.

National Enquirer, Lana Wood, Jack Wrather Jr., Karl Brent, Stephen Oliver, tabloid

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

March 17

1966—Missing Nuke Found

Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the deep submergence vehicle Alvin locates a missing American hydrogen bomb. The 1.45-megaton nuke had been lost by the U.S. Air Force during a midair accident over Palomares, Spain. It was found resting in nearly three-thousand feet of water and was raised intact on 7 April.

March 16

1968—My Lai Massacre Occurs

In Vietnam, American troops kill between 350 and 500 unarmed citizens, all of whom are civilians and a majority of whom are women, children, babies and elderly people. Many victims are sexually abused, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies are mutilated. The incident doesn’t become public knowledge until 1969, but when it does, the American war effort is dealt one of its worst blows.

March 15

1937—H.P. Lovecraft Dies

American sci-fi/horror author Howard Phillips Lovecraft dies of intestinal cancer in Providence, Rhode Island at age 46. Lovecraft died nearly destitute, but would become the most influential horror writer ever. His imaginary universe of malign gods and degenerate cults was influenced by his explicitly racist views, but his detailed and procedural style of writing, which usually pitted men of science or academia against indescribable monsters, remains as effective today as it was eighty years ago.

March 15

2011—Illustrator Michel Gourdon Dies

French pulp artist Michel Gourdon, who was the less famous brother of Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, dies in Coudray, France aged eighty-five. He is known mainly for the covers he painted for the imprint Flueve Noir, but produced nearly 3,500 covers during his career.

March 14

1964—Ruby Found Guilty of Murder

In the U.S. a Dallas jury finds nightclub owner and organized crime fringe-dweller Jack Ruby guilty of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby had shot Oswald with a handgun at Dallas Police Headquarters in full view of multiple witnesses and photographers. Allegations that he committed the crime to prevent Oswald from exposing a conspiracy in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have never been proven.