sixties

CANDY GIRL

After Land of the Giants, my favorite show as a kid was Here Come the Brides. Strapping Robert Brown, sullen David Soul, and cute Bobby Sherman played the Bolton brothers ca. late 1800s who brought a number of single females to their logging town in the beautiful Pacific Northwest for the men to marry. One of those blushing brides-to-be was auburn-haired Bridget Hanley as Candy whom I adored. She was paired with Bobby Sherman and for a seven year old at the time made for the most romantic couple. Check out this tribute clip to the show on YouTube.

For some oddball reason, Bridget never appeared in movies at the time but she made guest appearances on all the top sitcoms and was a fixture on another fave of mine, Love, American Style appearing 5 times. Besides being a first-rate actress, Bridget had the best Sixties hairstyles of any starlet of the day. Today, she still acts, mainly on stage, and my friend Shaun is good buddies with her…lucky fellow!

STARLET MOVIE OF THE WEEK

Crank up the DV-R players as Turner Classic Movies is re-running on 5/24 at 1:30PM one of the best “3 Girls Looking for Romance Films” MGM’s Come Fly with Me (1963). In this charming piece of Sixties fluff, Dolores Hart, Lois Nettleton, and my fave Pamela Tiffin are airline hostesses working the NY Idlewild to Europe route out to snare themselves a man. Hart is a chain smoking gold digger duped by a con man, Tiffin the naive newbie who succumbs to the charms of playboy pilot Hugh O’Brian (pictured, woof!), and Nettleton is the level-headed one who stumbles into love with older tycoon Karl Malden. Beautifully filmed on location, this is one trip well worth taking for fans of Sixties Starlets.

Incidentally, this was Hart’s last movie before she quit Hollywood to become a cloistered nun. Per Pamela Tiffin, Dolores confided in her that she wanted to become a nun on the set and Pamela told me that she exclaimed, “‘Oh Dolores you don’t want to!’ Back then I didn’t understand her decision. Now I do.”

A Gaggle of Starlet Birthdays!

Birthday greetings are due to Diane McBain (at left) who played a rich bitch in Parrish and a slutty farm girl in Claudelle Inglish before riding into infamy as the hog riding leader of The Mini-Skirt Mob; Nancy Kwan who enjoyed being a girl in Flower Drum Song but was much more fun as a karate-chopping bad girl in The Wrecking Crew; and Joan Staley (top) who slapped Elvis after he dumped her in Roustabout and then settled for “he-man” Don Knotts in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

To luscious Sixties Starlet Yvonne Craig. Yvonne appeared in a number of movies including It Happened at the Worlds Fair and Kissin’ Cousins with Elvis, Ski Party, Mars Needs Women, and In Like Flint but her turn as librarian-by-day Barbara Gordon and masked crimefighter-by-night Batgirl on Batman is her most memorable role. Check out this YouTube clip to see why.

Also a belated Happy Birthday to former Playmate Corinne Cole who went on to co-star as a treacherous Slaygirl who tries to assassinate Dean Martin in Murderers’ Row, a harried secretary in The Swinger with Ann-Margret, and a inebriated dinner guest in The Party with Peter Sellers. Read more about Corinne who I interviewed and Yvonne in my upcoming book Glamour Girls of Sixties Hollywood.