FATEFUL MEETINGS

Sex, misfortune, and murder all rendezvous in Le Rendez-Vous.

Today we have an issue of the French Canadian tabloid Le Rendez-Vous published today in 1969 with cover star Rosa Dolmai, who’s also known as Rosa Domaille, but is probably most famous as Eve Eden. Under all three names she carved out a career as a glamour model, appearing in scores of publications ranging from Folies de Paris et de Hollywood to Gala. Occasionally she posed explicitly, which positions her well ahead of most of her peers in that regard. She also made at least one nudie loop, and branched out and landed small parts in twenty-seven films from 1961 to 1968. She’s been featured here on Pulp Intl. several times, including in the adventure magazine Adam and the tabloid Minuit, and last spring memorably appeared—branching out again, in a way—as a blonde up a tree. You can see that here.

There’s interesting material beyond the Dolmai cover. If you read French there’s good gossip under the bowler hat logo in “Pour hommes seulment.” Then the editors do it again under the header “Panora-Monde,” because one good round of gossip deserves another. Meanwhile, Frenchwoman Theresa St. John declares that sex is her religion, and to make the point crystal clear Le Rendez-Vous presents her with nuns in the background. It’s not as weird as it seems—vintage cinema has taught us that nuns are the horniest species of penguin. Musician and actress Rina Berti, who released one album and appeared in the 1974 sex comedy C’est jeune et ça sait tout!, puts in an appearance, nude behind a guitar. And the beautiful Christiane Schmidtmer, who we’ve featured in Le Rendez-Vous‘ sister publication Midnight and who appeared in the women-in-prison movie The Big Doll House, gets the centerspread.

Le Rendez-Vous also leans heavily into gore. Who knew Canada could be so violent? Maybe it really should be part of the United States. Then a closer reading reveals that in order to fill its blood quotient, Le Rendez-Vous features mostly crimes from other countries. There’s a two page spread, “de la vie l’americaine”—American life. Elsewhere an Indiana man shotguns his wife, and in Boston a fifteen-year-old boy cuts off his fingers and mails them to his girlfriend. The Brits get a spotlight dance too, as a woman is raped and killed on a London street. So in the end there’s not enough violence in Canada to fill an issue of one of its leading tabloids. It can’t join the U.S. after all.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1954—First Church of Scientology Established

The first Scientology church, based on the writings of science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, is established in Los Angeles, California. Since then, the city has become home to the largest concentration of Scientologists in the world, and its ranks include high-profile adherents such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

1933—Blaine Act Passes

The Blaine Act, a congressional bill sponsored by Wisconsin senator John J. Blaine, is passed by the U.S. Senate and officially repeals the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, aka the Volstead Act, aka Prohibition. The repeal is formally adopted as the 21st Amendment to the Constitution on December 5, 1933.

1947—Voice of America Begins Broadcasting into U.S.S.R.

The state radio channel known as Voice of America and controlled by the U.S. State Department, begins broadcasting into the Soviet Union in Russian with the intent of countering Soviet radio programming directed against American leaders and policies. The Soviet Union responds by initiating electronic jamming of VOA broadcasts.

1937—Carothers Patents Nylon

Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanide—not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juice—resulting in his death in late 1937.

1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt

In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.

Unknown artist produces lurid cover for Indian true crime magazine Nutan Kahaniyan.
Cover art by Roswell Keller for the 1948 Pocket Books edition of Ramona Stewart's Desert Town.

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