vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
The lovely Camilla Sparv, who hailed from Sweden, made this promo image for her 1969 western MacKenna’s Gold, in which she co-starred with Gregory Peck, Telly Savalas, and Omar Sharif. She acccumlated about thirty acting credits, more than half of those on television shows such as The Rockford Files and Hawaii Five-O. While her cinematic output was scant, she was a world class beauty. See for yourself here.
In the Goldilocks fable too hot and too cold are both unacceptable, but in our opinion there’s no such thing as too hot, at least not when it comes to vintage actresses. Leigh Christian’s credits were mostly on television, where she appeared on Hawaii Five-O, McCloud, Barnaby Jones, Starsky and Hutch, and many other shows. Among her few films were low budget efforts such as The Doll Squad and Beyond Atlantis. Her most recent role was as herself in 2010’s Machete Maidens Unleashed, a brilliant and funny documentary about ’70s schlock cinema. The golden photo above is from early in Christian’s career, 1969, when she was probably dreaming of bigger things than cheesy network cop shows. But ultimately she acted for twenty years, and that isn’t a bad run by any measure.
We posted a couple of Michael Avallone covers a while back and decided to return to him today for a more detailed treatment. Avallone called himself the fastest typewriter in the east, cranking out nearly two hundred books between 1953 and 1989, including entries in the Hawaii Five-O, Planet of the Apes, and Man from U.N.C.L.E. series. But speed exacted a heavy toll in quality, which may be why Avallone is considered by some to be one of the worst writers of all time. We can’t possibly dispute that—after all, he wrote the novelization of Friday the 13th in 3D—not exactly a résumé highlight. But even if he was undiscriminating, he was also bold. His output eventually shifted from detective fiction to pure flights of fancy. In the surreal Shoot It Again, Sam a group of Chinese brainwashers disguised as old Hollywood stars make lead character Ed Noon believe he’s Sam Spade. The series grew even weirder, and by the last few books Noon was trying to thwart an alien invasion. Quality of the prose aside, Avallone was a unique—if occasionally obnoxious—member of the pantheon of post-pulp athors. Check him out yourself and you’ll see what we mean.
In New York City, Yankee Stadium, home of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees, opens with the Yankees beating their eternal rivals the Boston Red Sox 4 to 1. The stadium, which is nicknamed The House that Ruth Built, sees the Yankees become the most successful franchise in baseball history. It is eventually replaced by a new Yankee Stadium and closes in September 2008.
A group of CIA financed and trained Cuban refugees lands at the Bay of Pigs in southern Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro. However, the invasion fails badly and the result is embarrassment for U.S. president John F. Kennedy and a major boost in popularity for Fidel Castro, and also has the effect of pushing him toward the Soviet Union for protection.
Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann, while working at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, accidentally absorbs lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD, and thus discovers its psychedelic properties. He had first synthesized the substance five years earlier but hadn’t been aware of its effects. He goes on to write scores of articles and books about his creation.
Two and a half hours after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean on its maiden voyage, the British passenger liner RMS Titanic sinks, dragging 1,517 people to their deaths. The number of dead amount to more than fifty percent of the passengers, due mainly to the fact the liner was not equipped with enough lifeboats.
African-American baseball player Jackie Robinson officially breaks Major League Baseball’s color line when he debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Several dark skinned men had played professional baseball around the beginning of the twentieth century, but Robinson was the first to overcome the official segregation policy called—ironically, in retrospect—the “gentleman’s agreement.”
