Hollywoodland

August 7 2021

BACK IN THE DAY

You know, young lady, I used to have one exactly like that but I used it so much it eventually wore out.

This is a rather amusing shot of professional celebrity, sometime actress, and buttcrack innovator Vikki Dougan’s caboose being checked out by an older woman at a Los Angeles social event. You know the story by now. Aspiring star Dougan and her agent were looking for a way to garner publicity, and because so many actresses were wearing low cut dresses that showed cleavage, they cooked up the scheme of having Dougan appear in public with dresses that were low cut in the rear. Thus her nickname: the Back. These dresses would at moments even dip to buttcrack level, which was scandalous, but effective in terms of getting Dougan’s name into the tabloids. She soon had the most famous back—and crack—in Hollywood. And of course who can forget the time she showed her girlfur? We certainly can’t. The above shot has been nicely colorized, and dates from 1957. Many sites say 1956, but it’s part of a photo series made by lensman Ralph Crane for Life magazine and published in ’57. We have an uncolorized shot, slightly different (notice the interested woman isn’t wearing glasses in that one) below. We’ll have more from Miss Dougan soon.

Los Angeles, Life Magazine, Vikki Dougan, Ralph Crane

Femmes Fatales

September 14 2019

BLANK EXPRESSION

Photographer fatally shot by movie star while staging publicity photo.

This unusual triptych shows actress Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, better known as Natalie Wood, not watching as she fires off a round. You’ll see these photos described simply as Wood shooting a pistol, as if she used a real gun, but we doubt it’s real. We don’t think the photographer Ralph Crane would have risked having her fire a real gun anywhere in the direction of either himself or an expensive remote operated camera—especially considering the shaky aim involved.

Wood is almost certainly using a Hollywood prop pistol designed to shoot blanks. Crane probably set up about thirty feet away, where he’d be at no risk from superheated gases, blank cartridge debris, etc. On the other hand, maybe the bullet was real—because you never know what sort of crazy shit someone will do with a gun.

Second matter that needs clearing up—some websites say this isn’t Natalie Wood. They’re wrong. She was eighteen when the photos were made, and was already a big star thanks to 1955’s Rebel without a Cause. We mention the film only because Wood’s fame means there were hundreds of photos of her from the period, and we’ve uploaded a nice color one here as well. There’s zero doubt. Same eyes. Same haircut. Same mouth. Natalie Wood.

The shooting photos first appeared in Life magazine, and both those and the color image are from 1956. As we’ve noted in the past, sometimes the narrow column width on Pulp Intl. means images are smaller than we’d like them to be, so we took the liberty of rearranging the black and whites vertically in order to offer a better look at them, and you see the result below. Interested in seeing more rare Wood images? Look here, here, and here.

Rebel without a Cause, Life Magazine, Natalie Wood, Natalia Zakharenko, Ralph Crane

Hollywoodland

October 26 2016

DIGGIN’ DOUGAN

The Back makes a spectacle of herself in Hollywood.

In a series of photos made for an edition of Life published today in 1953, actress and model Vikki Dougan takes a stroll around Hollywood and Vine to see what sort of reaction she gets in her back baring dress. Dougan was nicknamed The Back, so this was a publicity stunt designed to increase her recognition as that persona. While the stroll was bold, the dress was actually rather tame for her—on at least a few public occasions her dresses dipped so low she showed ass cleavage, though only at Hollywood events, not outside where she might have gotten in trouble.

Still, in the less radical outfit above she draws quite a crowd. Life didn’t originally publish all the shots you see here. Some archival images appeared a few years ago and have made their way around the web. If you’ve been visiting our site for a long time, this series may bring to mind a similar one we shared several years back that was made in Mexico City in 1950 with actress Maty Huitrón. In that group of photos Huitrón was covered from shins to neck, but the effect she had on bystanders was if anything even more profound. You can see that here.

Edit: Turns out the cover and the photos come from two different issues of Life. The photos are actually from 1957, according to the Life website, and they would know (though they get the date of Dougan’s cover wrong, saying it was from October 23. But we’re sure they’re right on the year.

Los Angeles, Hollywood, Life Magazine, Vikki Dougan, Ralph Crane, cinema

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

March 14

1964—Ruby Found Guilty of Murder

In the U.S. a Dallas jury finds nightclub owner and organized crime fringe-dweller Jack Ruby guilty of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby had shot Oswald with a handgun at Dallas Police Headquarters in full view of multiple witnesses and photographers. Allegations that he committed the crime to prevent Oswald from exposing a conspiracy in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have never been proven.

March 13

1925—Scopes Monkey Trial Ends

In Tennessee, the case of Scopes vs. the State of Tennessee, involving the prosecution of a school teacher for instructing his students in evolution, ends with a conviction of the teacher and establishment of a new law definitively prohibiting the teaching of evolution. The opposing lawyers in the case, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, both earn lasting fame for their participation in what was a contentious and sensational trial.

March 12

1933—Roosevelt Addresses Nation

Franklin D. Roosevelt uses the medium of radio to address the people of the United States for the first time as President, in a tradition that would become known as his “fireside chats”. These chats were enormously successful from a participation standpoint, with multi-millions tuning in to listen. In total Roosevelt would make thirty broadcasts over the course of eleven years.

March 11

1927—Roxy Theatre Opens

In New York City, showman and impresario Samuel Roxy Rothafel opens the Roxy Theatre, a 5,920-seat cinema. Rothafel would later open Radio City Music Hall in 1932, which featured the precision dance troupe the Roxyettes, later renamed the Rockettes. Rothafel died in 1936, but his Roxy remained one of America’s greatest film palaces until it was closed and demolished in 1960.

March 11

1977—Polanski Is Charged with Statutory Rape

Polish-born film director Roman Polanski is charged with raping a 13-year-old girl at the home of Hollywood star Jack Nicholson. Polanski allegedly had sex with the girl in a hot tub after plying her with Quaaludes and champagne. Rather than risk prison Polanski fled the U.S. for Europe, but was eventually arrested in Switzerland in 2009.