Tom Lisanti is an award-winning author/film historian specializing in1960s/1970s film and television. He began writing professionally in 1998. His newest book is Ryan’s Hope: An Oral History of Daytime’s Groundbreaking Soap from Citadel Press/Kensington Books released in October 2023. Look for his next book, Dueling Harlows: The Race to Bring the Actress’ Life to the Silver Screen from McFarland & Company in late spring 2024.
Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Hollywood‘s cover girl Celeste Yarnall, a former model and Miss Rheingold, risked her life savings to travel to the Cannes Film Festival in 1967 in hopes of being “discovered” even though she had begun acting in 1963 on television and in films such as The Nutty Professor and Around the World Under the Sea. Discouraged that her career hadn’t taken off, she headed to that international city hoping to wow some producers. And wow them she did! Producer Harry Alan Towers, who was looking for a girl to play a female Tarzan in Eve, spotted her strolling down the street. According to Yarnall, “He yelled and pointed, ‘Stop that girl! That’s my Eve!’” Celeste made a breathtaking jungle goddess in Eve opposite Christopher Lee and Robert Walker, now on BluRay. She went on to act in such drive-in fare as Live a Little,Love a Little where Elvis Presley’s photographer sings the memorable “A Little Less Conversation” to her sophisticated model at a party; the Philippines-lensed horror movie Beast of Blood with John Ashley, and her most notorious film The Velvet Vampire as a female bloodsucker lusting for hippie couple Michael Blodgett and Sherry Miles.
Birthday wishes are also extended to the British blonde beauty Suzanna Leigh most remembered as Elvis’ leading lady in Paradise, Hawaiian Style; The Deadly Bees; and the spy movies Deadlier Than the Male and Subterfuge.
Sixties moviegoers went ape over Linda Harrison whose most memorable role featured her wearing nothing more than a loincloth She left an indelible impression as the mute human Nova opposite Charlton Heston’s time traveling astronaut Taylor in the classic sci-fi film Planet of the Apes (1968) where Earth was turned upside down with talking, horseback riding apes in charge and the humans their slaves. Linda’s Nova was brought back for the sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) where astronaut James Franciscus comes looking for his missing buddy and finds the apes ruling uptop and a city of mutant humans underground. Due to these films immense popularity, Linda will always be remembered as the beauty among the beasts. “Nova meant new,” reminded Linda. “I felt very comfortable playing her. I didn’t even have to audition. Dick [Zanuck] told me I had the quality they wanted.” She surely did. With her long, dark hair and big brown eyes, Linda had the perfect combination to bring Nova to life on the big screen.
Birthday wishes also to the late Alexandra Hay. She was a long-haired wispy blonde with waif-like delicate features in the vein of Sue Lyon and Carol Lynley, and played a number of cool chick roles in the late sixties including Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner as a gum chewing carhop who befuddles Spencer Tracy; Otto Preminger’s misfire of a comedy Skidoo as Jackie Gleason’s vapid daughter who falls for hippie John Philip Law; and Jacques Demy’s underrated Model Shop as the marriage minded girlfriend of Gary Lockwood’s photographer wannabe on the day he learns he has been drafted). Like most of her sixties contemporaries, the seventies and eighties found her turning to exploitation films (such as 1000 Convicts and a Woman!) and television. She died in October 1993 at age forty-nine.
Remembering the late lovely 60s starlet Phyllis Davis on her birthday. A striking dark-haired beauty with curves galore, Phyllis was similar in appearance to Edy Williams and was usually hired only to fill a bikini though she found deserved fame in the seventies in exploitation movies and on television as a regular on Vega$. Due to Phyllis Davis’ sultry looks and knockout body highlighted by a gleaming smile, the 5-foot-6 beauty began playing minor scantily-clad roles in such films as Lord Love a Duck (1966), The Swinger (1966), and The Last of the Secret Agents? (1966). She appeared in a number of Elvis movies including Spinout (1966) and Live a Little, Love a Little (1968), and continued popping up on television usually swimsuit clad. Despite these minor parts, Davis got noticed by studio insiders and was voted a Hollywood Deb Star in 1966. Another bikini role came in The Big Bounce (1969) playing a bimbo with nothing more to do than splash around a pool with an older rich guy. But the brunette beauty filled a wild swimsuit so lusciously and showed comedic talent that she was hired for the blackout skits of the new series Love, American Style beginning in 1969. For the next four years Phyllis was clad either in the skimpiest of bikinis or shortest of mini-dresses for the brief sketches where she was usually the object of desire for bungling nebbish Stuart Margolin that were edited in between episodes. In 1969, she snagged the Barbara Parkins part from Valley of the Dolls in the unofficial sequel Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) directed by Russ Meyer. Davis’ character is a fashion designer and aunt to aspiring rock star Dolly Reade who comes to LA with her friends seeking fame and fortune. With her long black mane parted in the middle and hair sprayed stiff, a pale-looking Davis comes across like Vampira and performs in a bit too stiff a fashion for this loose take-off on Hollywood excess though her character is supposed to be oblivious to the weird goings on surrounding her. The film was a huge hit but Davis was unsatisfied with her part and Meyer.
While continuing on TV’s Love American Style, Phyllis lost out on being a Bond Girl to Lana Wood in Diamonds Are Forever (1971) but snagged the lead in Sweet Sugar (1972) an outrageous exploitation women-in-prison film. She convincingly played a prostitute working in Latin America set up on a bogus drug charge by a crooked politician and sent to a chain gang to work on a sugar plantation. As with most of her contemporaries who wanted to keep working in film, Davis (looking fantastic in her mid-riffs and short shorts) got over her shyness doffing her blouse in many a scene to the delight of her male admirers and repeated going topless in Terminal Island (1973) playing another tough-talking sexpot. Exiled for life to a penal colony on an island off the coast of California for murder, Davis was cast as bimbo killer Joy who loves to sexually tease her male compatriots. The chaste bikini-clad Elvis starlet had come a long way baby.
A much smaller role came next for Phyllis in Mike Nichols’ disappointing The Day of the Dolphin (1973) as a bubble headed blonde receptionist more interested in her personal phone call than helping George C. Scott who is waiting to see her boss. She then channeled Scarlett O’Hara in the extended dream sequence in Train Ride to Hollywood (1975) directed by Charles Rondeau who helmed many episodes of Love, American Style. Davis got noticed playing a dominatrix in the otherwise disappointing The Choirboys (1977) and then was cast as private investigator Robert Urich’s brainy assistant in the popular lighthearted series, Vega$ a part she played from 1978 to 1981. During the course of the series Davis drastically changed her appearance by cutting her hair short and going blonde. The show brought Phyllis back into the mainstream limelight and helped buoy her career into the nineties. She retired and never looked back. Sadly, she passed away from Cancer in 2013.
Get a double shot of Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema gorgeous cover girl Celeste Yarnall in 2 new Blu-Ray releases. Celeste contributes a commentary track to The Velvet Vampire (1970) where she plays the title character who draws hippie couple Michael Blodgett and Sherry Miles into her desert den.
https://youtu.be/W6vKcb2eofY
The Face of Eve (1968) features Celeste as perhaps the first cinematic female Tarzan. Unlike the recent Tarzan movie filmed on a London sound stage and riddled with CGI effects, Eve was filmed on location in Spain and the jungles of Brazil. It features a first-rate class including Christopher Lee, Robert Walker, and Herbert Lom. Click here to read Cinema Retro’s review and then get a copy of my bookFantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinemato find out the reason from Celeste Yarnall herself why she was missing from a quarter of the movie.
