vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Above: a 1974 photo of Pam Grier from Players magazine, wearing a leather outfit from her movie Foxy Brown. Not much to be said here except that she looks her absolute best.
Here’s a little something different—you’re looking at a foot-high statuette of Pam Grier as Foxy Brown. It comes from Mark Alfrey Studios and goes for $70, or thereabouts. He also has a version of Grier as the immortal Coffy, seen below. They’re done in stylized proportions, but amusingly, their extreme shapes are not too far off Grier’s actual mid-20s physique—all praises to genetics. By the way, someone asked us recently why Coffy never had a last name. When you consider Grier has played such characters as Sheba Shayne, Friday Foster and Jackie Brown, Coffy no-last-name would seem to be a grave omission, but she actually does have a last name—it’s Coffin (see what we did there with that “grave” omission thing?). Her character is called Coffy as a nickname, (much better than Coffin, considering she’s a nurse), so what she actually lacks is a first name. It never occurs in the film.
Last time we watched Coffy we made a game of coming up with a first name. Her sister is named LuBelle, so that gave us a general sense of which way to go, but we settled on something ridiculous, owing to the brain-muddling influence of demon alcohol. Next time you watch the movie try some names on for size—it’s kind of fun. Anyway, back to the figures, these things are licensed, so Alfrey got some signed by Grier, and those go for a cool $145. But for the blaxploitation fan who has everything price is no object. And for Grier, statuettes are great, but how about a star on the Walk of Fame? She’s had far greater cultural impact than many of the recipients.
This sultry shot of American actress Pam Grier was made while she was filming the 1973 blaxploitation classic Coffy. It’s an image you see around the internet a bit, but Grier doesn’t have many quality promo photos out there, so we’re sharing it because, well, her presence only makes things better. Interestingly, it isn’t just Grier who doesn’t have many promo shots, but a lot of blaxploitation actresses. We’re thinking Tanya Boyd, Jeanne Bell, Tamara Dobson, Marki Bey, and other examples of pure hotness. We can only assume the shoestring production budgets in blaxploitation didn’t provide for much in the way of promotional materials. Truly a shame.
After being sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, London Bridge reopens in the resort town of Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
British actor Richard Burton and American screen star Elizabeth Taylor secretly remarry sixteen months after their divorce, then jet away to a second honeymoon in Chobe Game Park in Botswana.
A day after being captured, Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara is executed in Bolivia. In an attempt to make it appear as though he had been killed resisting Bolivian troops, the executioner shoots Guevara with a machine gun, wounding him nine times in the legs, arm, shoulder, throat, and chest.
During World War I, in the Argonne Forest in France, America Corporal Alvin C. York leads an attack on a German machine gun nest that kills 25 and captures 132. He is a corporal during the event, but is promoted to sergeant as a result. He also earns Medal of Honor from the U.S., the Croix de Guerre from the French Republic, and the Croce di Guerra from Italy and Montenegro. Stateside, he is celebrated as a hero, and Hollywood even makes a movie entitled Sergeant York, starring Gary Cooper.
The New York Yankees’ Don Larsen pitches a perfect game in the World Series against hated rivals the Brooklyn Dodgers. It is the only perfect game in World Series history, as well as the only no-hitter.
The Soviet space probe Luna 3 transmits the first photographs of the far side of the moon. The photos generate great interest, and scientists are surprised to see mountainous terrain, very different from the near side, and only two seas, which the Soviets name Mare Moscovrae (Sea of Moscow) and Mare Desiderii (Sea of Desire).
