You better check yourself.
Above, the Goodtime Weekly Calendar of 1963 for the week beginning July 21 with an image by Fernand Fonssagrives, a French photographer who published in Harper’s Bazaar and other magazines, and later made images of nudes with light patterns on their skin a trademark style. He was also married to Lisa Fonssagrives, who many think of as the first supermodel. See a few more Fonssagrives images here.
July 21: A smart wife has the steak on when her husband returns from his fishing trip.
July 22: I asked a beautiful girl, “Are you a model?” She said, “No, I’m full scale.”—Harrison Baker
July 23: “Women used to get undressed for the beach; now they do it to go to the supermarket.”—He-who Who-he
July 24: Figures come all sorts and shapes, but some come too big for short shorts.
July 25: “Do you know what keep me humble? Mirrors!”—Phyllis Diller
July 26: “Plenty of girls at a resort hotel are looking for husbands… and plenty of husbands are looking for girls.”—Sig Sakowicz
July 27: “A lot of women in the summer nowadays are just a bunch of stuffed shorts.”—Rod Brasfield
Brigitte Bardot really knew how to steam up a camera.
This week’s Goodtime Weekly Calendar image comes from Brigitte Bardot’s 1961 comedy Le bride sur le cou. In the movie she performs a little dance, first while hiding behind a towel, and later undraped. Lots of reviews describe the scene as a nude dance, but it isn’t really. Bardot was famous for showing her lovely backside, but in this particular scene her body is blurred because she faces the camera, and it’s obvious as well that she’s wearing something to cover what would have been a pretty sizeable ’60s bush. If you watch the scene, you’ll think you’ve suddenly developed cataracts. But shooting her through what looks like a thick layer of sauna steam makes sense within the film’s reality because the dance is basically the daydream of another character. Director Roger Vadim, who was also Bardot’s husband, created some sharp focus promo stills, and those are the source of the above image, with tinting and a nuclear explosion added by the good folks at her promotional agency Parimage. A couple of unaltered shots appear below, along with those weekly Goodtime quips we know you can’t live without. Oh, and to our French friends and readers, yes, we know that “bride” doesn’t mean the same in English. We’re just taking license because, hey, after four years of thinking up headers we’ll grasp at anything.
July 14: “Once you’ve seen a Brigitte Bardot movie you’ve seen her all!”—Henry Morgan
July 15: “Foreign pictures are getting so popular, they’re starting to make them in this country.”—Simmy Bow
July 16: Honey-dew vacation: Vacations you spent in hearing, “Honey, do this and Honey do that.”
July 17: “A learned man: One who used to keep his money in his sock till a midget picked his ankle.”—Mitch Miller
July 18: Henpecked husband: A man who gives his wife the best ears of his life.
July 19: Courtesy: Smiling while your departing guest holds the screen door open and lets the flies in.
July 20: Hangover: Something orbiting in the head you didn’t use the night before.
Hmm, maybe I should change this wallpaper.
Some well known photographers have contributed to the Goodtime Weekly Calendar, but the above image is by a true icon—Bruno Bernard, aka Bernard of Hollywood. The German-born Bernard possessed a doctorate in criminal psychology and had no formal photographic training, but after leaving Germany in 1937 was operating his own portrait studio within a year. His second studio was on Sunset Boulevard, and that’s where he worked for 25 years, along the way creating such iconic images as Marilyn Monroe’s Niagara and River of No Return promos, Lili St. Cyr’s Indian headdress and transparent bathtub shots, and portraits of virtually every star in mid-century Hollywood. The Goodtime Calendar has several other Bernard contributions, and you’ll see those as the year continues.
As a side note, you may be wondering why we’re showing you this second week of July image a week early. It’s because we’re headed off to Sevilla, Spain tomorrow for a week or so, and we won’t be posting during that time. Well, you never know. Probably we won’t. Depends on what we see. But anyway, we didn’t want our vacation to interrupt our Goodtime Weekly series, so you get this page a week early. You also get the quips a week early:
July 7: “When a man opens the car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife.”—Larry Attebery
July 8: When a pensive little thing gets married, she often becomes an expensive little thing.
July 9: “A psychiatrist is a man who doesn’t have to worry so long as other people do.”—Pat Buttram
July 10: “A Hollywood guy changes his name once, a dollar bill once in a while, and his girl once she gets wise.”—Joe Hamilton
July 11: A man is incomplete until he marries—then he’s really finished.
July 12: “Science is dandy, but what makes a world’s fair is sex and cotton candy.”—Gracie Hansen
July 13: Small town: a place where there’s no recreation for single folks once the sun goes down.
