TROPICAL TREAT

Be a darling and get me an iced tea with lemon.

The Goodtime Weekly Calendar of 1963 opens the month of June with a tropical-themed shot by Tom Kelley, whose name may be unfamiliar but whose work isn’t, if you’ve ever seen those famous nudes of a young Marilyn Monroe stretched on red velvet. Kelley shot those timeless photos in May 1949 for a pin-up calendar, and they were acquired by Playboy for its debut issue in 1953. The model above is unknown to us, but we love the shot. Kelley uses a standard-issue studio backdrop, but makes magic with a hammock and a great reclining pose. Kelley has another page in this calendar but it won’t come up until December. Guess you’ll have to keep visiting our website, right? Don’t answer that. The quotations this week focus on the institution of marriage. See below.

June 2: June is the month when the bride who has never had a broom in her hand sweeps up the aisle.

June 3: “A bridegroom is a wolf who paid too much for a whistle.”—Henry Morgan

June 4: Generally, the bride looks stunning and the groom looks stunned.

June 5: “Marriage is like boxing: the preliminaries are often better than the main event.”—Quin Ryan

June 6: “A Hollywood wedding, as a rule, is generally a retake.”—Rip Taylor

June 7: “15 percent of all tornadoes in this country fall in June. And so do most marriages.”—Phil Bowman

June 8: “There’s no use giving the groom a shower because he’s all washed up anyway.”—Henry Morgan

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1933—Blaine Act Passes

The Blaine Act, a congressional bill sponsored by Wisconsin senator John J. Blaine, is passed by the U.S. Senate and officially repeals the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, aka the Volstead Act, aka Prohibition. The repeal is formally adopted as the 21st Amendment to the Constitution on December 5, 1933.

1947—Voice of America Begins Broadcasting into U.S.S.R.

The state radio channel known as Voice of America and controlled by the U.S. State Department, begins broadcasting into the Soviet Union in Russian with the intent of countering Soviet radio programming directed against American leaders and policies. The Soviet Union responds by initiating electronic jamming of VOA broadcasts.

1937—Carothers Patents Nylon

Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanide—not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juice—resulting in his death in late 1937.

1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt

In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.

1929—Seven Men Shot Dead in Chicago

Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s South Side gang, are machine gunned to death in Chicago, Illinois, in an event that would become known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Because two of the shooters were dressed as police officers, it was initially thought that police might have been responsible, but an investigation soon proved the killings were gang related. The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the United States at that time.

Uncredited cover art for Day Keene’s 1952 novel Wake Up to Murder.
Another uncredited artist produces another beautiful digest cover. This time it's for Norman Bligh's Waterfront Hotel, from Quarter Books.
Above is more artwork from the prolific Alain Gourdon, better known as Aslan, for the 1955 Paul S. Nouvel novel Macadam Sérénade.
Uncredited art for Merle Miller's 1949 political drama The Sure Thing.

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