| Intl. Notebook | Sep 2 2022 |
Minuit puts the country's hospitable reputation to the test.
Ever since we discovered a while back that the U.S. tabloid Midnight was actually a spin-off of Montreal based Minuit we've been looking around for issues. We finally had some luck. This example hit Canadian newsstands today in 1968, and on the cover is British actress Mollie Peters, or Molly Peters. Inside, various Hollywood stars are spotlighted in unflattering ways. Edy Williams was allegedly attacked by a lesbian; Paul Newman resorted to transcendental meditation to cut down on his drinking; Jason Robards, Jr. broke everything Humphrey Bogart related in Lauren Bacall's house; Robert Vaughn paid off his extensive gambling debts and cancelled his credit cards; Janet Margolin allegedly ate a pound of ground beef every day for health reasons; and Ursula Andress attacked Anita Ekberg in a Paris restaurant for making eyes at Andress's boyfriend Jean-Paul Belmondo.
There's also a note on Babsi Zimmermann, who Minuit claims just refused a nude role in a French film. We noticed the blurb because of her name, which seems too good to be true, and familiar too. We looked her up and she did exist. It turns out she was better known as Barbara Zimmermann. She changed her stage name after the release of her first film, a counter-culture sexploitation romp called Heißer Sand auf Sylt, aka The New Life Style (Just to Be Love). Maybe she wanted a fresh start because the movie was such a stinker. We know it was bad because we wrote about it, which is why her name sounded familiar. She's naked as a donskoy cat in it, so Minuit's claim that she refused the French movie makes sense if she wanted to rebrand herself. The change still has people confused. Currently IMDB has separate entries for Babsi and Barbara.
Minuit reserves special attention for U.S. actor George Hamilton, who had been generally targeted by tabloids for avoiding military service in Vietnam. Why him? We wrote about the reason a long while back, and if you're curious you can check. Minuit wryly informs readers that, “George Hamilton somehow managed to break his toe the day after he received a notice to report to the U.S. Army recruiting center. This gives him an interesting three-month [deferral]. It's clever, isn't it?” Obviously, toes heal. Hamilton eventually received a full deferral for other reasons.
Also in this issue, Minuit editors treat readers to a story about a man cut in half by a train. We feel like it's urban folklore, but there are photos—for any who might be convinced by those—and a long story explaining how a man named Regerio Estrada caught his wife Lucia in bed with another man, beat him unconscious, and tied him to a train track to await the next express. Do we buy it? Not really. The internet contains only a fraction of all knowledge and history, but we think this tawdry tale is so bizarre that it would have found its way online. There's nothing. Or maybe we're just the first to upload it. Anything is possible. We have additional colorful Canadian tabloids we'll be sharing in the months ahead. You'll find eighteen scans below.
CanadaWest GermanyVietnamMontrealMinuitMidnightHeißer Sand auf SyltThe New Life Style (Just to Be Love)Mollie PetersMolly PetersEdy WilliamsGeorge HamiltonBabsi ZimmermannBarbara ZimmermannLaura VickersJill HaworthDunja RajterPenny TarotEve EdenJean-Pierre CoallierRobert VaughanJason Robards Jr.Lauren BacallHumphrey BogartPaul NewmanAnita EkbergUrsula AndressJean-Paul BelmondoJanet MargolinJanet DaneYvonne d'AngersMarlene Schroedertabloid
| Intl. Notebook | Feb 7 2020 |
Midnight cover star urges women to bust out.
None of Midnight magazine's quotes were real, we're pretty sure. On this cover from today in 1966 Janet Dane says ban the bra, joining feminists of her day who advocated ditching such restraints. But who's Janet Dane? Well, we had a heck of a time finding out, because there's a famous psychic of the same name, but it turns out she was a glamour model who appeared in Fling, Rogue, Tab and other such publications mostly in 1959 and 1960. This Midnight cover would postdate by years any other images of her we saw, but the editors had no qualms about using old material, so we suspect this shot, while published in ’66, is actually a handout dating from around 1960. Below we have a nice color image of her, a rarity we found years ago, and as you can see she's banned her bra. Thanks to these two shots, the hard-to-find Dane's internet presence has been greatly augmented. If you're out there, Janet, you're welcome. On the other hand, if you wanted your glamour days to be forgotten, we're terribly sorry.
