Hollywoodland

April 27 2016

NOVAK ON HER BACK

Tabloid obsesses over Kim Novak on her psychiatrist’s couch.

In a story titled “What Kim Novak Won’t Tell Her Psychiatrist,” this issue of Uncensored from April 1962 promises “the most intimate, revealing self-portrait of a guilt-tormented soul that you have ever read.” What does the magazine reveal? Apparently Novak’s father was disappointed to have had a daughter instead of a son. Novak’s father is portrayed as domineering and distant, and this relationship is cited as the cause of all her “neuroses,” from her preference for slacks and shirts over dresses and skirts, to her supposed shame over sex. Even her short hair is blamed on her father—she allegedly cut it off as an expression of self-loathing. But here’s the bit we love: “He is a father who raised no objection when nightclub entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr. showed up at Kim’s home in Chicago with a engagement ring one Christmas.” Yes, this father of hers was truly the lowest of the low.

The story goes on to describe all the various hells Novak put her employers and paramours through, reveals a lifetime of analysis beginning in childhood, and outs her for an alleged late 1950s stint in a psychiatric facility, where she received “mechanical tests”—i.e. an EEG. It finally ends on a melodramatic note: “Kim fled the hospital, fled the analyst, fled the dark memories. She went back to making movies, to throwing temper tantrums. And, on occasion, to more solid things. She went back to the loneliness she dreads. To the big house that is haunted by shapes, people, memories she dare not dredge up and face lest the strain be too much, added to other strains.” You’d almost think journalist Marian Simms was writing a Harlequin novel—a bad one.

Uncensored offers readers much more than Kim Novak. Journo Ken Travis takes down King Edward VIII and his wife Wallis Simpson in a story rather amusingly titled “Those Royal Money Grubbing Windsors,” raking them over the coals for being filthy rich but too stingy to even pick up a dinner check. Elsewhere in the issue Hitler’s Heirs author Paul Meskil offers a story claiming with 100% certainty that Nazi criminal Martin Bormann was hiding in Argentina. But embarrassingly, Bormann was nowhere near South America—he died in Berlin at the end of World War II, but his body wasn’t found and identified until 1972. You also get letters from readers, photos of Vikki Dougan doing the twist, trans pioneer Coccinelle showing off her cleavage, a really cool 8mm movie advert that bizarrely misidentifies a California blonde type as Romanian-Tatar dancer Nejla Ates, and more.

Vintage Pulp

August 30 2015

LITTLE HITLERS

There’s nothing like the pitter patter of little jackboots.

Check an English language bio on Gisela Fleischer and it’ll likely say she’s a West German woman who claimed to be Adolf Hitler’s daughter, and that the Swiss paper Tribune de Genève broke the story in 1966. Well, guess what? The above Midnight is from today in 1965, and inside, readers are told that Abigail Van Buren—aka Dear Abby—received a letter from West Germany that began: “I need some advice in a hurry. Should I marry a rabbi? I am the daughter of Adolf Hitler.” Fleischer’s mother Tilly Fleischer had competed in javelin at the 1936 Olympic games. According to Gisela, Hitler was impressed enough to invite her mother to the Berghof for dinner and that meeting in Obersalzberg was the beginning of an eight-month affair.

Gisela claims to have been born in December 1937 at a special Nazi clinic, but never knew who her father was until later in life. Midnight journo Cyrus Bell claims to have spoken to Fleischer, and the gist is basically that learning she was Hitler’s daughter was a good thing, because it helped her finally know and accept herself. She says at the end, “Now I can say, like Antigone in the tragedy by Sophocles, that I was born for love and not for hate.” But by now you know that Midnight couldn’t land a scoop if you dropped the entire editorial staff into a Breyer’s factory. While the Dear Abby connection might well be true, it turns out Fleischer first made her Hitler claims in mid-1965 in the European magazines Oggi, Ici Paris, and Bunten, and Midnight merely reprinted them.

Fleischer was mostly ignored until she revealed all in a 1966 book called Mein Vater Adolf Hitler, published in France as Adolf Hitler mon père. Reactions to this event were skeptical, to say the least. A famous wit of the day wrote a satirical piece called, “I was Hitler’s toothbrush.” Fleischer kept her story alive with interviews in other magazines, but she had stiff competition—two people claiming to be the offspring of Hitler and Eva Braun had surfaced, a woman named Eleanor Bauer claimed to be Hitlerspawn, and the same assertion was made by a Frenchman named Jean Marie Loret. Even Martin Bormann’s son claimed to be in reality the result of an encounter between Hitler and a girl known only as Uschi.

Proof will probably never turn up in any of these cases, but is it very hard to believe a man with Hitler’s power and obsession with Aryan womanhood was sowing his seed whenever the urge struck? As Goliath books and Hans von Bockhain have documented, 1930s Germany was an extraordinarily decadent time anyway. In addition, it’s rare that dictators do not have mistresses. From there it’s easy to imagine children being the result. Some historical researchers have portrayed Hitler as a sexual deviant—impotent shit freak seems to be the favored theory—but most historians believe he had a normal sex life, whatever that is. We’ll have more from Midnight later, and you can see other issues by visiting our tabloid index.

Intl. Notebook

March 23 2015

TEMPLE OF DOOM

Secret Nazi lair found deep in Argentine jungle.

Archaeologists have uncovered a set of stone ruins in Argentina they believe were constructed to serve as homes for Nazis fleeing Europe during the aftermath of World War II. The buildings are located in a mountainous, barely accessible area of the Teyu Cuare national park in northern Argentina where it meets the border with Paraguay. The archaeologists believe these are Nazi structures because they uncovered German coins minted between 1938 and 1941, and fragments of a plate made in Germany. The fact that such structures were found in Argentina isn’t a surprise—another stone house found years ago (below) in the same park is believed to have been built for Parteikanzlei chief Martin Bormann, who never got to use it. In the end the Nazis never really needed their Teyu Cuare lairs—as many as 9,000 of them fled to Argentina openly, welcomed by the government of Juan Peron.

