vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Here’s a nice photo of U.S. burlesque star Donna Mae Brown, aka Busty Brown. We had some fun with a 1960 photo of her in divorce court, but wanted to bring her back. Old photos of burlesque performers are often hard to date, but Brown was very popular for most of the 1950s, so if you split the difference this shot might have been made around 1955.
I’ll admit there are a couple of aspects of marriage to Donna that I’ll really miss.
Above, random photos made from the 1930s through the 1960s of women on the streets of Los Angeles. Most of the subjects are regular people, but some are models, and you may recognize a celebrity or three. A couple of these are from a collection of photos documenting the city’s killer smog, which is why you see a few people seemingly crying. Want more L.A. walkers? We have a set of Vikki Dougan shocking Angelenos with a dress cut down to her asscrack, and a single image of Ingrid Bergman strolling quietly in Bunker Hill. Check here for the former, and here for the latter.
Nobody really knows where the word burlesque came from—some claim its roots are the Italian and Spanish words “burla,” which mean “hoax” and “deception” respectively. We’ve also seen burla translated as “jest.” Whatever its etymological roots, the much loved art of burlesque began in Victorian England as a type of musical variety show that satirized highbrow art forms such as opera, ballet, and costumed drama. On U.S. soil burlesque took similar shape, but also began to incorporate semi-clad dancers. Soon, these sexually suggestive dances became the focus of the performances, and the word burlesque became a synonym for striptease.
Stars such as Sally Rand, Amy Fong and Dixie Evans became celebrity practitioners of the art. The dancers generally didn’t strip totally nude on stage, but a few, like Bettie Page, did take it all off in short burlesque reels. Above, in panel 1, is a shot of Betty Blue Eyes Howard, and below we have more assorted burlesque photos featuring some of the biggest stars of yesteryear’s striptease firmament. Of special note are Busty Brown in panel 2, Betty Rowland in panel 12, and being escorted into court to face obscenity charges in panel 13, Bettie Page from one of her reels in panel 20, Lilly Christine in panel 21, Lili St. Cyr in panel 22, two shots from one of Nazi Germany’s legendarily decadent mid-1930s burlesque shows in panels 23 and 24, and finally Tempest Storm in the last panel. We hope these images take the edge off those Monday blahs.
LSD, which was originally synthesized by a Swiss doctor and was later secretly used by the CIA on military personnel, prostitutes, the mentally ill, and members of the general public in a project code named MKULTRA, is designated a controlled substance in the United States.
A six month strike by Hollywood set decorators becomes a riot at the gates of Warner Brothers Studios when strikers and replacement workers clash. The event helps bring about the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, which, among other things, prohibits unions from contributing to political campaigns and requires union leaders to affirm they are not supporters of the Communist Party.
The Soviet Union launches the satellite Sputnik I, which becomes the first artificial object to orbit the Earth. It orbits for two months and provides valuable information about the density of the upper atmosphere. It also panics the United States into a space race that eventually culminates in the U.S. moon landing.
American blues singer Janis Joplin is found dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. The cause of death is determined to be an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.
The newspaper Pravda is founded by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles living in Vienna. The name means “truth” and the paper serves as an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991.
An obscenity trial brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the counterculture City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, reaches its conclusion when Judge Clayton Horn rules that Allen Ginsberg’s poetry collection Howl is not obscene.
After a long trial watched by millions of people worldwide, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson subsequently loses a civil suit and is ordered to pay millions in damages.
