vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Her cover isn’t blown, but Stefanie Powers exemplifies the unlikelihood of that standard fictional device—the very beautiful secret agent. In real life it’s hard to keep a low profile when you look this good, but in cinema, television, and pulp literature you can be simultaneously gorgeous and invisible. The shot comes from The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., a tv series that has been good to us in terms of promo images. This is the third we’ve shared. We have two more nice ones here and here.
This promo shot shows U.S. actress Stefanie Powers and was made for her The Man from U.N.C.L.E. spin-off show The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., on which she starred as secret agent April Dancer. She would later go on to become widely known while starring in the 1979-84 sleuthing weekly Hart to Hart with Robert Wagner. The photo is from 1966. You can see another one here.
This shot of U.S. actress Stefanie Powers was made as a promo for the television series The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., in which she played the wonderfully named spy April Dancer, aka Agent 0022. The show was a spin-off from The Man from U.N.C.L.E., but lasted only one season during 1966-67, which gives us the date range on this photo.
In Vietnam, American troops kill between 350 and 500 unarmed citizens, all of whom are civilians and a majority of whom are women, children, babies and elderly people. Many victims are sexually abused, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies are mutilated. The incident doesn’t become public knowledge until 1969, but when it does, the American war effort is dealt one of its worst blows.
American sci-fi/horror author Howard Phillips Lovecraft dies of intestinal cancer in Providence, Rhode Island at age 46. Lovecraft died nearly destitute, but would become the most influential horror writer of all time. His imaginary universe of malign gods and degenerate cults was influenced by his explicitly racist views, but his detailed and procedural style of writing, which usually pitted men of science or academia against indescribable monsters, remains as effective today as ever.
French pulp artist Michel Gourdon, who was the less famous brother of Alain Gourdon, aka Aslan, dies in Coudray, France aged eighty-five. He is known mainly for the covers he painted for the imprint Flueve Noir, but worked for many companies and produced nearly 3,500 book fronts during his career.
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.
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.
