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.

2011—Elizabeth Taylor Dies

American actress Elizabeth Taylor, whose career began at age 12 when she starred in National Velvet, and who would eventually be nominated for five Academy Awards as best actress and win for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, dies of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. During her life she had been hospitalized more than 70 times.

1963—Profumo Denies Affair

In England, the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, denies any impropriety with showgirl Christine Keeler and threatens to sue anyone repeating the allegations. The accusations involve not just infidelity, but the possibility acquaintances of Keeler might be trying to ply Profumo for nuclear secrets. In June, Profumo finally resigns from the government after confessing his sexual involvement with Keeler and admitting he lied to parliament.

1978—Karl Wallenda Falls to His Death

World famous German daredevil and high-wire walker Karl Wallenda, founder of the acrobatic troupe The Flying Wallendas, falls to his death attempting to walk on a cable strung between the two towers of the Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wallenda is seventy-three years old at the time, but it is a 30 mph wind, rather than age, that is generally blamed for sending him from the wire.

2006—Swedish Spy Stig Wennerstrom Dies

Swedish air force colonel Stig Wennerström, who had been convicted in the 1970s of passing Swedish, U.S. and NATO secrets to the Soviet Union over the course of fifteen years, dies in an old age home at the age of ninety-nine. The Wennerström affair, as some called it, was at the time one of the biggest scandals of the Cold War.

1963—Alcatraz Closes

The federal penitentiary located on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay closes. The island had been home to a lighthouse, a military fortification, and a military prison over the years. In 1972, it would become a national recreation area open to tourists, and it would receive national landmark designations in 1976 and 1986.

1916—Einstein Publishes General Relativity

German-born theoretical physicist Albert Einstein publishes his general theory of relativity. Among the effects of the theory are phenomena such as the curvature of space-time, the bending of rays of light in gravitational fields, faster than light universe expansion, and the warping of space time around a rotating body.

Cover art by Norman Saunders for Jay Hart's Tonight, She's Yours, published by Phantom Books in 1965.
Uncredited cover for Call Girl Central: 08~022, written by Frédéric Dard for Éditions de la Pensée Moderne and its Collection Tropiques, 1955.
Four pink Perry Mason covers with Robert McGinnis art for Pocket Books.
Unknown artist produces lurid cover for Indian true crime magazine Nutan Kahaniyan.

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