vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
London born actress Penny Brahms looks like a million bucks—that’s one hundred million pennies—in this shot that appeared in the French magazine Moi. Brahms had a forgettable film career—her most noted roles were a brief appearance in 2001: A Space Odyssey and a co-starring turn in the sexploitation flick Lady Chatterly Versus Fanny Hill—but she looks like the biggest star in the firmament in this great shot. It’s from 1970.
Governor of Louisiana Huey Long, one of the few truly leftist politicians in American history, is shot by Carl Austin Weiss in Baton Rouge. Long dies after two days in the hospital.
Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time, performing his hit song “Don’t Be Cruel.” Ironically, a car accident prevented Sullivan from being present that night, and the show was guest-hosted by British actor Charles Laughton.
Star Trek, an American television series set in the twenty-third century and promoting socialist utopian ideals, premieres on NBC. The series is cancelled after three seasons without much fanfare, but in syndication becomes one of the most beloved television shows of all time.
U.S. President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office, which coincidentally happen to include all those associated with the Watergate scandal.
Bulgarian dissident Giorgi Markov is assassinated in a scene right out of a spy novel. As he’s waiting at a bus stop near Waterloo Bridge in London, he’s jabbed in the calf with an umbrella. The man holding the umbrella apologizes and walks away, but he is in reality a Bulgarian hired killer who has just injected a ricin pellet into Markov, who develops a high fever and dies three days later.
