Dark haired and sultry, Susan Hart displayed her shapely body as bikini-clad beach girls or monster movie heroines in a string of popular ‘60s B-movies.  It is no wonder considering her measurements were usually touted as 37-23-36 as she was being groomed to become Hollywood’s newest sex symbol.  After fleeing from The Slime People (1963) in her film debut, Hart frolicked on the sand as a hula swaying, half-Hawaiian in Ride the Wild Surf (1964).  She snagged a contract at American International Pictures and soon after married the boss, James H. Nicholson, the studio’s co-founder.  The curvaceous starlet thought better roles were ahead for her but she was back in a bikini as a hip-shaking beach girl in Pajama Party (1964) and back to being chased by monsters—this time gill-men—in War-Gods of the Deep (1965).  Donning a bikini yet again, she played a robot programmed to seduce, marry and kill a bungling playboy millionaire in the spy spoof Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965).  Most famously, Hart stepped in to save the last official Beach Party film, The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966) as (what else?) the title bikini-clad character, before hanging up her swimsuit to raise her son.

Susan Hart was born in Wenatchaee, Washington—the apple capital of the world.  When she was in the second grade her family began spending the winters in Palm Springs, California and the summers in Washington because her mother had contracted Tuberculosis. She went to high school in Palm Springs where she began acting in school plays and after graduating moved to Hawaii for a short period where she worked in a dress shop. She recalled, “I was working at the International Market Place when a fellow named Morton Smith came in one day and handed me his card.  “He was an agent and also a photographer on assignment for Playboy Magazine.  I didn’t pay too much attention to him but he came back and took some snap shots of me at the counter and on a surfboard.  He told me that I should me in movies and to look him up if I ever got to Hollywood.   It was rather exciting to have somebody praise you like that.  Being a young girl, I thought, ‘It would be really nice to be in the movies.”

Susan Hart returned to Palm   Springs and got a job managing a dress shop.  With Smith’s words of encouragement and praise still in her head, she decided to take him up on his offer.  “I went to his office and said, ‘Here I am!  What am I supposed to do now?’  Within a month he sent me out on an interview for The Joey Bishop Show and I got it.  I had about four or five lines.”

Hart landed an agent named Bill Schuyler who kept her busy playing small parts on TV.  (“He was probably the best agent I ever had because he got me a lot of work.”) One of her roles was as a biker chick on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.  “I worked with Billy Mumy [of Lost in Space] who was only about ten years old but he was such a flirt,” remembers Susan with a laugh.  “He was a darling little kid with a charming personality and he was an absolute lady-killer for that age.”

Though she only played minor roles on TV, Hart was honing her craft to make the leap to features.  She screen tested at MGM but did not land a contract.  However, photos of her turned up in the film Boys Night Out (1962).  “They shot pictures of me to be the centerfold in a magazine that Tony Randall and James Garner open up,” reveals Hart.  “This really was my first part in a motion picture.  I have a towel wrapped around me and I am answering a telephone.”

In Hart’s next feature, she is not only seen but heard as well as she was cast as Robert Hutton’s leading lady in the grade-B horror film, The Slime People (1963).  When asked how she landed this role, Hart answers facetiously, “Just luck, I guess.”  Actually, Robert Hutton who also produced and directed The Slime People went to Hart’s agent and several other agents and asked if they had anybody on their rosters suitable for the role of Gwen.  “All Bill Schuyler told me about it was that it was a reading for lead in a motion picture.  At that point I still did not know the title of the film.  But I did know it was going to star Robert Hutton, whom I remember my sister Helen thought was just a fabulously handsome man.  I read for the role in the morning.  I went to lunch with a friend and when I arrived home around four o’clock I got a call from my agent telling me that I got the part.  Not only did I get a role but also my roommate, Judee Morton, was cast as my little sister.  It was incredible!  Even after I found out the title I thought this was still a pretty good opportunity.”

The Slime People was shot at KTLA Studios.  After about nine days of filming, the cast stopped getting paid and the make-up man left.  However, Hart proved to be a trouper and continued with the production.  She even did her own make-up.  Despite these working conditions, Susan does not look back on this film with any bad memories.  “Everybody connected to this was really nice.  Don Hansen was the name of the man who financed the film.  As I recall, he always wore a Fedora and owned a lot of dry cleaners.  Robert Hutton knew I didn’t have any experience doing films and he couldn’t have been nicer or more helpful.  He practically told me every move to make and taught me about hitting your mark.”

In The Slime People, nuclear testing decimates Los Angeles leaving the city enshrouded in a blanket of fog.  A small group of survivors try to make it out of the deserted metropolis while battling subterranean creatures roused from hibernation.  Robert Hutton starred as a hotshot pilot with Robert Burton as a professor and Susan Hart and Judee Morton as his daughters.  One of the films many unintentional laughs is that despite the fact that she is being terrorized and chased by the Slime People, Hart’s character Gwen keeps on her four-inch high heel shoes and never lets go of her oversize black pocketbook. “Isn’t that funny,” laughs Susan.  “I think I still have that purse around my home somewhere.  We were given something like eighteen dollars to select our own wardrobe. Judee and I went to Orbach’s and it was my decision to buy those shoes and purse.  Those heels killed my feet, which were never the same again.

“A man named Tracey Putnam played the doctor in this,” continues Hart.  “He was an actual doctor and had discovered a drug which keeps Epileptics from going into seizures.  He was a brilliant man.  His stepson, Jock Putnam, played one of the Slime People and talked his stepfather into playing one of these roles.  It was a riot to see Jock and the other actor who played the Slime People sitting on the set smoking a cigarette.  You’d see smoke pouring out of all of the orifices of these gigantic costumes.”

The ad copy for The Slime People proclaimed, “Up from the Bowels of the Earth Come …The Slime People.”  Needless to say, the film did not receive rave reviews.  It is no wonder then Hart tried to distance herself from this as much as she could.  “Now talking about The Slime People is fun,” admits Hart.  “But a few years after making it I kept thinking that The Slime People was a terrible movie to be associated with.  It was a mediocre movie and didn’t play in many theatres.  The reviews weren’t very good if it even got reviewed at all.”  To keep journalists from asking about the film, when Hart landed one of the lead roles in her fourth movie, Ride the Wild Surf (1964) it was touted as her first starring role.

On the big screen if you blinked you missed Hart’s bit in her next movie, the Bob Hope comedy A Global Affair (1964). The audience would have seen more of her in a locker room scene but she balked at doing it.  “I remember working with Barbara Bouchet and Brenda Benet on this,” says Susan.  “Brenda was a very moral girl.  When the director told us we had to strip down to our bras we both called our agents and screamed, ‘You didn’t tell us we had to take off our blouses!’  We both got dismissed from the film.  I didn’t feel that they were paying me enough money to do that.”  That same year, Hart turned up along with Nancy Sinatra and Claudia Martin as one of Pamela Tiffin’s sorority sisters in the beach film For Those Who Think Young (1964).

The movie though that put Susan Hart in the spotlight was another beach film, Ride the Wild Surf (1964), which was Columbia Pictures answer to AIP’s Beach Party.  Aficionados consider Ride the Wild Surf one of the best from the genre because of the awesome surfing footage.  Three California surfers travel to Hawaii during Christmas vacation for the yearly surfing event at WaimeaBay.  Recent college dropout Jody Wallis (Fabian) debates the life of a surf bum versus returning to school and falls for Brie, a vacationing coed (Shelley Fabares, sporting bitchin’ blonde hair) not impressed with his quitter’s attitude.  Reliable, down-to-earth Steamer (Tab Hunter) falls in love with a beautiful island girl named Lily, sweetly played by Susan Hart (“I didn’t quite look the part but I guess it worked out all right”), to the consternation of her stern and disapproving mother (Catherine McLeod).  Staid law student Chase Colton (Peter Brown) is attracted to the playful, athletic Augie Pool (Barbara Eden) who teaches him to loosen up.

