DAMN, THE TORPEDOES

The things we put ourselves through in the name of fashion.

What we’ve subjected ourselves to over the ages in order to be alluring is astounding. Bone corsets, Victorian wigs, thongs, bikini waxing, back waxing, ball waxing, nostril waxing (which we recently learned is a thing), stiletto heels, and the list goes on. Obviously, women have it far worse than men. We don’t want to sound unduly incredulous, because we get that all the things we do to ourselves show how important the mating game is. If a fashion trend gets you that partner you seek for a night, a lifetime, or any time between, is there really any length that is too far?

Still, though, from our generational perspective, the torpedo bra is among the strangest of all fashion items, and this shot of model Donna Reading shows how extreme the look could get. It comes from an issue of Daily Girl and dates from around 1970. Reading, who was also known as Donna Marlowe (sometimes Marlow), acted as well as modeled, and appeared in a dozen or so television series, including The Benny Hill Show and Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The real circus act was wedging herself into this medieval device. We’ve expressed our wonder concerning this subject before, here and here. Meanwhile, below, Marlowe bans the bra.


There are no small parts. Only small casting agents.

Above is a lovely shot of British actress Zoe Hendry, who we last saw in 1975’s erotic epic Butterfly, and whose other credits read like a cautionary tale of cinematic ambition smashed on the rocks of rent paying reality. She’s played, in no particular order, “naked college girl,” in 1974’s Confessions of a Window Cleaner, “native dancer,” in 1976’s Queen Kong, “topless patient,” in 1978’s What’s Up Nurse!, and, “other girl,” in 1974’s The Man Who Couldn’t Get Enough. And who can forget 1976’s infamous Nastassja Kinski vehicle To the Devil a Daughter, in which Hendry played “first girl”?

Yes, it’s quite a résumé Hendry accumulated, but since she originally got her break on The Benny Hill Show—which made an industry of scantily clad women—her stalwart appearances in sexploitation films are no surprise. But she eventually outflanked one-track-minded movie casting agents by shifting back to television during the 1980s, where she got a chance to act more seriously. Probably got paid better too. Still, we’re irresistibly drawn to titles like Queen Kong. Maybe we have one-track minds too, but we have to watch that, right? Right. We’ll do the heavy lifting so you don’t have to, then report back.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1912—Missing Explorer Robert Scott Found

British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his men are found frozen to death on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, where they had been pinned down and immobilized by bad weather, hunger and fatigue. Scott’s expedition, known as the Terra Nova expedition, had attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole only to be devastated upon finding that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them there by five weeks. Scott wrote in his diary: “The worst has happened. All the day dreams must go. Great God! This is an awful place.”

1933—Nessie Spotted for First Time

Hugh Gray takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster while walking back from church along the shore of the Loch near the town of Foyers. Only one photo came out, but of all the images of the monster, this one is considered the most authentic.

1969—My Lai Massacre Revealed

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai massacre, which had occurred in Vietnam more than a year-and-a-half earlier but been covered up by military officials. That day, U.S. soldiers killed between 350 and 500 unarmed civilians, including women, the elderly, and infants. The event devastated America’s image internationally and galvanized the U.S. anti-war effort. For Hersh’s efforts he received a Pulitzer Prize.

1918—The Great War Ends

Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of Compiègne in France, ending The Great War, later to be called World War I. About ten million people died, and many millions more were wounded. The conflict officially stops at 11:00 a.m., and today the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is annually honored in some European nations with two minutes of silence.

1924—Dion O'Banion Gunned Down

Dion O’Banion, leader of Chicago’s North Side Gang is assassinated in his flower shop by members of rival Johnny Torrio’s gang, sparking the bloody five-year war between the North Side Gang and the Chicago Outfit that culminates in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

1940—Walt Disney Becomes Informer

Walt Disney begins serving as an informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI, with instructions to report on Hollywood subversives. He eventually testifies before HUAC, where he fingers several people as Communist agitators. He also accuses the Screen Actors Guild of being a Communist front.

1921—Einstein Wins Nobel

German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize for his work with the photoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which electrons are emitted from matter as a consequence of their absorption of energy from electromagnetic radiation. In practical terms, the phenomenon makes possible such devices as electroscopes, solar cells, and night vision goggles.

A collection of red paperback covers from Dutch publisher De Vrije Pers.
Uncredited art for Hans Lugar's Line-Up! for Scion American publishing.
Uncredited cover art for Lesbian Gym by Peggy Swenson, who was in reality Richard Geis.

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