Update: Turns out the model is named Terry Higgins. We just discovered this in June 2015, but better late than never. At least you know we're always updating and refining the information on our site.
Who’s the fairest of them all?
The boys at Goodtime Weekly are finally finished with marriage as a topic for their quips. Unfortunately, their more eclectic fare leaves a lot to be desired. But we’ve faithfully transcribed their wisdom below. The photo this week, which for some reason brings wedding cakes to our minds, is by Tom Kelley, who provided a similarly dreamy photo earlier this month. The model is unidentified.
June 30: More diets start in front of a mirror than a doctor’s order.
July 1: “If you like to go around with girls—take them on the Ferris wheel.”—Sam Cowling
July 2: Small dolls love to yell “Mommy,” bigger ones, “Money.”
July 3: “She who says ‘Stop, and/or I’ll slap your face!’ must be a lawyer’s daughter.”—He-who Who-he
July 4: Independence Day. American still ends in “I can.”
July 5: “Interpreting dance: The police interpret it in one way and her lawyer interprets it another.”—Jack Benny
July 6: Summer is the time for flies to make their screen tests.
Exactly what type of bait did you use to land this one?
Time will tend to fade printed matter. While that hasn’t been a problem with other pages of the Goodtime Weekly Calendar of 1963, we seem to recall that we found it with this particular page facing up, which means a few subtleties of the image have been lost to forty-nine years of light, dust, and humidity. We aren’t sure exactly what the model is perched upon here. A piece of modern art? Playground equipment? The image is by Burton McNeely, who is semi-famous these days as a photographer of fish. Sounds like a real downgrade in terms of subject matter, but hey, whatever works. No matter what fish photography pays, we suspect he fondly remembers his early days photographing a completely different and more beautiful type of creature. This week’s quotations, which we have below, continue to dwell on marriage. Okay, Goodtime guys, we get it—you think it sucks. After four straight weeks, we've gotten the message. Can we move on now?
June 23: In the wedding “We” comes before “I.”
June 24: “The right man can change a cute little dish into a cute little dishwasher.”—Earl Wilson
June 25: The ones that can separate the men from the boys are women.
June 26: Once you carry the bride over the threshold, she’ll put her foot down.
June 27: “I run my house like a ship. I’m the captain. It’s just my luck to have married an admiral.”—George Gobel
June 28: Marriage vows might be a trifle more accurate if changed to read, “Until DEBT do us part.”
June 29: It always pleases a married woman to discover that another man wishes she were not.
Update: Apparently, the calendar girl is sitting on the end of a boat. How could we not have seen that? It's like one of those negative space drawings where you look and go, "It's two faces in profile. No, it's a vase. No, really, it's two faces in profile." Well, we defnitely see now. It's a boat. Probably would have helped if we'd looked less at the naked girl. Thanks for spotting that D.A.
Who's the best model for a June calendar shot? Why June, of course.
Above, the page for this week in the Goodtime Weekly Calendar of 1963, with photography by none other than big breast maven Russ Meyer. Meyer was, of course, the man behind such fare as 1965’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, 1966’s Mondo Topless, 1968’s Vixen, and the 1970 schlock masterpiece Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. More Meyer photography to come.
June 16: Marriage is a partnership if both parties know when to be mute.
June 17: “A wedding ring is just like a telephone ring; in both cases you’ve got to have a receiver.”—Sam Cowling
June 18: Happiness in marriage is a miracle because only one of the couple feels miserable at a time.
June 19: The woman cries before the marriage; the man afterward.—Polish Prov.
June 20: A woman’s tears and a dog’s limping are not real.—Spanish Prov.
June 21: “Those who marry where they do not love will love where they do not marry.”—Thomas Fuller
June 22: Overheard at a wedding: “Seems silly to say ‘I do’ after what we already did.”
Edit: It's some years later now—2023 actually—and we now think this model is June Wilkinson. We haven't 100% confirmed it yet, but she worked with Russ Meyer plenty, and the model looks like her, even at the angle presented. Some think this is Meyer's wife Eve, but we don't. The confusion derives from the fact that Russ Meyer used this pose often with his models.
Hey, Jayne! Catch!
The Goodtime Weekly Calendar of 1963 brings us Jayne Mansfield in a Bernard Wagner photo that's similar but not identical to another, much more famous poolside shot made around the same time. We’ve posted that one below, and if you look closely you’ll see that while it seems to be the same session, Mansfield’s suit is different, as well as the pool and the hotel in the background (it’s the Dunes in Las Vegas). Of the two, we like the top image better because of the unusual pose. Actually, what we like about it is we can totally see someone tossing her an apple, which she then tries to catch and goes ass over teakettle into the water. Now that would be a shot.
