Tom Lisanti

After her appearance on TV’s Land of the Giants in 1970, Francine York told an interviewer, “I can’t escape playing the big parts. Why can’t I play the girl next door?  It seems I’m always blowing up the world or something.” Standing 5-foot-8 and measuring 38-23-35, it is no wonder the statuesque dark-haired beauty was usually cast in bigger-than-life roles. Francine made her film debut in the cult low-budget Secret File: Hollywood.  She then progressed from featured roles in the early sixties opposite Jerry Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Elvis Presley to starring roles in such cult drive-in movies as Curse of the Swamp Creatures, Space Monster, and The Doll Squad.

On TV, Francine York held the Robinson family captive on Lost in Space, vamped the Dynamic Duo on Batman, beguiled Robert Conrad on The Wild, Wild West, and became the living goddess Venus de Milo on Bewitched. Francine became so adept at playing these types of roles, that years later when the casting director of the seventies Saturday morning series Jason of Star Command asked her if she could play the evil queen, she replied jokingly, “I am the queen!” Always a pro, York had the ability to command and dominate the screen with her poise and confidence. She has energetically played so many different roles wearing a variety of wigs and using an assortment of dialects (Italian, French, British, Southern, etc.) that she became somewhat of a chameleon in Hollywood. No one ever criticized her for giving a lazy performance. And in a business that can be cruel, especially to older actresses, the self-determined Francine continues to act today.

Read my interview with Francine York in my book Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema and keep an eye out for her upcoming memoir!

https://youtu.be/gvf55tSFJUA

Millions of music lovers remember prolific singer and songwriter Jackie DeShannon for her beloved Top 10 singles “What the World Needs Now Is Love” and “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” during the ‘60s.  But what they might not know is that the pretty slender blonde embarked on an acting career for a short period of time during that swinging decade.  Her film debut was in the beach romp Surf Party (1964) starring Bobby Vinton and Pat Morrow. DeShannon played the doe-eyed, tomboy Junior who accompanies her friends Morrow and Lory Patrick to Malibu from Arizona to visit Morrow’s brother who is the leader of an elite surfing group called The Lodge.  Morrow is romanced by Vinton the operator of a local surf shop while Jackie pairs up with Kenny Miller as a surfer who breaks his arm trying to gain entrance into an elite surfer gang.

After appearing in the low-budget drama Intimacy (1966), Jackie teamed with Bobby Vee for the youth-oriented musical C’mon, Let’s Live a Little (1967). It was one of those too-square-to-be-hip movies the major studios released in the late sixties trying to attract the college crowd. DeShannon soon let the acting drift and concentrated on her music career exclusively culminated with a Grammy Award for co-writing the hit song “Bette Davis Eyes” in the eighties.

Read my interview with her in my book Drive-in Dream Girls.

With her short cropped flaxen hair, blue eyes, and shapely figure, sexy Karen Jensen was perfectly cast in the late-in-the-cycle beach movie Out of Sight (1966).  She actually looked like she grew up on the shores of Malibu unlike Beach Party star Annette Funicello. Though Karen left an indelible impression on fans of the genre, she quickly progressed to more mainstream films (The Ballad of Josie, Sullivan’s Empire, etc.) and TV shows (The Wild Wild West, Run for Your Life, Bob Hope Chrysler Theatre, etc.).  In 1970 she was cast as one of a trio of starlets looking for fame in the series Bracken’s World.  As the ambitious one, Jensen had the breakout role and for a time captured the public’s attention.  “This was an actress’s dream role,” commented Karen.  She received numerous invitations to appear on all the popular talk and game shows and graced the covers of such magazines as TV Guide and Show who called her “television’s first real sex symbol.”  After Bracken’s World folded in 1971, Karen’s most notable film credit was the espionage thriller The Saltzburg Connection (1972) co-starring Barry Newman.  She retired from acting a few years later and is currently wed to actor Brendon Boone.

Read my interview with Karen Jensen in my book Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema.

A curvaceous statuesque baby-face redhead with a button nose and little girl voice, Pamela Rodgers always seemed on the verge of stardom but never made it to the big time. She made her film debut in Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965) where she pranced around in a gold lame bikini then played a Slaygirl in The Silencers. More small roles followed in Three on a Couch, The Oscar, and Out of Sight as one of Karen Jensen’s bikini-clad friends. She was a regular for a year each on the sitcom Hey, Landlord! and the variety series The Jonathan Winters Show, which led to co-starring role in The Big Cube with George Chakiris and Lana Turner; and a funny bit in The Maltese Bippy with Rowan & Martin who brought her on to Laugh-In. She was able to parlay the new found fame Laugh-In brought her into appearances on many talk and game shows of the early seventies moat notably Match Game and The Hollywood Squares as well as acting in a few episodes of Love, American Style usually cast as the sexy ding-a-ling.  However, she never returned to the big screen and was only able to scrounge up supporting roles in TV-movies such as Suddenly Single (1971) and Jigsaw (1972).  She disappeared from show business around 1976 after marrying a third time.