 Upon close inspection everything looks ship shape. 
Model and actress Mara Corday, née Marilyn Watts, captains this nautical 1953 Corp. A. Fox Technicolor lithograph. Corday is one of those vintage actresses who has a cult following today, which in her case mainly derives from starring in three cheesy sci-fi films—Tarantula, The Giant Claw, and The Black Scorpion. She also appeared in some thrillers and noirs, but her stardom was truly cemented when she was Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for October 1958. That centerfold may be one of the most demure the magazine ever published, but the issue sold well, owing to Corday's status as an established movie star. She's still with us at age eighty-eight, and these images are nice mementos from a time when legions of fans were willing to sail anywhere with her.
 Nobody messes with Mara. 
Mara Corday appears above in a promo photo for the crime drama Girls on the Loose, which she headlines as the owner of nightclub that's a front for her all-woman crime ring. It sounds interesting, so we'll try and track that one down. The photo dates from 1958.
 He really appreciates the wilder side of life. 
Last year we posted the front and back covers of an issue of He magazine. As usual, it’s taken us longer than we intended, but today we’re back with more. The above cover appeared this month in 1953 and features a masked model shot at New York City’s annual Artists Equity Ball, which, according to He, pretty much turned into an orgy. We don’t know about that, but the photos do reveal a rather racy scene. You also get shots of (we think) Rocky Marciano knocking out someone or other and lightweight champ Jimmy Carter mashing some hapless opponent’s face, photos of Laurie Anders, Lili St. Cyr, Lilly Christine, Daniele Lamar, and other celebs of the day, an amazing still of Julie Newmar, aka Julie Newmeyer, dancing in Slaves of Babylon, plus a back cover featuring highly touted but ultimately underachieving actress Mara Corday. We don’t have to bother too much with a description today, because these digest-sized magazines have text that scans large enough to be read even on small computers. So read and enjoy.                             
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1918—The Red Baron Is Shot Down
German WWI fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as The Red Baron, sustains a fatal wound while flying over Vaux sur Somme in France. Von Richthofen, shot through the heart, manages a hasty emergency landing before dying in the cockpit of his plane. His last word, according to one witness, is "Kaputt." The Red Baron was the most successful flying ace during the war, having shot down at least 80 enemy airplanes. 1964—Satellite Spreads Radioactivity
An American-made Transit satellite, which had been designed to track submarines, fails to reach orbit after launch and disperses its highly radioactive two pound plutonium power source over a wide area as it breaks up re-entering the atmosphere. 1939—Holiday Records Strange Fruit
American blues and jazz singer Billie Holiday records "Strange Fruit", which is considered to be the first civil rights song. It began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, which he later set to music and performed live with his wife Laura Duncan. The song became a Holiday standard immediately after she recorded it, and it remains one of the most highly regarded pieces of music in American history. 1927—Mae West Sentenced to Jail
American actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for the content of her play Sex. The trial occurred even though the play had run for a year and had been seen by 325,000 people. However West's considerable popularity, already based on her risque image, only increased due to the controversy. 1971—Manson Sentenced to Death
In the U.S, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to death for inciting the murders of Sharon Tate and several other people. Three accomplices, who had actually done the killing, were also sentenced to death, but the state of California abolished capital punishment in 1972 and neither they nor Manson were ever actually executed.
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