PRIMA DONA

A leading lady in the area of beauty.

In Italian primadonna means “leading lady.” The lady you see here is Dona Drake, who as far as we’re concerned leads in numerous categories, including good hair and general sultriness. She acted in about thirty films between 1935 and 1953, with some of her most popular being Road to Morocco, Another Part of the Forest, and Kansas City Confidential. Many of the roles she played were ethnic, and she was in fact partly black. She still managed to work steadily through a segregationist era by not publicly acknowledging her ethnicity. To anyone who inquired she answered that she was Mexican, which made her eligible for decent roles in Hollywood. She’s another actress who made a smart name change, as, sadly, she was born Eunice Westmoreland. Nothing sad about this photo, though, except that we’ve seen it sometimes misidentified as Gene Tierney. There’s definitely a similar look.

Road to Morocco, Another Part of the Forest, Kansas City Confidential, Dona Drake

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

January 17

1950—The Great Brinks Robbery Occurs

In the U.S., eleven thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car company’s offices in Boston, Massachusetts. The skillful execution of the crime, with only a bare minimum of clues left at the scene, results in the robbery being billed as “the crime of the century.” Despite this, all the members of the gang are later arrested.

January 17

1977—Gary Gilmore Is Executed

Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore is executed by a firing squad in Utah, ending a ten-year moratorium on Capital punishment in the United States. Gilmore’s story is later turned into a 1979 novel entitled The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer, and the book wins the Pulitzer Prize for literature.

January 16

1942—Carole Lombard Dies in Plane Crash

American actress Carole Lombard, who was the highest paid star in Hollywood during the late 1930s, dies in the crash of TWA Flight 3, on which she was flying from Las Vegas to Los Angeles after headlining a war bond rally in support of America’s military efforts. She was thirty-three years old.

January 15

1919—Luxemburg and Liebknecht Are Killed

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, are tortured and murdered by the Freikorps. Freikorps was a term applied to various paramilitary organizations that sprang up around Germany as soldiers returned in defeat from World War I. Members of these groups would later become prominent members of the SS.

January 14

1967—Summer of Love Begins

The Human Be-In takes place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park with between 20,000 to 30,000 people in attendance, their purpose being to promote their ideals of personal empowerment, cultural and political decentralization, communal living, ecological preservation, and higher consciousness. The event is considered the beginning of the famed counterculture Summer of Love.

DON GIOVANNI

Giovanni Benvenuti was one of Italy's most prolific paperback cover artists. His unique style is on display in multiple collections within our website.

WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT