Tom Lisanti

Blonde, boyishly cute, and powerfully built, Johnny Fain was able to parlay his surfing expertise into a brief movie career.  One of the legendary champion Malibu surfers of the late fifties and early sixties he surf doubled in Gidget (1959) and Beach Party (1963). Due to his diminutive stature, Fain was just under 5’5”, he was able and happy to land lots of screen time (unlike his friend/rival Mickey Dora who tried to hide in the background) in the remaining Frankie and Annette beach films since he as shorter than the height conscious Avalon. His films include Bikini Beach, Beach Blanket Bingo (infamously being slipped a hot dog into his waiting mouth from surf buddy Mike Nader while Donna Loren sings about a lost love making us gays in the audience go hmmmm), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and Don’t Make Waves plus a few surf docs such as Strictly Hot and Golden Breed.  He concentrated solely on surfing during the later part of the sixties and then gave acting a second try during the seventies. Fain was excited to get cast in the surf epic Big Wednesday (1978) but he expected to get a bigger part and was further disappointed that he didn’t do much surf stunts as he anticipated. He was then cast as one of the three main supporting actors in California Dreaming (1979), which he was hoping would finally exploit his acting ability. His hot shot Malibu surfer Tenner who befriends Dennis Christopher’s awkward T.T. and teaches the Ohio native how to surf. It is believed in currently still resides in Malibu. You can read more about Fain in my book Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969

The late Hungarian blonde Ahna Capri began modeling as a child, which led to TV commercials and then bits in TV and movies. Warner Bros. signed her to a contract in 1959 and promptly re-christened her Anna Capri after the Isle. After appearing in a number of Warner Bros. produced television series (including Cheyenne, Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, Bronco, etc.) Capri landed the role of Mary Rose, the sixteen year old adoptive daughter of Andrew Duggan and Peggy McCay in the short-lived situation comedy Room for One More in 1962.  She was voted a Hollywood Deb Star that same year, but this baby-faced ingenue (she resembled a more alluring and sexy Sandra Dee) yearned to be the femme fatale. After playing the precocious good girl in Kisses for My President (1964) and then a vain sexpot in The Girls on the Beach (1965), Anna Capri got her wish when she was cast as the bad girl in “The Bridge of Lions Affair” on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  This two-part episode was also edited into the feature One of Our Spies Is Missing (1966) and rushed into theaters. For the rest of the decade, Capri concentrated on television making guest star turns playing various parts on such popular series as I Spy, The Wild Wild West, Run for Your Life, The Invaders, The Name of the Game, etc.

In the early seventies, Capri returned to the big screen and was billed as Ahna Capri. She remarked to The Hollywood Reporter in 1969, “Too many people pronounce ‘Anna’ with a flat ‘a’ and it comes out an ugly Aaaana. I want my name more musical sounding, with a broad ‘a,’ like Ahna, so I’m spelling it that way.” Using her new moniker, Capri co-starred with Strother Martin in the creepy horror film Brotherhood of Satan (1971). In the Bruce Lee classic Enter the Dragon (1973), a sort of combination spy, blaxpoitation and kung fu movie, Capri as the insatiable Tania physically stood out as she was the only Caucasian actress in the cast. The exploitation cult classic The Specialist (1975) gave Capri a starring role as an enticing assassin, however she retired from acting shortly thereafter. She tragically died in an auto accident in 2010. You can read more about Ahna Capri in my and Louis Paul’s book Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films & Television, 1962-1973 soon to be out in soft cover.

During the mid-sixties television viewers could not change the channel without catching a glimpse of Eileen O’Neill. This beautiful brunette (sometimes blonde) Irish lass was a regular playing a police officer on Burke’s Law starring Gene Barry for two years. She then made appearances on practically all of the era’s top sitcoms including The Beverly Hillbillies, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, My Favorite Martian, The Munsters, Get Smart, and Batman as Clock King’s (Walter Slezak) wonderfully named henchgirl Millie Second. Eileen’s career was not limited to the small screen though.  She made her film debut in A Majority of One and then played a haughty rich girl in the teen exploitation film Teenage Millionaire.  After taking small roles in Four for Texas, Kiss Me, Stupid, and The Third Day Eileen played the heroine in the James Bond spy spoof A Man Called Dagger starring Paul Mantee. In 1973, she retired from acting to concentrate on her marriage. You can read my interviews with Eileen in my book Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema and my and Louis Paul’s book Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films & Television 1962-1973 (in which she wrote the foreword). As a side note, my friend Shaun Chang and I visited Eileen about 15 years ago in LA. She was warm, friendly, and a gracious hostess living in a beautiful home with spectacular views of the Los Angeles basin.

Pretty, perky Chris Noel was once described as “devastation in a bikini.” A former model, this green-eyed blonde was discovered while doing summer stock. With her fresh-faced, innocent look, Noel was perfectly cast as the wholesome girl-next-door looking for fun or romance on the beach, on campus, or on vacation. Wearing the skimpiest of bikinis, the effervescent actress was a highlight of a gaggle of teenage and beach films—Get Yourself a College Girl (“The swingin’-est blast ever filmed.”), Beach Ball (“Nothing bounces like Beach Ball!”), Girl Happy (“Elvis jumps with the campus crowd to make the beach ‘ball’ bounce!!!”), Wild Wild Winter (“A surfin’ snow ball!), and For Singles Only (“See how the single half lives…in co-ed pads where the unmarrieds swing 24 hours a day!”).  When the beach films became passe during the late sixties, Noel segued to the biker genre with roles in The Glory Stompers and The Tormentors. No typical starlet she, Chris became the first female disc jockey on Armed Forces Radio in 1966 and began visiting Vietnam on her own to help boost the morale of the GIs. Her devotion to our military has never stopped and she dfounded Ceasefire House in Florida to help homeless Vietnam vets. Read more about Chris Noel in my books Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema and Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave. Or check out the many books Chris Noel has written herself on Amazon.