Vintage Pulp

March 10 2016

SOPHIA OR NOT

Folies de Paris et de Hollywood kept readers guessing with their models but this one we know.

This issue of Folies de Paris et de Hollywood is from 1963 and its theme is “les peches capiteaux,” or the seven deadly sins. You see them listed at bottom left on the cover, if you ever wanted to learn them in French. While the theme is interesting, we’re sharing this cover for one reason—Sophia Loren. Well, we think it’s her. Folies never credited its cover models, so we can’t be sure. The editors used her image on at least three other covers, and those instances are identifiably Loren because the shots are standard portraits, leaving no doubt.

But this one has an oblique angle, which is enough by itself to make positive ID more difficult. And the model is wearing a see-through blouse. For casual fans of Loren that may seem out of character, but it isn’t. Her early nude scene in Era lui… sì! sì! is well known today. We’ve discussed it a couple of times. And of course who can forget her wet-shirt appearance in Boy on a Dolphin. The point is Loren was not shy, so the see-through lingerie here is not a sign the cover model isn’t her. We’re going to say this is indeed Loren until someone convinces us otherwise.

Inside the magazine identities are a bit clearer. You get various Parisian showgirls, as well Vicki Kennedy, aka Margaret Nolan, who we’re beginning to think may have been the most photographed glamour model of the 1960s, centerfold Terry Higgins (in a crib, disturbingly), and June Palmer as “la paresse,” or sloth—though not so slothful she wasn’t able to pose for three pages of photos, then don a blonde wig and appear on the rear cover too. That’s more than we did all last week. Scans below.

France, Folies de Paris et de Hollywood, Sophia Loren, Vicki Kennedy, June Palmer, Terry Higgins, nudity

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

June 24

1938—Chicora Meteor Lands

In the U.S., above Chicora, Pennsylvania, a meteor estimated to have weighed 450 metric tons explodes in the upper atmosphere and scatters fragments across the sky. Only four small pieces are ever discovered, but scientists estimate that the meteor, with an explosive power of about three kilotons of TNT, would have killed everyone for miles around if it had detonated in the city.

June 23

1973—Peter Dinsdale Commits First Arson

A fire at a house in Hull, England, kills a six year old boy and is believed to be an accident until it later is discovered to be a case of arson. It is the first of twenty-six deaths by fire caused over the next seven years by serial-arsonist Peter Dinsdale. Dinsdale is finally captured in 1981, pleads guilty to multiple manslaughter, and is detained indefinitely under Britain’s Mental Health Act as a dangerous psychotic.

June 22

1944—G.I. Bill Goes into Effect

U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act into law. Commonly known as the G.I. Bill of Rights, or simply G.I. Bill, the grants toward college and vocational education, generous unemployment benefits, and low interest home and business loans the Bill provided to nearly ten million military veterans was one of the largest factors involved in building the vast American middle class of the 1950s and 1960s.

June 21

1940—Smedley Butler Dies

American general Smedley Butler dies. Butler had served in the Philippines, China, Central America, the Caribbean and France, and earned sixteen medals, five of which were for heroism. In 1934 he was approached by a group of wealthy industrialists wanting his help with a coup against President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and in 1935 he wrote the book War Is a Racket, explaining that, based upon his many firsthand observations, warfare is always wholly about greed and profit, and all other ascribed motives are simply fiction designed to deceive the public.

INSATIABLE APPETITE

George Gross art for Joan Sherman’s, aka Peggy Gaddis Dern’s 1950 novel Suzy Needs a Man.

TIT FOR TAT

Swapping literature was a major subset of midcentury publishing. Ten years ago we shared a good-sized collection of swapping paperbacks from assorted authors.

TO DIE FOR