Argentina was hardly unique in that respect. Thousands more Nazis settled in Brazil, Chile, and in the fascist dictatorship of Paraguay. Hundreds fled to the Middle East. At least one resided for a brief time inQuebec. Via Operation Paperclip, high ranking Nazi party members such as Wernher von Braun, Kurt Debus, and Arthur Rudolph were welcomed into the U.S., mainly due to their knowledge of physics and rocketry. Hubertus Strughold (at right) was also brought over. He had a different kind of knowledge—direct awareness of and possible involvement with fatal medical experiments relating to extreme environments and atmospheric pressure. All four men were given jobs at NASA.

There’s no word yet on what the Argentine government plans to do with the newly discovered Teyu Cuare structures. The alleged Borman house still stands and even has a sign noting its unusual history. However most countries prefer to wipe out evidence of government or citizen collaboration with the Third Reich by opting to raze Nazi structures.

Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Teyu Cuare, World War II, Juan Peron, Wernher von Braun, Kurt Debus, Arthur Rudolph, Hubertus Strughold, Martin Bormann, nazis

Vintage Pulp

December 19 2014

HITLER FOR THE HOLIDAYS

On the first day of Christmas the Gazette gave to me—a Hitler.

Just in time to ruin everyone’s Christmas shopping, this National Police Gazette from December 1960 splashed Adolf Hitler’s face on its cover along with an inset of Swedish actress May Britt (who could hardly have appreciated the inclusion). George McGrath’s story minces no words, opening with this: Indisputable evidence that Adolf Hitler is alive and living in the Argentine has has been uncovered by the Police Gazette. Although this new information is in the hands of government intelligence chiefs, the United States and its allies are not lifting a finger to catch the runaway Nazi dictator.

By now you’re familiar with the basics: Hitler sent his possessions ahead to Mar del Plata, Argentina eighteen months before World War II’s end, later escaped Europe by u-boat, and set up shop with some of his top brass to begin plotting a return to the global stage. This particular version of the story managed to cleverly sneak in a shot at the Soviet Union, claiming Nikita Khrushchev didn’t want Hitler found. Considering the many millions of soldiers and civilians the Russians lost defeating the guy, that makes zero sense, but hey, this Gazette was published during the Cold War—Russia had to be blamed for everything.

This makes the twenty-second Hitler Gazette cover we’ve posted of twenty-nine we’ve found so far. Each story adds a little bit more to the labryrinthine tale of his daring dash to South America, but this is the first story we’ve seen claim that his capture would divide the Allied nations. Why? Because some would want him executed (obviously), while others would want him forgotten (not so obviously). The only rationale given for the latter position is that Hitler’s capture would open old war wounds. That’s pretty hard to swallow, but also beside the point. The point was magazine sales and the editors undoubtedly achieved that. We’ll have more from the Gazette later.

Germany, Argentina, Russia, Soviet Union, World War II, Mar del Plata, Police Gazette, Adolf Hitler, Martin Bormann, May Britt, Nikita Khrushchev, nazis, tabloid

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

July 13

1933—Eugenics Becomes Official German Policy

Adolf Hitler signs the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, and Germany begins sterilizing those they believe carry hereditary illnesses, and those they consider impure. By the end of WWII more than 400,000 are sterilized, including criminals, alcoholics, the mentally ill, Jews, and people of mixed German-African heritage.

July 13

1955—Ruth Ellis Executed

Former model Ruth Ellis is hanged at Holloway Prison in London for the murder of her lover, British race car driver David Blakely. She is the last woman executed in the United Kingdom.

July 13

1966—Richard Speck Rampage

Richard Speck breaks into a Chicago townhouse where he systematically rapes and kills eight student nurses. The only survivor hides under a bed the entire night.

July 12

1971—Corona Sent to Prison

Mexican-born serial killer Juan Vallejo Corona is convicted of the murders of 25 itinerant laborers. He had stabbed each of them, chopped a cross in the backs of their heads with a machete, and buried them in shallow graves in fruit orchards in Sutter County, California. At the time the crimes were the worst mass murders in U.S. history.

July 11

1960—To Kill a Mockingbird Appears

Harper Lee’s racially charged novel To Kill a Mockingbird is published by J.B. Lippincott & Co. The book is hailed as a classic, becomes an international bestseller, and spawns a movie starring Gregory Peck, but is the only novel Lee would ever publish.

July 11

1962—Nuke Test on Xmas Island

As part of the nuclear tests codenamed Operation Dominic, the United States detonates a one megaton bomb on Australian controlled Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean. The island was a location for a series of American and British nuclear tests, and years later lawsuits claiming radiation damage to military personnel were filed, but none were settled in favor in the soldiers.

July 10

1940—The Battle of Britain Begins

The German Air Force, aka the Luftwaffe, attacks shipping convoys off the coast of England, touching off what Prime Minister Winston Churchill describes as The Battle of Britain.

DON’T RIDE THE WHITE HORSE

Rafael DeSoto painted this excellent cover for David Hulburd's 1954 drug scare novel H Is for Heroin. We also have the original art without text.

BARN GIRLS

Two Spanish language digest novels from Argentine publishers Malinca Debora and Malinca Nueva Pandora.

Argentine publishers Malinca Debora reprinted numerous English language crime thrillers in Spanish. This example uses George Gross art borrowed from U.S. imprint Rainbow Books.

LOVES OF A BLONDE