LUNA LANDING

Former 60s starlet BarBara Luna was in New York City recently to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Broadway musical South Pacific and to also attend a Q&A about the show at the Lincoln Center Barnes & Noble. Had I know, I would have announced it and perhaps even attended!

Luna made her Broadway debut playing Ngana, one of Emile de Becque’s small children. All the remaining cast and crew members from the original production were brought on stage after one of the revival’s performances. Click here to see photos from the reunion.


HE’LL WRANGLE NO MORE

Sadly, one of my favorite porn stars died this week, Jack Wrangler. During the early 80s my family bought the delux cable TV package that incuded HBO, Cinemax, and the Playboy Channel. I would get my cheap thrills watching straight porn movies on Playboy that had all the hardcore scenes edited out. Immediately rugged, handsome Jack Wrangler with his lean hard body became my fave. He could really act, which I found quite surprising, and was just so damn sexy. I’d tape all his movies (The Filthy Rich and Jack and Jill standout) hoping a shot of him fully erect would sneak by the Playboy censors. Alas it rarely happened.

Believe it or not, to this day, I have never seen any of Jack’s gay porn movies or uncensored straight ones (though I read his autobiography and recently watched the documentary about him). I think this says a lot about the man’s talents for a porn actor to have a big fan who never saw him fully in the sex act. Click here to read more and see an undraped Jack Wrangler in all his glory. Damn, I got to get me some of his movies!!!

AND NOW A READING FROM THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. GERBER

Former ’60s starlet Gail Gerber has been invited to be the “special guest” at the Darinka Prose & Poetry Reunion at 7pm on May 5 at Dixon Place in New York City’s East Village. She will be reading from her memoir (co-written by yours truly pictured with Gail) Trippin’ with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember. Click here for more details. Unfortunately, the book will not be out by then but Gail will be reading from the first chapter about how she met writer Southern and from the Easy Rider chapter.

About Gail:
She was born in Edmonston, Alberta, Canada and began studying ballet at age seven. Extremely talented, at fifteen she became the youngest member of Les Grandes Ballets Canadiennes in Montreal. She quit the ballet troupe in the late ‘50s and moved to Toronto to work as an actress. She appeared on stage and in many live CBC television dramas, and danced and acted on comedians Wayne and Schuster’s Canadian variety show, which led to two appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.


Moving to Hollywood in 1963, the talented blonde with a flair for comedy quickly snagged the lead role in the play Under the Yum Yum Tree at the Ivar Theatre and appeared on such popular TV series as My Three Sons, Perry Mason, and Wagon Train.

She made her film debut in The Girls on the Beach (1965) co-starring The Beach Boys before her agent suggested she change her name and as Gail Gilmore she went on to appear in two Elvis Presley musicals, playing a vacationing coed in Girl Happy (1965) and a dancing gypsy in Harum Scarum (1965).

She then returned to the sands of Malibu to co-star with Edd “Kookie” Byrnes in Beach Ball (1965) before growing to gigantic proportions along with five other delinquent teenagers, including Beau Bridges, who terrorize a town in Village of the Giants (1965).

Gerber met writer Terry Southern on the set of The Loved One (1965) where she had a minor role as a cosmetician and abandoned her career in 1966 to live with him in New York then Connecticut where she remained his longtime companion until his death thirty years later.


BORN TO BE WILD

Actor Roscoe Born has been my favorite soap actor since his first soap role on Ryan’s Hope as charming mobster Joe Novak who tried to go straight for the love of Siobhan Ryan but his ties to the mob were too hard to break. He (along with Randall Edwards then Ilene Kristen as ditzy, deceitful Delia Reid Ryan Coleridge) kept me glued to the soap from 1981 through 1983 (I arranged my classes around it until we got a VCR in 1982) while all my college friends were watching General Hospital.

Most fans don’t realize that Roscoe has been singing for years between his stints on One Life to Live, Santa Barbara, The Young and the Restless, and others. Check out the clip below for his latest song: