sixties

STARLET ALERT!

Fantasy Femme Judy Pace and Shelley Fabares can be seen in Brian’s Song televised on TVLand tonight at 8pm and hopefully rerun again. Though this is basically a tearjerker about football player Brian Piccolo (James Caan) and his roommate and friend Gale Sayers (Billy Dee “Hubba Hubba” Williams) and the agony they go through when Piccolo is diagnosed with cancer, it comes off basically as a gay love story between the two macho football players with the starlets more than holding their own as the guys’ clueless wives.

Tuesday, June 28, on Turner Classic Movies beginning at 9:30AM EST is an Elvis Presley double feature beginning with Live a Little, Love a Little (1968) co-starring Michele Carey and Fantasy Femme cover girl Celeste Yarnall; followed by Haraum Scarum (1965) with Mary Ann Mobley, Gail Gerber, and Brenda Benet.

Fans in New York can catch a special screening of Screen Door Jesus featuring sixties starlet Anjanette Comer this Thursday, June 30th, at 9pm, as a part of the Solar-Powered Arts Festival. It will be showing outside near the East River at Stuyvesant Cove Park. The director and writer will be introducing the film at 8.45.

Comings and Goings:

Gail Gerber will be beach balling back to New York from Chicago permanently beginning July 1. Glad to have you back Gail!

You folks in LA make sure to check out Ray Courts’ Hollywood Collectors Show in Burbank this weekend. Among the starlets in attendance will be Francine York; Bond Girls Shirley Eaton, Lana Wood, Gloria Hendry and Trina Parks; Jo Morrow from Gidget; and everybody’s favorite Bad Seed, Patty McCormack.

Well, I just got back from the Memphis Film Festival and it was extremely disappointing book sale-wise! Bond Girl Lana Wood wasn’t kidding when she cracked that when she walked into the convention area she brought the avergage age down to 60. This convention was the walk of the living dead! I haven’t seen so many canes, walkers and wheel chairs in one place since Sophia Petrillo escaped from Shady Pines on The Golden Girls.

The organizers made a huge mistake by moving the festival from Memphis to Bum Fuck, I mean Olive Branch, Mississippi, home of every fast food joint you can think of. Hard core old-time film buffs and autograph seekers showed up for the weekend but tourists and day trippers were few and far between. The festival also erred by not courting the Elvis fans by having actresses from his films as guests. Instead we had B-western starlets of the 40s and 50s most of whom I never heard of!

The one saving grace was that I got to hang out with the guys from McFarland and Company–talented designer Mark Durr, who’ve I done Chiller Theatre Conventions with, and McFarland marketing newcomer, Adam Phillips. Both guys are extremely nice and friendly. Adam made me laugh the whole time otherwise I would have been crying in my stacks of unsold books. He’s also a huge Elvis fan (he’s been to Graceland 6 times!) and using his own words “was jacked” to hang out with a fellow admirer (me) of the King. Thanks again guys for that wonderful dinner at Buckley’s in Memphis!

I’ll be posting PICs in the days to come.