Femmes Fatales | Nov 16 2015 |
West German born Ursula Buchfellner got her start in Playboy and was one of those models who actually got into the magazine before her eighteenth birthday, with a shot featured in the West German edition in December 1977, when she was sixteen, and a photo appearing in the U.S. edition in February 1978, when she was seventeen. Her eventual Playmate of the Month layout was in 1979, and from there she went on to star in films such as El Caníbal, aka Devil Hunter, the humorous Hot Dogs auf Ibiza, aka Hot Dogs on Ibiza, and 3 Lederhosen in Saint Tropez. This shot is from 1979.
Vintage Pulp | Oct 20 2010 |
Hot Dog was a humor monthly published out of Cleveland, Ohio during the 1920s and 1930s, and distributed throughout the Great Lakes states. It began as little more than a pamphlet, but quickly expanded to the digest you see above. It’s formula for success? Largely, it seemed to be stupid ethnic jokes and bawdy limericks mixed with photos of showgirls and actresses. At least, that’s mostly what we got out of this October 1931 issue.
But thanks to a little research, we discovered Hot Dog also had a serious side, positioning itself as a foe of prohibitionists and moral watchdogs of every stripe. You’ll notice that editor Jack Dinsmore gave himself billing on the cover. Dinsmore was a pseudonym. We learned this from a rather beautiful 1996 New York Times article written by a woman who goes searching for traces of a father that died when she was seven.
Her father was Jack Dinsmore, and the author is shocked to discover he edited Hot Dog, a magazine that, as the Great Depression wore on, became more and more insulting toward Jews even though Dinsmore was Jewish. But we all know nothing makes a man compromise himself more quickly than the threat of joblessness, and in 1930s America that possibility would have been staring an unimportant Midwestern editor—and millions more people barely hanging on—right in the face.
Anyway, the Times piece is long and serious, but recommended. It teaches a lesson: nothing we write is ever truly lost. We’ll keep looking for more Hot Dogs, and if we find any we’ll definitely share them.