Happy Birthday, Anne Baxter

Happy birthday, Anne.

NOT Gone With The Wind

I stopped at the grocery store this morning for some low-fat milk, mayonnaise, cranberry juice, and. . .well, it's not really critical to this story that you know all of those details. So I purchase my nameless groceries, and I go out to my car in the parking lot. This guy pulls in next to me with his somewhat older, somewhat rustier maroon Pontiac Grand Am. There are untold billions of old rusty Pontiac Grand Ams here in the Rust Belt. The guy gets out and goes into the store. He's sort of a generic late-20s or early-30s unshaven white male with baseball cap sort of Rust Belt guy. His name is probably Jeff or Al or Randy or something. So on the right side of Jeff's older rusty Grand Am is a spray pattern of dried puke that runs from the rear edge of the now-closed passenger window all the way back across the right rear door, the fuel door, and the right rear fender. Probably from a party last night. Ah, I remember those days. The dried spray is sort of yellow and sort of greenish and brown. Very possibly that fatal mix of Taco Bell "Fourth Meal" late night drive-thru food and one of the standard varieties of Budweiser or Miller. The spray can take on a reddish hue if you mix in tequila and a knife wound. But this was just your routine beer-and-fast-food chunk-hurling stuff. Been there, done that. I've been the frantic driver. I've been the helpless puker. You can't quite pull over before the action begins. You somehow hope that the window blowing on your drunken friend will make him or her (your barely conscious date or your stoned little sister) feel better and maybe settle their stomach. But it never works. You're driving, but you're drunk too, of course, and it all just makes sense. You hope your passenger's stomach contents will simply be gone with the wind, but it never quite works out that way. And, of course, it's worse if it's a white car or your dad's car or a convertible. It's also bad if you've borrowed somebody's car, done this awful thing to the whole right side of it, and then returned the car without really noticing the incriminating color change you've made. But Jeff and his rusty maroon Grand Am have probably been through this baptism a dozen times by now. Which may explain some of the rust. And I got into my un-puked-on grandpa car and thought of that dream date where you're doing 85 down Pacific Coast Highway at four in the morning while a barely dressed Scarlett O'Hara, her hair an insane tangle, her shoes in the back seat, leans out her side of your milk white Packard convertible and lets go with all the rum punch and Polynesian appetizers you bought her at Don The Beachcomber's. And you, filled with desire and tequila, think it's fine. Just fine. Life is good. As Ernest Gantt, the real Don the Beachcomber used to say, "If you can't come to Paradise, I'll bring Paradise to you." Things never quite work out that way here in the Rust Belt, but it's the thought that counts.

Foursomes

Tailgating

Susan Oliver, Slave Girl

There are five Susan Olivers in the IMDb, but I don't know anything about them. I'm talking about the Susan Oliver who did Star Trek (clip), The Disorderly Orderly (1964) with Jerry Lewis, The Green-Eyed Blonde (1957), The Andy Griffith Show, Your Cheatin' Heart (1964), and almost every 1960s television series you can name. For some reason, good quality photos of her are scarce as feathers on a frog.
The Trekkies, who never seem to forget anything, have trading cards and even an action figure for Slave Girl Vina, the character she played on Star Trek TOS (The Original Series). Boy, those dudes really need to get a life. Anyway, to get an idea of the Susan Oliver saturation during the 1960s, check this partial list of her television appearances:
The Twilight Zone
The Untouchables
Naked City
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Rawhide
Route 66
77 Sunset Strip
The Fugitive
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
I Spy
Peyton Place
T.H.E. Cat
The Wild Wild West
The Invaders
The Big Valley
Mannix




You'd think there'd be more photos out there somewhere.

Hollywood Harem #9

Elke Sommer Choking My Hard Drive

Damnit! That's all there is to it.
Elke Sommer is filling up my hard drive.
Somebody out there simply has to take these
15 Elke Sommer photos off my hands, right?
Help yourself. (Especially if you're a blonde fan.)




The photo above is from the 1969 Dean Martin
movie The Wrecking Crew. The movie is worth
renting or buying, because it features Elke Sommer,
Sharon Tate, Nancy Kwan, and Tina Louise.
Holy Cow! What a lineup!
The Wrecking Crew is also worth watching simply
for the one scene where Elke walks across a room
toward the camera in this dress. It just screams.

Whewww! Thanks for taking these off my hands.

Happy Birthday, Mary Astor

It's Mary Astor's birthday. Like many people,
the first time I saw Mary Astor she was playing
Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon in
1941. And I really, really wondered what Sam
Spade (Humphrey Bogart) could possibly find
attractive about her. The second time I saw
her was in Dodsworth (1936), and I was quite
surprised how she looked with longer hair.
Then I saw her in the pre-Code Red Dust (1932)
where, in comparison, she makes Jean Harlow
look like a cow (you Harlow fans will just have
to face it). And Mary was really something in
the silent Don Juan (1926), although June
Marlowe was the TOTAL BABE in that one.
And then I saw her in The Bright Shawl (1923),
when she was only 17 years old, and I think
I fainted. Amazing! Whoever phuctup her hair
for The Maltese Falcon should have been shot.
Anyway, here she is in her loveliness.



Happy birthday, Mary.

Girl-Girl #6

Happy Birthday, Joy Harmon

It's Joy Harmon's birthday today. You remember
Joy's famous car-washing scene from Cool Hand
Luke (1967), right? Everybody remembers that.
There's a very interesting interview with
actor George Kennedy about the filming of
that particular scene at TCM.

Finally, there is the Joy Harmon page at
Brian's Drive-In Theater.

Happy birthday, Joy.