Before filming officially began, Susan Hart, Peter Brown, and Jim Mitchum (who played rival surfer Eskimo) went over to Hawaii three to six weeks before the rest of the cast and crew.  Hart recalls, “The producers sent me to Hawaii to learn to ride a horse.  First they put me on a pony and then I worked my way up to a decent-size horse.  Everyday they had me out in the cane fields learning to ride.  I got pretty good.  When we finally got to film my one scene where I come riding down the beach they brought in this huge horse that Charlton Heston rode in the film Diamond Head.  They dressed me in white shark-skinned pants and they oiled the horse down pretty good to make him look beautiful.  But there was no way I could stay on the horse.  I kept sliding right off.  They ended up double space taping me on to the horse.  To get me off they actually had to peel me off of it.”

Though Ride the Wild Surf did not prove as popular as Beach Party, it was still a hit.  And with the good notices received by the cast Columbia took action. According to Hart, “I think everybody in Ride the Wild Surf was put on a six-month option.  Mike Frankovitch, who was the head of the studio at that time, always had great faith in me.  About the fifth month of my term with Columbia I went over to AIP and that is when I met Jim Nicholson.” Unbeknownst to her, Nicholson had access to the dailies of Ride the Wild Surf and that is the first time he saw Susan Hart.  “After we met that ended any pursuit I had to sign a contract with Columbia because not only was I offered a contract with AIP through Jim, but there was a bit of chemistry between the two of us.”

After signing with American International Pictures, Hart was cast in the small role of Jilda in Pajama Party (1964), starring Tommy Kirk and Annette Funicello.  This was a bit of a comedown from her much bigger role in Ride the Wild Surf.  “Once you go under contract they can put you in anything they want,” sighs Susan.  “I don’t know whose idea it was to put me in Pajama Party but I never questioned it.  I never questioned a lot of things.”  Hart doesn’t have many lines in the film but she is a standout nevertheless wiggling her curvaceous bikini-clad body, which obviously got the motors running of the surfer dudes in the movie and the teenage boys watching in drive-ins across the nation.

Also in 1964, AIP chose Susan Hart as their Hollywood Deb Star.  Interestingly, of all the Hollywood Debs that year, including Mary Ann Mobley, Brenda Benet and Claudia Martin, only Raquel Welch clawed her way to super stardom.  Hart opines, “For an actress to become a star in the sixties you had to have great determination.  However, everybody has a different story.  You may have the determination but it may not have been a lasting determination.  Or you may have had the determination but it is too difficult to follow through.  You have to give up an awful lot because something will suffer along the way.  You pick which part of your life is going to suffer.  I think Raquel Welch did have that boundless resolve and I imagine that she wanted stardom more than anything—and she got it.”

Susan Hart also with great fanfare became part of AIP’s Starburst of Youth program.  When asked to explain exactly what that was, Harts says with a laugh, “I suppose it was a great title—another Jim Nicholson creation—but I think it was primarily for the exhibitors.  I remember at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles one weekend it was filled with theatre owners from all over the nation.  It was called Starburst of Youth.  We put on a show for them.  Several of the girls were in bikinis.  We mingled and had our pictures taken with them.  It was more of a promotional gimmick than a real program.”

Back on the big screen, Hart starred in her next two features for AIP.  The fantasy film War-Gods of the Deep (1965) reunited her with her Ride the Wild Surf co-star, Tab Hunter.  (“I was so happy when I was told Tab Hunter was going to play my leading man,” exclaims Hart.)  The film was inspired by the poems “City Under the Sea” and “A Descent into the Maelstrom” by Edgar Allan Poe.  Set in the turn-of-the-century, Hart played Jill Tregellis, a young American lass who owns a converted manor house hotel on the Cornish coast of England.  In the middle of the night, she is dragged off by ancient gill-men to an underwater city called Lyonesse complete with a tyrannical ruler called The Captain (Vincent Price), his cadre of thieves and a threatening volcano.  Life in Lyonesse is eternal except for people who commit a crime and then are thrown to the gill-men.  The Captain thinks Jill is his reincarnated wife as her daffy artist friend (David Tomlinson) with his chicken Herbert and a hunky American guest at the hotel (Tab Hunter) go to her rescue.

Recalling Vincent Price, Hart remarks, “He was quiet and pretty much stayed to himself.  In private, he was pretty much as he appeared on screen in terms of his delivery and attitude.  He and Jim Nicholson got along really, really well.  We had dinner on several occasions with him.  Vincent was the consummate gentleman.”

The reviews in 1965 for War-Gods of the Deep were mixed.  Though most critics at the time found it entertaining and thought Vincent Price was excellent, the film was hampered by a weak script, unfunny comic relief by Tomlinson and that annoying chicken, and less-than-convincing performances by Hart and Hunter.

Susan rebounded from the water-logged Jules Verne-ish tale to give an amusing, well-received performance as a bikini-clad robot in Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965), a goofy take-off on the James Bond film Goldfinger co-starring Frankie Avalon and Dwayne Hickman. (“Both of them were charming and pleasant to work with.”)  Surprisingly, this spy spoof was quite entertaining and grossed $2.5 million, a smash hit for AIP standards.

Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965) was filmed on location in San   Francisco by director Norman Taurog.  The script was by Elwood Ullman and Robert Kaufman, based on a story by James Hartford.  The film stars Vincent Price as mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot (named for his wearing of gold slippers) who plans on capturing the fortunes of the world’s richest men with the aid of his invention.  As lights blink, dials wiggle, horns blow, and the machine vibrates manufactured bikini-clad robots (Patti Chandler, Salli Sachse, Deanna Lund, Luree Holmes and Marianne Gaba, among them) are produced one by one.  Hart played Goldfoot’s most prized robot, No. 11 named Diane, who is sent out to entrap playboy millionaire Todd Armstrong (Hickman) but is hampered by the bumbling of inept Secret Agent 00.5 Craig Gamble (Avalon).

Budgeted at $1.4 million dollars, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine is quite elaborate for an American International production.  According to the press notes more than $150,000 was spent on creating “a haunted palace, a pit and a pendulum, and an electronic device that manufactures a dozen beauties in bikinis.”  And if you watch closely you can spot cameos from AIP stars Annette Funicello, Deborah Walley, Harvey Lembeck, and Aron Kincaid.

The film also has an interesting pre-release history.  It was to be originally titled Dr. Goldfoot and the Sex Machine and was conceived as a musical along the lines of the Beach Party movies.  The first to go was the title, which was a bit too risqué for 1965.  The film was shot with only one musical number in place but it was excised prior to the film’s release. “That musical number was left on the cutting room floor because Sam Arkoff thought Vincent Price was too fey in it,” discloses a disappointed Hart.  “It was a fabulous production number with Price singing and dancing around the bikini machine.  The lyrics went something like ‘I have a machine.  I have a bikini machine—a most marvelous invention.’  I would love to see that footage because Vincent Price had never done anything like that before.  The whole point was that he played it campy because Dr. Goldfoot was a silly doctor.  Vincent Price just acted the role to the hilt and he was quite wonderful.”

Hart proved to be a talented comedienne and handled the pratfalls in the movie excellently.  As Diane is programmed to speak many different languages, Hart used an array of accents (including Southern, French, British, etc.). “Nobody helped me with most of these dialects,” states Susan proudly.  “I simply mimicked and learned it all on my own except for one.  AIP hired a coach for one day to help me master the Japanese dialect.  A Japanese girl went over and over the lines with me until I got the dialect down pat.”

The extra coaching paid off and Susan Hart received very good notices for her performance.  Variety, in particular, raved, “Susan Hart is very good in a role which demands several dialects, human warmth, and robot inanimity, often in rapid sequence.”  Hart credits her well-received performance to director Norman Taurog. “He had so much faith in me and he thought I was terrific,” says Hart fondly.  “Norman Taurog boosted my ego.  I don’t know if he did that with other actors but it was a great ploy.  I had so much confidence in myself because of him.  He was the type of director really made you feel that whatever you were doing, it was right.  I do not think I had anybody speak to me and assure me the way he did to make me feel completely at ease.  I was never nervous before a shot, which I usually had the tendency to be.  Norman Taurog completely calmed me down because he would say if it was not right the first time we’d just do it over again until we got it right.  Therefore, it was generally one take because he instilled a confidence in me.  I will always be grateful for that because it crossed over into many things.”

