vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Monte Steele’s Million Dollar Tramp should not be confused with William Campbell Gault’s Million Dollar Tramp. Gault was a serious author of some acclaim, while Steele was serious about claiming a paycheck. We last saw him authoring a 1964 literary epic called Campus Chippies. This earlier effort is from 1963 for Playtime Reading with art by Robert Bonfils.
We really should put together a group of frathouse sleaze covers sometime. The pervasive trope in mid-century fiction of educated women somehow still being mere male property is worthy of deeper examination. For instance in this book female characters are literally given away to horny fraternity boys. We may put together a collection on this theme, but until then consider Campus Chippies an entry (along with this example from last year). It comes from Playtime Reading, 1964, was written by Monte Steele, author of numerous novels along the same lines, and the cover art is from Robert Bonfils.
Cough, cough, hack, wheeze. We’re back from oblivion. Above you see the front and rear covers of Joe Castro’s Satan Was My Pimp, 1964, from Playtime Reading, with art by Robert Bonfils. This is of course one of the great sleaze titles ever.
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.
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed. He is confined to bed for weeks, but eventually resumes his duties, though his participation is little more than perfunctory. Wilson remains disabled throughout the remainder of his term in office, and the rest of his life.
Ten days before the opening of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, a peaceful student demonstration ends in the Tlatelolco Massacre. 200 to 300 students are gunned down, and to this day there is no consensus about how or why the shooting began.
