| Intl. Notebook | Oct 21 2022 |
Dark on the outside, darker on the inside.
This is the second Canadian tabloid we've shared in October, and we have several others upcoming in the next few months. This time we're back to Minuit, the sister publication of Midnight, published today in 1968 with a cover featuring Susan Boyd. She's looking a little radioactive, and in unusually dark waters. This could everyone's fate the way things are going in 2022. We don't know what Minuit editors were shooting for here. Maybe they had a problem during the printing phase. But in it an odd way it's actually a nice cover, and Boyd pops up again in the centerfold, looking much healthier.
Elswewhere inside the issue Minuit wastes no time with its efforts to shock. We learn about Vietmanese youngster Bon Ngoc Tho, who editors claim is a demi-homme born with many characteristics of his father—a monkey. We can say a lot about this, but let's skip most of it and simply note that the 1960s were the tail end, so to speak, of a long-running fascination with supposed human freaks.
Moving on, editors have a curious photo of a model with something unidentifiable in her mouth. We took several guesses what the thing was, and they were all wrong. Turns out it's a pea shooter—a tire-pois. No, we'd never seen one, but a few of you probably recognized it. Minuit editors claim it can kill a kid, and that hospitals around the U.S. have been treating serious pea shooter injuries, along with wounds inflicted by “blow zappers and Zulu-guns.” The article explains that the injuries come not from shooting the projectiles, but from swallowing them while inhaling to fire the weapon, occasionally piercing arteries in the neck.
There are more stories along those lines, but it isn't all dark at midnight. Elsewhere in the issue you get men's fitness, nymphomania, and plenty of celebs, such as Claudia Cardinale, Nai Bonet, and Maureen Arthur, plus Robert Vaughn hawking a 100% legitimate Man from U.N.C.L.E. “plume espion.” That means “spy feather,” which doesn't help at all in determining exactly what it is. But a careful scan of the text suggests that it's an x-ray vision device that works on everything from walls to clothes. Right. We'll take two, and see you at the beach. Twenty-one scans below.
CanadaMontrealMinuitMidnightThe Man from U.N.C.L.E.Susan BoydSuzanne PleshetteMaureen ArthurJosiane LarazinClaudia CardinaleKim PorterNai BonetFranl Lee MorrisClint EastwoodRobert Vaughntabloid
| Hollywoodland | May 31 2010 |
The ruin of Troy.
Above, a cover from On the Q.T., May 1962, with curious editors asking if Hollywood heartthrob Troy Donahue beat his girlfriend, Swedish actress Lili Kardell. She said yes. He said no. A lawsuit resulted and Donohue settled out of court. As far as we know, the question of whether he actually beat her was never answered, but curiously, none of his four marriages lasted long, including a union with Suzanne Pleshette that endured a mere three months. Suffice it to say Donahue had trouble in relationships, probably due to his admitted booze and drug problems, yet there were always women willing to take the leap. He was engaged to be married for a fifth time in 2001, but died of a heart attack that September.
Elsewhere in this issue readers are told the story of British socialite Caroline Lindsay-Flynn, who posed for "THOSE" pictures—supposedly hundreds of nudes that eventually were sold under the counter all over the UK. On the Q.T. claims Lindsay-Finn had been compelled to pose for the shots by her boyfriend Arthur Pritchard, but when she discovered they were being sold en masse ran to her millionaire father for help. Father said he'd buy up all the negatives, but that she had to dump her boyfriend. She refused, and that's where On the Q.T.'s account ends.
Sounds like typical tabloid fantasy, but amazingly we found a reference to the tale in the German magazine Der Spiegel, where Lindsay-Finn is labeled a "fallen star of English society" and a "call-girl." And we also discovered that she and Pritchard were arrested in January of 1963 and charged with obscenity for distributing the photos. She was acquitted of the charges, but we don't know what happened to her afterward. Very possibly she'll pop up in one of our other tabloids down the line. Scans of Donahue, Lindsay-Finn, French bikini pants and more, below. And more from On the Q.T. later.
GermanyBritainOn the Q.T.Der SpiegelTroy DonahueLili KardellAlma SharpSuzanne PleshetteArthur PritchardCaroline Lindsay-FynnFabiantabloid