To promote the film, an hour special entitled The Wild, Weird World of Dr. Goldfoot was produced and aired in place of Shindig.  It featured Price, Hart, Tommy Kirk, Aron Kincaid as a last minute replacement for Frankie Avalon (“He backed out because his contract with AIP did not require him to do TV”) and some of the bikini girls. “They needed a half-hour fill-in for Shindig and I think Deke Hayward came up with this special on his own,” recalls Hart.  “He wrote it and it was not the same music that was cut from Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.  It was different songs written by Guy Hemric.  I sang in it with Aron Kincaid.”  The duo performs “What’s a Boy/Girl Supposed to Do” and “Lower, Lower.”  Their duets are not half bad considering the short amount of time they had to prepare for it.

After garnering much praise for Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, the red hot Hart was much in demand.  But her pregnancy and marriage to Jim Nicholson sidelined her. After the birth of her son, there was much talk of Susan Hart appearing in the Italian production Planet of the Vampires and a proposed sequel to Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine to be titled Dr. Goldfoot and the S Bombs.  For reasons she can not remember, she didn’t do the former film and the latter was re-titled Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966) and filmed in Italy by director Mario Bava with only Price reprising his role.

Very rare clip of Susan Hart on Australian Bandstand promoting Dr. Goldfoot. She comes on around the 7:30 mark.

For her next film, Susan Hart deserved better than yet another bikini role as she was cast as The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966).  Asked if she felt that the studio exploited her body, Hart responds, “When you are living something, you don’t question it.  It’s only when you look back in retrospect that maybe you think, ‘Oh gee, I should have done this.’  All I knew was that I was working as an actress—which was my intention.  When I was in my twenties I was not very introspective so I didn’t question what I was doing very much.  I was the type of person who had to be active all the time. All the roles I was offered were body-type roles.  I didn’t know how I could ever get out of that.  That always plagued my career.  I didn’t know how to get what I called a real part.  And maybe I never would have.  I was only offered roles that exploited my body.  Unfortunately, that’s only how people saw me.  I suppose that is what I projected.

“Hugh Hefner wrote me to pose for Playboy,” continues Hart.  “He was very flattering and mentioned that Stella Stevens was a Playmate and she went on to do great things.  I turned him down but at one point was I actually entertaining the thought of doing it.  But then I got a good part in something and changed my mind.  I recently read one of the letters he sent me and there is a line in there that says ‘If you ever change your mind, please let me know.’  I wonder if it is too late?”

The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini was originally titled Bikini Party in a Haunted House and was not supposed to feature Suan Hart.  Tommy Kirk and Deborah Walley topped a cast that included Aron Kincaid, Quinn O’Hara, Nancy Sinatra, Claudia Martin, Piccola Pupa, Bobbi Shaw, Ed Garner, Luree Holmes and veterans Basil Rathbone, Patsy Kelly and Jesse White.  Kirk and Walley must spend the night in a haunted house in order to collect their inheritance, hidden somewhere in the creepy mansion complete with a chamber of horrors, an escaped gorilla, surfer boys and bikini girls and Eric Von Zipper with his biker gang.  The weak film was deemed unreleaseable by AIP and a quick fix was needed.   “Jim came up with the idea of having a ghost in the invisible bikini,” reveals Susan.  “I got the part about three days before they began shooting it.  I was a very quick study.”

Boris Karloff and Hart were added to the cast to play, respectively, millionaire Hiram Stokely and his sexy blonde wife Cecily.  The recently deceased Hiram must perform a good deed to get into heaven and as a bonus is promised eternal youth.  Cecily, who died as a young woman, is sent down to Earth to make sure Hiram’s rightful heirs inherit his money.  Their scenes together were tacked on to the beginning and the end of the film.

Hart was wasted in The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini and unfortunately this was her last feature.  A number of things contributed to that including the caring of her son and the problems that arose between Jim Nicholson and Sam Arkoff. “At first, Sam Arkoff was great fun to be around because he had a wonderful sense of humor.  We ended up traveling to foreign countries quite a bit together.  AIP always had co-productions filming in Germany, Spain and especially England.  We spent a lot of time abroad with him and his wife, Hilda.  Of course, he and Jim were equal partners at that point so it was a very good time. When Jim had to give up shares of his stock [to his wife in a divorce settlement] Sam became the majority stockholder and that’s when things began to become strained.

“It was so difficult to continue acting under those circumstances,” continues Susan.  “It was too complicated for me to work.  I was happily married and I had had my son Jimmy. I thought that when Jimmy got a little bit older I’d go back to acting.  That was always in the back of my mind.  I’d say, ‘Once Jimmy is in the first grade I’ll go back to work.’ But between caring for him and trying to move on—I always wanted to be a singer—I thought I’d try focusing on that instead of acting.  I did cut several songs for MGM and went on the road to promote them.”

Hart ‘s final acting role was in “The Night of the Fugitives” (11/8/68) on TV’s The Wild Wild West.  Hart (resembling and sounding a lot like actress Yvonne Craig) played Rhoda the glamorous double-crossing owner of the Diamond Horseshoe Saloon (“When a girl, um, does a favor she should get a favor–like they always say quid pro quo.”) who is searching along with everybody else for bookkeeper Norbert Plank’s syndicate records.  But this episode is more notorious for the almost fatal head injury suffered by series star Robert Conrad while doing one of his own stunts on a landing above a saloon.

Though Susan Hart left AIP, Jim Nicholson continued with the company until 1972 when he signed a deal with 20^th Century-Fox.  He was the executive producer of The Legend of Hell House (1973) and was readying Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974) for production when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  He passed away on December 10, 1972 before The Legend of Hell House was released.

As for her feelings regarding Jim Nicholson’s contribution to AIP, Hart proudly comments, “He was the creative genius and essence behind American International Pictures.  Jim was the show and Sam was the business.  Jim started every trend AIP ever had from the biker pictures to the Poe pictures to the beach pictures to the blaxpoitation pictures.”

Sam Arkoff held on to the company until 1979.  He sold it to Filmways, which was bought by Orion.  Today MGM-UA holds the rights to all of the AIP movies except the forty-two films in the limited partnership that Nicholson and Arkoff formed during the fifties.  These films were divided up between Arkoff, Susan Hart and Nicholson’s daughters.  Through a court decision, Hart won the rights to some of the more popular titles including I Was a Teenage Werewolf, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, Invasion of the Saucer Men and It Conquered the World.

Today, the still beautiful Susan Hart resides year-round in Palm Springs and was just awarded a “Star” on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars.  It is a fitting tribute to this talented and popular actress who never got the chance to progress beyond her bikini roles.

For fans of Italian crime movies from the 1960s and 1970s, I want to tout critic/film historian Roberto Curti’s new book Italian Crime Filmography, 1968-1980 from McFarland and Co. I have not read it yet but Roberto is an expert on Italian cinema and graciously contributed some insights on Pamela Tiffin’s career in Italy for my hopefully upcoming book tentatively titled Runaway Actress: Pamela Tiffin from Hollywood to Rome, 1961-1974.

Below is the publisher’s promotion blurb about Roberto’s book:

In 1970s Italy, after the decline of the Spaghetti Western, crime films became the most popular, profitable and controversial genre. In a country plagued with violence, political tensions and armed struggle, these films managed to capture the anxiety and anger of the times in their tales of tough cops, ruthless criminals and urban paranoia. Recent years have seen renewed critical interest in the genre, thanks in part to such illustrious fans as Quentin Tarantino.

This book examines all of the 220+ crime films produced in Italy between 1968 and 1980, the period when the genre first appeared and grew to its peak. Entries include a complete cast and crew list, home video releases, a plot summary and the author’s own analysis. Excerpts from a variety of sources are included: academic texts, contemporary reviews, and interviews with filmmakers, scriptwriters and actors. There are many onset stills and film posters.

Trailers for The Day of the Owl one of the films profiled with my favorite Italian actor, Franco Nero:

Click here to read TV historian’s interesting interview with the nurses from the 1960s hit TV show Ben Casey starring Vince Edwards.

