TIP OF THE EKBERG

Uncensored turns its unique journalistic eye toward Anita Ekberg.


There’s nothing quite like tabloid writing, a fact once again amply demonstrated by Uncensored. This issue is from June 1963, and check out this short paragraph from its feature on Anita Ekberg: “This is the Uncensored story of how Prince Philip bagged a rare and exotic Scandinavian pouter pigeon. Though its native habitat is Sweden, this double-breasted dove prefers the warmer climate of Italy. It also migrates as far from home as London and Hollywood.”

Double-breasted dove? They don’t write like that anymore, and a good thing too. It’s sexist, of course, but the tabs were generally belittling of both females and males—though in different ways. Women were derided for dating around, such as when Uncensored refers to Ekberg as “Sexberg,” whereas men were usually disparaged for not being manly enough. That typically involved either being rebuffed by women, not scoring with enough women, or sexually preferring men. You see this in the story on Marcello Mastroianni, who’s called “lazy” for passing on Brigitte Bardot. And you see it in the story on the United Nations, which is referred to as the “U.N. pansy patch.”

From the perspective of 2017, the heteronormative insecurity is pretty obvious. Men are to be prowling wolves, and any failure to live up to the ideal prompts insults; women are to be readily available for action, but not to other men. The story on Ekberg treads the line of admiring her beauty, but being suspicious about the freeness of her affections. There’s a photo of her dancing with a black G.I. in Rome, and while the caption is neutral, in the context of the story the meaning of the shot is clear: “Ekberg will even dance with a black man!

We love the photo. Ekberg looks a bit baffled, as if the soldier is telling her, “We’d be in mortal danger for doing this in most of the United States, you know,” and Ekberg is saying, “What the hell are you talking about?” The photo also shows how tall Ekberg was, almost 5′ 7”, probably 5′ 10” in heels, which is towering for an actress who needed to star alongside all those mid-sized leading men. We think this is the first time this image has appeared online.

Other elements worth noting in this issue include French actress and Pulp Intl. femme fatale Dominque Boschero as a mermaid, Marlene Dietrich looking dapper in a tux, Jayne Mansfield and one of her famed toy poodles, and burlesque queen Blaze Starr sudsy in a bathtub. There are plenty of other great shots too, and you can see them all below in nearly forty scans. Uncensored will return.

The chef is always right.

The above shot shows American actress Carolyn Komant doing her part for either world hunger or cultural food awareness (the smile and chef’s hat make us suspect the latter) for the United Nations in 1961. A former beauty pageant winner, Komant was familiar with public appearance work and was also Queen of the 34th annual Newball Saugus Rodeo, and Miss Safety Check for Burbank, California in 1961. She parlayed her recognition into regular television roles between 1959 and 1961, and one film role, a bit part in 1962’s House of Women, before marrying and giving up show business. 

Rising to the challenge, brighter futures for all.

In February 1960 France detonated this nuclear weapon, known as Gerboise Bleue, in the Algerian desert. In so doing the French defied the wishes of the United Nations and came under intense criticism from the Soviet Union and several African nations. The shot was their first of three in Algeria that year, with the goal of creating a compact nuclear warhead that could fit atop a missile. But it also happened to occur during the Algerian War and was clearly meant to terrify Algerians, who were fighting for independence. In 1999 France admitted it had exposed the local population to nuclear radiation and agreed to pay compensation.     

Murdered lawyer points accusatory finger two days after his death.

In a twist right out of a Mario Puzo novel, a Guatemalan lawyer killed in a shooting Sunday reappeared on a posthumous videotape yesterday claiming the person who ordered his killing is Guatemala’s president, Alvaro Colóm. On the video, Rodrigo Rosenberg claims he ran afoul of important government officials after representing businessman Khalil Musa, who was slain in March along with his daughter. Rosenberg says Musa was killed for refusing to help launder drug money at Guatemala’s Rural Development Bank, which is mostly government owned.

President Colóm dismissed the accusation, saying, “First of all, I am not a murderer. Second, I am not a drug trafficker, and everything he says there is totally senseless.” Colóm has reportedly asked the UN and FBI to investigate Rosenberg’s killing, but the country has been thrown into a state of unrest, with many calling for the president to step aside until the issue is resolved.

It’s just the latest blow for Guatemala, which has suffered a CIA-backed coup, numerous corrupt governments, and the recent rise of powerful drug cartels. As yet President Colóm has shown no intention to step aside, but Rosenberg’s accusations—factual or not—are extraordinarily damaging. Speaking of himself in the past tense, Rosenberg says: “I was a 47 year old Guatemalan, with four beautiful children, with the best brother one could ask of life, with wonderful friends, and with an overwhelming desire to live in my country.”

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1978—Giorgi Markov Assassinated

Bulgarian dissident Giorgi Markov is assassinated in a scene right out of a spy novel. As he’s waiting at a bus stop near Waterloo Bridge in London, he’s jabbed in the calf with an umbrella. The man holding the umbrella apologizes and walks away, but he is in reality a Bulgarian hired killer who has just injected a ricin pellet into Markov, who develops a high fever and dies three days later.

1901—McKinley Fatally Shot

Polish-born anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies September 12, and Czolgosz is later executed.

1939—U.S. Declares Neutrality in WW II

The Neutrality Acts, which had been passed in the 1930s when the United States considered foreign conflicts undesirable, prompts the nation to declare neutrality in World War II. The policy ended with the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, which allowed the U.S. to sell, lend or give war materials to allied nations.

1972—Munich Massacre

During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, a paramilitary group calling itself Black September takes members of the Israeli olympic team hostage. Eventually the group, which represents the first glimpse of terrorists for most people in the Western world, kill eleven of the hostages along with one West German police officer during a rescue attempt by West German police that devolves into a firefight. Five of the eight members of Black September are also killed.

1957—U.S. National Guard Used Against Students

The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, mobilizes the National Guard to prevent nine African-American students known as the Little Rock Nine from enrolling in high school in Little Rock, Arkansas.

This awesome cover art is by Tommy Shoemaker, a new talent to us, but not to more experienced paperback illustration aficionados.
Ten covers from the popular French thriller series Les aventures de Zodiaque.
Sam Peffer cover art for Jonathan Latimer's Solomon's Vineyard, originally published in 1941.

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