This cute shot seems like a nice adjunct to our post yesterday. It shows Sean Connery and Jill St. John enjoying a smooch on the set of Diamonds Are Forever. Their love scene in the film did not occur in this setting, and of course, neither actor would have worn glasses in the film, so this looks like extracurricular activity to us. They both get an A+. 

Sean Connery makes as many appearances in sixties and seventies tabloids as just about any celeb of the time, so here he is again in an article promoting his role in Diamonds Are Forever, which would premiere just a couple of weeks after this December 1971 National Police Gazette hit newsstands. Connery talks about his futile struggle to portray James Bond as a balding hero, and quips about making his stylist thin his wigs so there was almost no point in wearing them at all. Connery said about Bond’s aging, “No one is immortal—not me, not you, and not James Bond.” It was a commendable sentiment, but naïve. Seems as though Connery didn’t realize United Artists had already branded Bond well beyond the point where the character was tethered to any concept of aging. The studio proved that when it brought the much younger Roger Moore on the scene for 1973’s Live and Let Die. Moore would later give way to Dalton, who gave way to Brosnan, who gave way to Craig, as Bond himself remained eternally forty-ish through the passing years. Elsewhere in the Gazette you get a report on the hash capital of the world, the world’s greatest racing systems, and the usual assortment of random beauties in bathing suits. All that, plus hashish toasted cheese, below. 

February 1964 Hush-Hush with Anita Ekberg and Vivian Malone. Malone was the woman who Alabama Governor George Wallace barred from entering the University of Alabama during the fall of 1963 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation unconstitutional. Wallace had state troopers at his back that morning, but when John F. Kennedy nationalized the Alabama National Guard later that day, they escorted Malone to school and the troopers were forced to step aside. Thanks to the court ruling, and Kennedy’s executive order, Malone earned a degree and worked in the U.S. State Department for thirty-one years.

Interestingly, her brother-in-law is the current U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder. The cover blurb on Malone reads vaguely sexual, but of course the story has nothing to do with that. The Ekberg story is similarly smoke sans fire. You also get a feature on Frank Sinatra and Jill St. John. The two worked together in Come Blow Your Horn in 1963 and Tony Rome in 1967, but most sources say their brief involvement didn’t commence until 1971. However St. John was part of Sinatra’s “in-crowd” for years, and to be seen palling around with Frank was to be accused of waking up in his bed.

Every actress in Hollywood knew that, and few seemed terribly concerned. Finally, after making readers think about sex for most of the issue, Hush-Hush makes them afraid to do it themselves with a story on America’s syphilis epidemic. The mid-century tabs were very much like slasher movies in that way—in the end, sex must always be punished. We found a nice shot on Ebay of Sinatra and St. John together on the set of Tony Rome, and we've posted it below. Our next trick will be to try and find a tabloid that doesn't have Sinatra inside. We think we have our work cut out for us.

Assorted album sleeves from Argentine soundtrack maestro Lalo Schifrin, circa 1970s.