One nurse that Stephen missed was starlet Thordis Brandt. Not surprising since she came onto the show in its almost last season and quickly opted for acting though she kept nursing on the side. Below is an excerpt from my interview with her from my book Glamour Girls of Sixties Hollywood.

A strikingly beautiful statuesque blonde, Nordic beauty Thordis Brandt possessed acting talent but could never break free from larger-than-life Glamazon roles and was usually relegated to decorative supporting roles in spy spoofs and comedies.

Thordis Brandt was born in Germany and grew up in British Columbia, Canada.  After completing her degree in nursing, the
statuesque blonde relocated to Santa Monica with two classmates.  When her friends returned home, she began working at the UCLA Hospital where one of her patients was actor/director Jackie Cooper who was working on the hit series Ben Casey.  He hired her to be a consultant on Ben Casey, which led to an acting career as well.

While at UCLA I was assigned to be the private duty nurse for Jackie Cooper.  He was the sweetest man alive on this Earth.  He said to me once he recovered that I was going to go with him to Columbia Studios to work as a nurse advisor on Ben Casey.  I began working there and one day an actress who played a nurse didn’t show up.  They asked me to take her place.  I had lines to speak and got my Screen Actors Guild card from this.  I loved acting so much.  I still worked as a nurse to pay my bills but began taking acting classes on the Columbia lot and I also studied with the great Jeff Corey.

Brandt left Ben Casey after only one year as it led to a few other TV roles including Hogan’s Heroes, Run for Your Life and The Fugitive.  Bit roles in films followed starting with Nevada Smith (1966), The Oscar (1966), Way…Way Out (1966), the Elvis film Spinout (1966), and The Swinger (1966).  Her first role of note was that of spy Fred Johnson, a man disguised as a seductive buxom woman, in the spy spoof The Last of the Secret Agents? (1966) but her lines were dubbed by a male actor.

Television finally connected Brandt’s voluptuous body to her speaking voice beginning with five appearances on The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. plus bigger roles on I Spy, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Green Hornet where she began a romantic relationship with Bruce Lee.

I walked into the interview [for the Green Hornet] and the casting director asked me if I could breathe.  I replied, ‘Of course, I can.”  He said, ‘Okay, you’ve got the part.’  I played an older woman who was supposed to be a European actress about 35 years old and the girlfriend of Victor Jory.  I had long blonde hair but they tucked it in and put this God-awful wig on me so I would look older. My agent warned me that I was Van Williams’ type.  I walked onto the set and Van who was so handsome came over to say hello.  I saw Bruce Lee standing off very shyly in the shadows.  I walked over and introduced myself because I was really attracted to him.  He told me I looked like a goddess.  I was dumbstruck because Bruce was absolutely gorgeous!

Bruce Lee was very quiet and shy but could also be very aggressive if he wanted to be.  He was a show-off and always wanted to flaunt his body.  He had a magnetism that was indescribable.  We began dating but he was married, which I didn’t know.  Of course he didn’t tell me—why ruin a good thing—but when I found out I was heartbroken and stopped seeing him.  Apparently, he and his wife had an ‘understanding.’

Soon after came Thordis Brandt’s most memorable movie. She was cast as one of the Fabulous Face Amazons plotting to take over the world despite opposition from James Coburn’s debonair agent Derek Flint in In Like Flint (1967).  With her blonde tresses hidden under a powder blue cap with matching uniform it is difficult to distinguish Thordis from the rest of the gals.  Brandt’s Amazon is the one who discovers that their brainwashing technique hasn’t been working on Flint’s female assistants and tips off her boss Jean Hale who orders Brandt to freeze the girls in the crynology lab.  Later, when the bad girls turn good, she and Amazon Inga Neislen lead the ladies in Operation Smooch.  That same year the Nordic beauty was voted a Hollywood Deb Star and vied for its Star of Tomorrow award.  She lost to Swedish bombshell, Sivi Aberg.

Brandt ended the 1960s with minor roles as a police clerk in the Jim Brown heist flick The Split (1968); a fashion model in Live a Little, Love a Little (1968) starring Elvis Presley; Funny Girl (1968) as one of the stunning Ziegfeld Girls; and as a Las Vegas cocktail waitress in Where’s It At? (1969). Her final movie in the decade offered the chance to strut her stuff in a meaty role as Tasha a beautiful psychic who joins a team investigating a series of bizarre murders linked to a witch’s coven in the swamps of Louisiana in the low-budget horror film The Witchmaker (1969).

Check out her web site www.thordisbrandt.com

Arguabley the 1960s #1 glamour girl Raquel Welch is still going strong an dlooking good though obviously she has been under the knife to keep that skin so wrinkle free for a 76 year old. Click here to read about her new role in the Lifetime TV-movie House of Versace.

Another gormer 1960s glamour girl (and Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema cover girl) Celeste Yarnall who turned heads at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival and was signed on the spot to play a female Tarzan named Eve (1968) has turned producer. The documentary she was involved in Femme: Women Healing the World will be screening in New York to get Academy Award consideration on Wednessay October 9. Click here for more information. See trailer below.

A few years ago I was thinking of doing the second wave to my book Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969. I conducted a really good interview with actor John Philbin, but then lost steam in the project before abandoning it. Below is an edited version of my interview with him.

“Stay loose, Howlie” was just one of the many slang expressions expertly uttered by actor John Philbin in the role of surfer and board shaper Turtle in North Shore.  Though his resume includes over thirty movies including Children of the Corn (1984); The Return of the Living Dead (1985) playing the dorky Chuck complete with the Miami Vice wannabe wardrobe: and Tombstone (1993), the talented Philbin is best known to audiences worldwide for his appearances in the Hollywood surf movies North Shore (1987) and Point Break (1991).  North Shore in particular has become part of the lexicon of surfing movies so most fans have it in their film library and have watched it over and over.  Almost twenty years later, John Philbin still gets recognized as Turtle. He says, “Sometimes I think, ‘Wow, how could that guy have recognized me when I don’t look anything like that?’  Then I realize—it’s because they just saw the movie the night before!”

An avid surfer since he was a child, the California native gave the sport up for a period of time during the eighties when his love of acting took hold of him. While living in Los Angeles and traveling to locations around the country for film projects there was just no time for the aspiring newcomer to surf. Then in 1987, a script for North Shore passed the desk of his agent who asked John if he knew how to surf. The answer was a resounding yes, but Philbin had to audition seven times to convince director Randal Kleiser that he could morph from a dark-haired actor with a lithe Southern California accent into the blonde, bushy-haired, surf-slang speaking Turtle.

     North Shore starred Matt Adler as Rick, the winner of a wave pool surfing contest in his home state of Arizona who uses his prize money to come to Hawaii to surf the big waves of the North Shore. After being ripped off by some of the local surfers, the naive Rick is befriended by surfer and board sander Turtle who feels sorry for the “Barney.” Their friendship turns to jealousy when Rick insinuates himself with Turtle’s employer Chandler, “a soul surfer,” played by Gregory Harrison who takes Rick under his wing and teaches him the fundamentals of surfing. Turtle is the film’s odd man out as Rick is forever leaving him to cozy up with his lovely island girl Kiani or to go surfing with Chandler. Philbin gives an excellent performance and never has surfer-speak sounded so alien and so believable. Turtle is no stereotypical Hollywood dumb wave rider, but more of a sympathetic lost soul who has secretly shaped his own surfboard but lacks the confidence to show anyone.

The movie was a chance of a lifetime for Philbin to act and surf on film and to work with legends Gerry Lopez and Laird Hamilton. John would get the chance to surf on film once again in the hit movie Point Break (1991) starring Keanu Reeves as a rookie FBI agent who is assigned to penetrate the Southern California surfing community to uncover a gang of surfers who have been robbing banks across LA county. Philbin played the intense, distrusting Nathaniel one of the surfing, skydiving, and bank-robbing followers of Patrick Swayze’s mystical Bodhi.