June 9: A good marriage is like a good handshake—there is no upper hand.
June 10: “If it were not for the presents, an elopement would be preferable.”—George Ade
June 11: Every bride is beautiful, and every groom dutiful.
June 12: “A woman and a greyhound must be small in the waist.”—Spanish Prov.
June 13: L.L.D. in some bar associations means a “Long Legged Dame.”
June 14: Marriage, which makes two one, is a life-long struggle to discover which is that one.
June 15: Showers for brides are here, there and everywhere; nearly everyone gets soaked.
Be a darling and get me an iced tea with lemon.
The Goodtime Weekly Calendar of 1963 opens the month of June with a tropical-themed shot by Tom Kelley, whose name may be unfamiliar but whose work isn’t, if you’ve ever seen those famous nudes of a young Marilyn Monroe stretched on red velvet. Kelley shot those timeless photos in May 1949 for a pin-up calendar, and they were acquired by Playboy for its debut issue in 1953. The model above is unknown to us, but we love the shot. Kelley uses a standard-issue studio backdrop, but makes magic with a hammock and a great reclining pose. Kelley has another page in this calendar but it won’t come up until December. Guess you’ll have to keep visiting our website, right? Don’t answer that. The quotations this week focus on the institution of marriage. See below.
June 2: June is the month when the bride who has never had a broom in her hand sweeps up the aisle.
June 3: “A bridegroom is a wolf who paid too much for a whistle.”—Henry Morgan
June 4: Generally, the bride looks stunning and the groom looks stunned.
June 5: “Marriage is like boxing: the preliminaries are often better than the main event.”—Quin Ryan
June 6: “A Hollywood wedding, as a rule, is generally a retake.”—Rip Taylor
June 7: “15 percent of all tornadoes in this country fall in June. And so do most marriages.”—Phil Bowman
June 8: “There’s no use giving the groom a shower because he’s all washed up anyway.”—Henry Morgan
We’re back to famed photographer Peter Gowland in this week’s installment of the Goodtime Weekly Calendar of 1963, as he offers up an unknown model in a demure pose. The sayings for this last bit of May include one we can’t make sense of at all (what exactly does it mean to be Dutch below the waist?), and the calendar’s editors also dig deep into history for a quote from Philippe Paul de Ségur, who was a general and historian. Neither of those pursuits makes him an authority on women, but he was also French, and if you ask any Frenchman, that does make him an authority on women. See our other calendar pages here.
May 26: “Too many diplomats sit down to iron things out but only succeed in mangling them.”—Wally Phillips
May 27: Sign at a night club: Good clean entertainment every night except Monday.
May 28: An attractive woman: English to the neck, French to the waist, Dutch below.
May 29: “Men say of women what pleases them; women do with men what pleases them.”—de Segur
May 30: “A woman’s piece of mind often destroys a man’s piece of mind.”—Mae Maloo
May 31: “All she wants is a roof over her head and the right to raise it once in a while.”—Arnold Glasgow
June 1: “Oh, what is so bare as a dame in June?”—Earl Wilson
This is what it looks like when three wishes come true.
Owing to the delicate nature of their jobs, glamour photographers are supposed to be completely professional at all times, but you have to think that at some point during this shoot, Ron Vogel broke down and cried tears of joy. Just saying. This week’s quips include a couple of unlikely entries from sixteenth century noblewoman Diane de Portiers and newsman Walter Winchell, and you can read those below and visit our entire collection of Goodtime Weekly Calendar pages, including others from Vogel, here.
May 19: “A speech is like a bad tooth; the longer it takes to draw out, the more it hurts.”—W.E. Suter
May 20: “Polygamy will never work in America. Can you imagine six wives in a kitchenette?—Oscar Cartier
May 21: “Cough: Something you can’t help, but everybody else does on purpose to torment you.”—Ogden Nash
May 22: “The years a woman subtracts from her age are not lost; they’re added to the ages of other women.”—Diane de Poitiers
May 23: “Signs at a bookstore: We don’t mind your reading these books, but we wish you’d do it at home.”—Walter Winchell
May 24: “I do push-backs, not push-ups. I push back the dinner table before it’s too late.”—Marjorie Lord
May 25: “Plenty of sex won’t make you rich; it’s the lack of it makes you poor.”—He-who Who-he
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