Though Point Break, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, was one of the year’s top moneymakers, it did not do much for Philbin’s career. He took a respite from acting when he began teaching surfing in the late nineties receiving endorsements from some of the top surfers including Laird Hamilton who remarked, “John knows the ocean, and that’s what it is all about.” His clientele really picked up after he was hired by director John Stockwell to evaluate the surfing abilities of the prospective actresses up for the female lead in Blue Crush. Kate Bosworth got the part and trained with John before going to Hawaii for filming.

In 2003 while in Hawaii with his surfing clients, Philbin’s acting hiatus came to an end when he was cast as the drug-dealing heavy in the unsold TV pilot entitled The Break from the team that worked on Blue Crush—producer Brian Grazer and director John Stockwell. This revitalized his acting career and he has gone on to appear as surfers in the short films Riptide (2006), Vida (2011), and Hipster (2012), and is scheduled to play the lead as an alcoholic surfer opposite Joan Jett in Updateable John scheduled for release in 2014.

Sixties Cinema: When did you begin surfing?

John Philbin: My family moved to Palos Verdes when I was a kid and that’s where I started surfing. I first saw surfing in Carmel Valley when I was a little kid. I watched guys riding waves diagonally on long boards. Even though I was just a child, I thought, ‘Wow, they’re riding diagonally and getting a better ride.’ But I didn’t surf for another five years after we had moved.

SC: How did the acting bug grab you?

JP: I went to the University of California at Santa Barbara. I was on the surf team while I was there majoring in Economics. But then I decided that I wanted to become an actor, so I transferred to USC into the Bachelor of Fine Arts program. I thought if I was going to be an actor that I should move to Los Angeles since I had never lived in a city before. I graduated in three years and by that time I had become completely citified—even stopped surfing for about six years because I was working as an actor.  I didn’t start surfing again until I got a part in the North Shore.

SC: Do you have any quick words about your cult horror movies Children of the Corn, based on the Stephen King short story, or The Return of the Living Dead?

JP: Children of the Corn was the first movie I ever did. This is how I got my SAG card. I was thrilled to work with Linda Hamilton and Peter Horton. I didn’t know anything and here I was out in the cornfields of Sioux City. It was the eighties so I was wearing my shirt over my shoulder like in Flashdance. My character kills himself. It was fun! I didn’t have a clue to what was going on and I just had this dumb glazed look. It worked out just fine and did really okay at the box office. It spawned a bunch of sequels.

Return of the Living Dead was a really funny spoof on a horror genre film. It was so much fun working on this. I love Zombie movies!  It too made a lot of money and it too launched sequels. But the North Shore that is set up like ‘I’ll be back’ and is a cult classic didn’t.

SC: You played varied roles prior to North Shore so what was it about Turtle that made you want to play it so intensely?

JP: I never had read a surf script until my agent sent me a copy of the North Shore screenplay to read. I thought here’s a guy that surfs Pipeline, is totally cool, lives on the North Shore, and I would give anything to be in this picture. Surfing is my favorite thing to do and acting was my other favorite thing to do at that time. Here was an opportunity to work as an actor and go surfing. I just thought this would be a dream come true job.

SC: You weren’t immediately cast. Why do you think they didn’t see you were perfect for the right away?

JP: First off, I don’t have blonde hair. I had been in the Mid-West working as an actor. It was very difficult for me to convince them that I understood Hawaii since I had been going there for a long time and more importantly that I understood surfing. The producers were used to looking at Hollywood images of what surfing is, which is not accurate usually. When they see a real surfer who is trying to explain it to them, they don’t know what the reality of surfing is. I really had to convince them that what I could bring to the role is far beyond what they ever could imagine or come up without using a real surfer. I auditioned for this movie seven times! I kept telling them you have to see me again and that I can play this part. Finally, they offered it to me.

SC: Is it true the part of Turtle was based on a real surfer?

JP: After getting the part I went over to Hawaii a little bit early and was met at the airport by a PA named Brian King who was the person that my character was based on. I found that out about ten minutes after meeting him. This is the guy I was actually playing. He was an artist and a surfer. Brian didn’t get the part because the studio wouldn’t approve him. That happens all the time in Hollywood. He helped them research the movie and they based Turtle on him. Since he didn’t get the role they asked him if he wanted to work on the film. After speaking with Brian for awhile, I said, ‘Dude, will you live with me and just talk to me and be my friend and help me with this part?’ He said sure so instead of staying at the hotel with the cast and SCew, I rented a house at Pipeline near a park on the North Shore in front of the best surf in the world.

SC: In what way did Brian King help you?

JP: Brian King stayed with me and we basically went over that script word for word. He invented so many of the surf jargon used like “Barney,’ ‘Not’ and that long sentence at the end of the movie. We lived together. He fed me lines. He explained things to me. Brian really handed it to me. He was cool, funky, and had a lot of soul. I tried to get as much of that as I could into the character. When I wasn’t with him, I’d be hanging out at the park with other Hawaiians or out surfing. I only had to work three days a week. All the other time I got to surf Pipeline and eat off the trailer. It was really so much fun.

SC: In the DVD interview, you explained that you felt like the odd man out as Matt Adler was either working with Nia Peeples or Gregory Harrison.  The character of Turtle is also in a way the odd man out in the movie.

JP: Life kind of paralleled my role in the movie in a sense. I didn’t really realize it at the time but when I look back on it even in my real life I am so similar to the character and the way that he is kind of outside of it. That’s why I think that sometimes those actions come together and you get something that works.

SC: You didn’t get to surf much in North Shore as Turtle was either working as the sanding hut or watching from the beach.

JP: I know he only caught one wave! Bummer!

SC: Since neither surfers Gerry Lopez or Laird Hamilton were professional actors did either of them have any problems playing their roles?

JP: No. Gerry Lopez had acted before in Big Wednesday. He’s a natural and is like a guru.  Gerry and Laird are not normal human beings.  They are super athletes and beyond that.  They transcend a lot of things.  Laird could do anything he wanted to do.  He played his role well and is so physically imposing. Both of them were perfectly cast in those roles.  They were a pleasure to watch and be around.  They still are.

SC: You have mentioned in the past that Gregory Harrison intimidated you.  Why was that?

JP: He was older. He had a beard. He was playing this Chandler person who was a grumpy and Skanky guy.  I was just all stoked to be over there.  I don’t know but I just allowed myself to look at him in awe because that’s how my character looked at him.  Chandler intimidated Turtle so I allowed myself to be intimidated by Gregory Harrison to try to understand the sentiment behind that type of relationship.

SC: Did you eventually overcome this feeling of awe?

JP: Yes, Gregory Harrison is great! He is a simple, clean, pure man and I just respect him. He has a nice family and a wonderful place up in Oregon where he surfs in really cold water with sharks. He is just a rugged, hearty, macho, hard working guy, from Catalina, who’s really made an incredible life for himself and his family.

SC: How did you get along with the film’s star, Matt Adler?

JP: I love Matt Adler, man, but I felt so sorry for him. He had a hard job on this, he really did.  I only had to work three days a week. That guy was in the water all day long working. I had not known Matt Adler previous to making the movie and met him in Hawaii for the first time. We became best friends since he is a great guy. I never laughed so hard in my life while shooting a film. Making a really good friend like that doesn’t happen often working in movies. After doing North Shore, we started traveling around the world. We had a great time surfing Fiji, Bali, Indonesia, and Mexico together.

SC: Why do you think North Shore has developed such a cult following?

JP: I don’t know for sure what makes a movie a cult film but for me it is a series of beautiful accidents. I don’t think a director sets out to make a cult film—they try to make the best movie they can to appeal to the broadest audience possible. That’s mass media entertainment. In my opinion, we got lucky with North Shore and hit a cult target—surfers. Surfing is a cult sport. The percentage of people that really surf is smaller than the percentage of people who have pure green eyes. It is an incredibly tiny portion of the population. This movie reaches those people. Anyone who really gets into the film has to go to Hawaii. It’s a dream-come-true to go and surf the north shore of Oahu.

It’s ironic. Two of my earlier movies Children of the Corn and Return of the Living Dead spawned a bunch of sequels. But North Shore, which was set up like ‘I’ll be back’ and is a cult classic, didn’t.

SC: What attracted you to the part of Nathaniel in Point Break?

JP: I auditioned for the movie when it was at a different studio with Ridley Scott directing. I wanted to play Bodhi. I tested for it but didn’t get it. I certainly wasn’t a big enough star.  I think they went with Jeff Bridges, but then the film went into turnaround. That happens all the time with movies.

SC: Was the role of Nathaniel yours still after it changed studios?

JP: At first I wasn’t sure. My agent called and told me they wanted to meet with me. I was almost nervous because I wanted this so badly and I had it but it disappeared. Now I was making a TV-movie called Dillinger in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I was covered with tattoos and my skin was pale. My character was part of the gang robbing banks. I decided that I was going to fly into LA and tell Kathryn Bigelow the honest truth. I took with me pictures of myself skydiving and surfing Pipeline. I walked into her office and said, ‘Congratulations, this is a great movie and you’re a wonderful director. I think I was born to play Nathaniel. Here’s a picture of me surfing. Here’s a picture of me jumping out of an airplane. I’m robbing banks right now in a movie I’m making. I would love to be in this film.’ She said, ‘Oh, you’re in it. You don’t even have to read. Thanks for coming in.’ I was so excited because Nathaniel was a really serious gnarly character who’s a heavy and very different from Turtle.

SC: That’s funny you said that because you were quoted a few years ago as saying that you felt like a “glorified extra” in this film.  Why?

JP: I know—I really shouldn’t have said that. Point Break was a great opportunity and a really fantastic job. At the time that I got that part I was a spoiled actor. I was doing more principal roles elsewhere, but still happy to get the role of Nathaniel and stoked to work with those people. It was another dream-come-true job, but if you notice I’m wearing a mask most of the time. We’re standing in the background and we’re literally supportive players. I just wanted it to be more. I think I had an ego problem at the time and didn’t understand my true role and how lucky I was to be there.

SC: So overall you were not disappointed with playing Nathaniel?

JP: No! If I look at the work, it was some of my best and I worked hard—six days a week on an insanely rigid diet. We worked out and we surfed constantly. We did a lot of tow in surfing with Brian Keaulana and Terry Ahui. I surfed Pipeline even though it didn’t end up in the movie. I really played the part. My character was dark and angry.

SC: What was the motivation behind the role of Nathaniel?  He was not Turtle.

JP: No, he wasn’t. In the original script he was resentful that Johnny Dallas was accepted into our group. He was against it from the beginning. He was very suspicious, bitter and angry and I think that bled into my personality at the time. I just became really hard and just a tough asshole—just like my character. That happens with acting. It’s just the nature of the beast. If someone interviewed me about this as I was doing it I would have been arrogant and cocky and probably would have given some kind of answer other than ‘this is just so much fun.’

SC: Your character’s distrust of Johnny Utah does not come off as forcefully as you described above. Were scenes cut from the final print?

JP: They cut the scenes from the original screenplay! There were scenes with Nathaniel having conversations with Bodhi telling him not to trust Utah. In one scene Nathaniel actually commits suicide while skydiving as protest for the inclusion of this guy who I believe is going to destroy everything we’ve worked for. I think I just retained all this for the script that was actually shot.

The director came up to us and said, ‘Hey, there are too many actors in this movie. We have to focus on three people.’ They cut lines for Bill Paxton, Sam Elliot, and Stephen Lang into nothing. They were supporting players and they weren’t used to that. You only get a tip of the iceberg of what they prepared for. As actors they are attached to that material and it does serve the piece. I think I’ve learned that in time. But a lot of actors—and I was myself—are egotistical and self-important. You think your role and your lines are the most important thing in the film. You take offense when someone orders you to ‘Don’t say anything and go sit down and we’ll call you when we want you to run by.’  The truth be told that you are lucky to get the chance to run by.

SC: Was the cast fun to work with?

JP: I love Keanu Reeves—he’s great. I’d work out everyday at the gym with him. James LeGros was my buddy and we got to hang out and surf.  I got to skydive.  It was awesome!

It was fantastic to work with Patrick Swayze who was a workhorse. It was interesting what happened to him on this movie. Careers go in cycles and he had been a movie star with Dirty Dancing, but his films after that did not do so well. Point Break was sort of a comeback for him. Six months after principal photography wrapped on Point Break, Ghost was released with him and Demi Moore. That made Patrick a hot movie star again. Suddenly, they have Point Break in the can with Patrick Swayze who was in a down cycle playing a weird character and now he is a big movie star again. They had to re-shoot scenes and I think his salary went up about ten times. He was getting around $60,000 to $80,000 a day.

SC: Did they add new scenes for Patrick Swayze because his celebrity factor had risen due to Ghost?

JP: No, there were no new scenes added. They didn’t have time to completely shoot some of the fight scenes because Patrick was committed to do a film in India [City of Joy] and Keanu was doing that film with River Phoenix [My Own Private Idaho]. When we came back, Keanu and I had different hair. Re-shoots happen often on films.

SC: What was wild man Gary Busey like to work with?

JP: Gary Busey was around all of the time. He was not as wild as his reputation leads one to believe. He was actually very professional and always on time. He had been in a bad motorcycle accident and he was healing from that. A guru accompanied him and he was focused on being spiritual and meditating to get healthy again. Gary was just grateful to be alive and that is a good time to get an actor. Grateful—that’s when you want’em!

SC: Did you do you own surfing stunts in this?

JP: Yes.  I didn’t need a surfing double—and haven’t needed a surfing double yet.  But you never know.

SC: Did Kathryn Bigelow have much surfing knowledge?

JP: By the end of if she did. She knew what she liked. Kathryn is a real visual director and great with action. She did a lot of research and we all did a lot of rehearsing. She did such a good job with the action in this movie and the same with the chases.

SC: Yes, those skydiving scenes were intense. Did you actually learn to skydive?

JP: We really did go skydiving a couple of times. Keanu, James Le Gros, and I would go up to Patrick’s place on the weekends and go skydiving. Patrick had hundreds of jumps under his belt, but then the producer found out what we were doing. They told us to cease and desist. It was illegal for us to go up in a private plane and jump because they are not insured. Actors are not allowed to take these kind of risks during filming because if we got hurt it could delay or close down production.

But Patrick being a movie star and a fearless guy just kept jumping. He got so good by the end of the film they took a second unit camera SCew up there and filmed him actually doing those stunts and jumping out of the plane—whereas the rest of us all had doubles.  Even so I think those skydiving scenes look fantastic and are so great!

SC: In your opinion which movie captured the surfers’ world best, North Shore or Point Break?

JP: North Shore, without a doubt! Point Break is a buddy-cop movie with a villain who is the leader of this drug dealing, bank robbing gang who happen to surf. But you don’t really get into the real surfing lifestyle. We were adrenaline junkies and criminals. We’re bank robbers, man! They just put this cops and robbers story in a surfing milieu and got some beautiful visuals out of it. North Shore is about surfing. It’s a hero’s journey through a sports field and that sport is surfing. You really learn a lot about it.

SC: Moving inland, any memories of the western Tombstone?

JP: I played one of the cowboys—talk about a gloried extra! By that time I was so glad to be there. We worked on that for three months in Tucson, Arizona. That was the best cast I ever worked with in my life. I just went around and got all the actors’ autographs on a call sheet—Bill Paxton, Sam Elliott, Val Kilmer, Kurt Russell, Robert Patrick Burke, Stephen Lang, Jason Priestley, John Corbin. I was hanging out with these guys all day long. We were riding horses and shooting guns in about 115 degrees feeling wooly. They were great! If we didn’t have to work we’d play golf. They fired the director [Kevin Jarre], we all took a break. They replaced him [with George P. Cosmatos] and we came back to work. It was making a piece of history and it was really, really fun.

SC: Why did you stop acting in the late nineties?

JP: I couldn’t get the jobs I wanted, which frustrated me. I took too many vacations to get away—run away—from Hollywood.  But that only hurt my career.

SC: You recently started acting again with a vengeance and seem to have the market cornered on older surfers. Is surfing on film making a comeback?

JP: I don’t know. It comes in cycles and it comes in waves. Blue Crush kind of hit the peak of this thing. When I taught Kate Bosworth how to surf out in Malibu it was just her and me out in the water. I never saw another surf instructor. Today there had to be close to one hundred kids in the water and six surf instructors in the same spot where I taught Kate. It’s a boom like I have never seen.

John Philbin is still teaching the tricks of catching a wave to all types of surfer wannabes at Malibu and he has faith that one day one of Brian Glazer’s surfing projects will make it as a TV series.  If it does, John proclaims, “I intend to be a living participant!”

Below is the rare extended trailer for the hit movie Harper (1966) starring Paul Newman as the hardboiled down-on-his-luck private detective Lew Harper searching for a missing industralist and Pamela Tiffin standing out amongst the female cast as the missing man’s daughter Miranda a kitten in heat:

See below for clips of Chris Noel in dark wig in her recurring role of Marilyn, Michael Callan’s sexy girlfriend, on the 1960s sitcom Occasional Wife (1966-67). To get ahead at the baby food company he works at, Callan’s swinging bachelor Peter has his upstairs neighbor Greta (Patricia Harty) pretend to be his wife when needed causing all sorts of complications.

Just out on Blu-Ray is God’s Little Acre (1958) featuring Tina Louise in her Golden Globe Award winning performance as the seductive farm nymph Griselda. Click here to read a rave review and see below for the trailer:

I recently returned from a trip to Rome and the Amalfi Coast, but before I went I purposely watched Gidget Goes to Rome (1963) with Cindy Carol to get a feel for what I was in store for in the Eternal City. This was the third in the series that began with Sandra Dee in Gidget (1959) followed by Deborah Walley in Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961). Walley should have starred in Rome, but her pregnancy prevented her from taking the role. For me that was a good thing because I found her to be the most whiny and annoying of the bunch. No one can match the sweet vulnerability Sandra Dee first brought to the role, but Cindy Carol makes a good effort and is quite likable.

All three movies co-star handsome clean-cut James Darren as Moondoggie. He charming in all three and looks good in everything from swim trunks to butt hugging chinos to suits! that he wears touring in Italy. A really good actor that deserved meatier roles though I  really like him in these Gidget movies and the two he did with Pamela Tiffin in 1964 – For Those Who Think Young and The Lively Set.

Cindy Carol was appearing as a regular on The New Loretta Young Show under her real name of Carol Sydes when she got the call that she beat out many other starlets including Elvis co-star Laurel Goodwin to be the new Gidget. She had to be released from the TV series (it was cancelled shortly after) and had to sign a contract with Columbia Pictures, which stipulated a name change hence Cindy Carol. Regarding his casting choice, producer Jerry Bresler remarked in Photoplay, “Cindy isn’t the typical kind of beauty, is she?  But she is exactly what Gidget is supposed to be—a girl every girl loves to have as a friend, a girl every boy loves to be with.”

In Gidget Goes to Rome (1963), the surfing sweetie never touches a surf board as she and her friends (wise-cracking Trudi Ames and man-hungry Noreen Corcoran of Bachelor Father fame) leave the sunny shores of Southern California for a vacation in Rome with her boyfriend Jeff/Moondoggie (James Darren) and two college buddies (joker Joby Baker and studious Peter Brooks).  Of course romantic complications quickly ensue as Gidget falls for older suave journalist Paolo Cellini (Cesar Danova) unaware that he is married (to a stunning Lisa Gastoni and has a brood of bratty kids) and secretly befriended Gidget as a favor to her father to make sure she keeps out of trouble. Meanwhile Jeff becomes infatuated with tour guide Daniela Serrini (Danielle de Metz).  The two then try to make each other jealous before taking a more mature approach and allow each other to see other people. You know how that will turn out. Of course, by the end of the film, after the viewer is treated to some spectacular shots of Rome, Gidget and Moondoggie are reunited and head home together but a bit sadder as both their hearts were broken by their Italian loves.

Even though there is no surfing in Gidget Goes to Rome (except for some brief shots on the beach at the beginning) I really like this movie. Carol and Darren have nice chemistry and it is refreshing that the 3rd wheels in their relationships are not villains but likable people. Joby Baker and Trudi Ames deliver their wisecracks as pros. Funniest bits are when Gidget gets mistaken for a high fashion model and is glammed up before being sent down the runway causing a melee and every time Jessie Royce Landis appears on screen as Baker’s eccentric Aunt who has the hots for Moondoggie. Who doesn’t!?! Her come-ons are quite amusing and a nice surprise for a Gidget movie, as is the adult manner in which it handles Gidget’s discovery of Paolo’s marriage and Daniela’s rejection of Moondoggie.

Click here to read my friend Stephen Bowie’s gret new Blog about casting director Marion Dougherty.

One of my favorite parts of interviewing actors is asking them about roles that they turned down or were up for that they didn’t get.   Some rumors reportedly in print were debunked from my asking. For instance, book after book about Bonnie and Clyde reports that Carol Lynley was a top contender for the role. If she was, it was news to Carol. She told me she never spoke to Warren Beatty about the part nor did she ever see a script. Doing research for my book Dueling Harlows, I can across a small item from about 1967 where Beatty is quoted that he saw Carol in Harlow and thought she had the perfect thirties look for Bonnie. That one statement seems to have catapulted Carol to frontrunner status for the part…in the mind of the press only.

Here are some interesting tidbits.

Roman Polanski cast Deanna Lund right on the spot to play Rosemary’s ill-fated neighbor in Rosemary’s Baby. She was elated even though she had just signed with Irwin Allen to play intergalactic castaway Valerie Scott in TV’s Land of the Giants. Polanski promised that her scenes would be completed in time for her to begin the series. Allen balked and made such a big fuss over it the actress had to sheepishly turn it down to Polanski’s ire. Victoria Vetri stepped in for her.

Tina Louise turned down a starring role opposite Cary Grant in Operation Petticoat because she didn’t like the boob jokes. Joan O’Brien happily took her place and the screenplay was Oscar nominated boob jokes and all.

A number of my favorite 60s starlets were on producer Larry Turman’s short list to play Mrs. Robinson’s daughter Elaine in The Graduate including Sue Lyon, Yvette Mimieux, Carol Lynley and Pamela Tiffin. Alas he went with Katherine Ross never a favorite of mine.

Lisa Seagram was all set to star opposite Stephen Boyd in Fantastic Voyage at Fox when the part was stolen out from under her by Raquel Welch. She wouldn’t share details.

Catherine Denueve was first choice to star opposite James Coburn in In Like Flint but director Gordon Douglas had his mind set on American starlet Jean Hale. After jumping through hoops for Fox head Richard Zanuck, Hale landed the role and a contract with the studio.

Sharon Tate squeaked through to land the role of ill-fated Jennifer in Valley of the Dolls over Karen Jensen after both Raquel Welch and Jean Hale turned it down.

AIP wanted Fabian for Beach Party but he was under contract to Fox and the studio would not lend him out. Bobby Vinton campaigned vigorously for the part, but AIP chose Frankie Avalon instead. Wise move.

Deborah Walley was set to reprise her role as Gidget in Gidget Goes to Rome but she got knocked up. Laurel Goodwin, who had just co-starred with Elvis in Girls! Girls! Girls!, got the part, lost the part, got the part again, and finally lost it for good (at 5’7″ she was deemed too tall). TV actress Carol Sydes was cast instead and was re-christened Cindy Carol.

Sad to hear that Haji, co-star of one of my favorite movies of the sixties Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, passed away recently. I really liked her in this movie, but had an unpleasant dealing with her about 15 years ago. I contacted her through her web site to ask if I could interview her for my book Drive-in Dream Girls. I sent her a letter and she called me where she reamed me out for wanting to take advantage of her to make money off her name. She demanded $500 for an interview. I kindly declined.

She was not the first starlet I encountered who wanted some dough. One made me sign an agreement stating that if I paid anyone for an interview she would be compensated for the same. Another too demanded a fee, which I passed on. I could understand where these ladies were coming from, but it was not like I was doing a fancy coffee table book for Random House. I was writing an interview book for a small press and let’s be honest the interest in my 1960s starlet interview books is very niche.

One was very sweet when I interviewed her for my book and we stayed in touch. When she told me she would be doing an autograph convention just when my book would be out and I asked if I could sit with her to sell some books, she went off on me excusing me of trying to take advantage of her. Goodbye to you!

The saddest encounter for me was with an actress from my book Glamour Girls of Sixties Hollywood. She called me from a pay phone in Palm Desert pleading for a fee to be interviewed. I was stunned and told her I wish I could help but I make a point of not paying. It really shook me up hearing the desperation in her voice. I hope today she got her act together and is doing well today.

Disney Channel’s Teen Beach Movie was a sort of Beach Party meets West Side Story meets Out of Sight. Not as bad as I suspected as I was mildly entertained for a good 3 quarters of the movie. The last part bogged down and I found myself reaching for the fast forward button and an itching to pop in Beach Blanket Bingo to see a teen beach musical done right.

The two leads who go back in time were quite pleasant and I liked that the cute blonde surfer boy Brady (Randy Lynch), was the one into the old 60s beach movies while his girlfriend McKenzie (Maia Mitchell) found them to be lame. However, the chemistry between them doesn’t even come close to what Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello had. Also a missed opportunity to cast Frankie in the small role of McKenzie’s grandfather to give it a direct connection to Beach Party rather than Barry Bostwick.

Once the two surfers land back in 1962 after some really cool surfing footage, there are a few nods to the Beach Party movies beginning with the biker gang being called The Rodents comparable to Erich Von Zipper and his Rat Pack and Mollee Gray as the hip-shaking, fringe-trimmed bathing suit wearing Giggles as a homage to perpetual Twister Candy Johnson. The kids hang out in Big Momma’s run by a sassy black woman sort of close to the 60s version where they hung out at Big Drag’s run by insult comic Don Rickles. And Steve Valentine as the movie’s villian does his best Basil Rathbone impersonation straight out of The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini though his plan to ruin the kid’s beach by controlling the weather is lifted from the non-AIP beach movie Out of Sight. I also liked that the two leads really surfed in the present and when back in the 60s they had them in front of blue screens like Frankie and Annette always were. However, for me the similarity to the 60s beach movies ended there. All the songs are instantally forgetable and none come close to the 60s surf music sound. The less said about the Grace Phipps and Garrett Clayton playing the 60s beach stars the better.

Though I sort of enjoyed the movie, it in no way captured what made Beach Party and its sequels so popular. Granted it is a much different time and the innocence of the early 60s is long gone in all facets of life. By the time Beach Party (1963) went into production the second wave of surf music began climbing the charts.  These were pop songs about surfing or the Southern California lifestyle sung in three or four part harmony.  The Beach Boys from Southern California had a regional hit with “Surfin’” and then cracked the Top 20 with “Surfin’ Safari” in 1962.  And in early 1963, Jan and Dean climbed the charts with “Honolulu Lulu” the Queen of the surfer girls before hitting the top of the charts with “SurfCity.”  These songs inspired the surfing dreams of young people across the country some that had never seen the ocean and turned the sport into a national craze.

Beach Party producers James H. Nicholson and Samuel Z. Arkoff of AIP had the foresight to gamble on a new formula suggested by director William Asher, an avid surfer and denizen of Malibu.  He convinced the producers to make their first pop musical film about clean cut, beach-loving surfers just looking for a good time.  Screenwriter Lou Rusoff set up an interesting premise in Beach Party as it combined aspects of Gidget and Where the Boys Are.  Surfer gets mad at girl for inviting his buddies on their romantic holiday at the beach so he decides to make her jealous.  Throw in an older professor studying the sex habits of teenagers, an inept motorcycle gang, the best stock surfing sequences in the entire series, and a buxom Hungarian vixen, and you have the makings for an entertaining beach party.  In between some of this foolishness, the subculture of surfing is explored.  Surfer slang peppers the script and surf culture is off limits to the adults, biker gang, and “gremmies.”  Yes, we know that real hot doggers don’t break into song or are as dumb as Bonehead, but not since Gidget does a film, amid the slapstick, try to explain the appeal of shooting the curl.

Signed to star in Beach Party (1963) were singing sensation Frankie Avalon and Mouseketeer cast-off Annette Funicello.  Neither actor would be considered an obvious choice to play the typical Southern California beach dweller.  The dark-haired Avalon was slight at five feet, seven inches tall and grew up in the inner city of Philadelphia.  Annette was a buxom, Italian Catholic brunette who had never donned a bikini and never would.  Nevertheless, the chemistry between Frankie and Annette immediately struck a chord with the teenage movie going public as they sang, surfed, bickered, and fell in love under the California sun.  Also contributing to the movie’s immense popularity was the gorgeous Malibu shoreline, ample surfing footage, shirtless surfer boys and bikini-clad beauties, Harvey Lembeck as a fumbling motorcycle gang leader, and authentic surf rhythms provided by Dick Dale & the Del-Tones.  The adult guest stars, including Bob Cummings, Dorothy Malone, and Morey Amsterdam, made it appealing to older audiences as well.

AIP meanwhile followed up with two immediate sequels re-teaming Frankie and Annette.  While the first film showed the surfers smoking cigarettes and drinking beer, these activities slowly disappeared in all the subsequent films so as not to rile parents of the teenagers for whom these films were intended.  In Muscle Beach Party (1964) the surfers battle a group of bodybuilders led by the hysterical Don Rickles for their turf on the beach while Annette has competition with Luciana Paluzzi as an Italian countess for the charms of Frankie.  Bikini Beach (1964) was the first AIP movie to introduce another sport as drag racing replaced surfing as the main focal point.  It also lampooned The Beatles with Avalon playing the dual role of Frankie the surfer and the Potato Bug, a British pop singer who flips for Annette. Both were big box office hits as well.

The beach movies were extremely popular as they struck a chord with the teenage psyche.  AIP was probably the first studio to realize that roughly two-thirds of the movie ticket buying public were between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.  The beach-party movies were tailored squarely for that audience combining their love of rock music with their hormonal thirst for titillation (e.g. scantily clad boys and girls twitching and singing about love and heartache on the shores of Malibu) without straying from the moral attitudes of the time.  The surf and beach-party movies created a carefree environment where good kids don’t have a care in the world and enjoy an easygoing parentless lifestyle of surfing, dancing, rock ‘n’ roll, and romance, which was unconnected with reality.  It was an escapist fantasy look at the American youth culture—an innocent ideal that most teenagers of the time embraced.

Of course the major studios took notice of AIP’s success with the beach movies and flooded the market with their knock-offs in 1964 and 1965. Soon there was Surf Party; For Those Who Think Young; Ride the Wild Surf; The Horror of Party Beach; The Girls on the Beach; A Swingin’ Summer; Beach Ball; Wild on the Beach, etc. With the over saturation of beach movies in the marketplace, the innovative American International Pictures needed other hooks to lure the fickle teenage ticket buyers into the drive-ins.  They began the year hitting the bulls-eye with Beach Blanket Bingo, arguably the best of the Frankie and Annette beach-party movies.  It threw in everything from mermaids to skydiving and came out a winner thanks to the attractive cast of regulars, newcomers to the genre Linda Evans and Marta Kristen, and hilarious bits from Don Rickles, Harvey Lembeck, and especially Paul Lynde.  The studio ended the year however with a thud.  Though How to Stuff a Wild Bikini featured a pleasant musical score warbled by the cast, the film was weakened by unconvincing leading man Dwayne Hickman, a preoccupied and pregnant Annette Funicello, and a hammy Mickey Rooney. Frankie only cameos at the beginning and end of the movie.

Even so, it was a very popular and profitable run for Frankie and Annette, AIP, and the beach party genre it created. I just don’t see Teen Beach Musical coming close to this phemenon back then though I did read it scored supremely high ratings so I presume a sequel will be in the works.

Great tribute video to all the 1960s Beach Party movies with Frankie and Annette I found on YouTube:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZNVXS08R7A&feature=share&list=FL7Yme4vIatJxEPMu2B8OsAg