MORE MARIANNA PLEASE!

My friend Shaun is always forwarding me interesting starlet-related news, web sites, and video clips. One of his favorite actresses is the multi-faceted Marianna Hill, profiled in my book Glamour Girls of Sixties Hollywood.

A flaxen-haired beauty who was a natural with dialects and made a career playing various ethnic types as a blonde, brunette or redhead, Marianna was one of the busiest and most versatile actresses to rise from minor decorative roles (New Interns, Roustabout) to second leads (a French tease in the racecar drama Redline 7000, an island cutie in business with Elvis in Paradise, Hawaiian Style) during the Sixties while guest starring on numerous TV shows.

Throughout the Seventies, Marianna played lead roles in a number of cult movies including exciting violent western El Condor (1970) as the often undressed mistress of General Patrick O’Neal; the bizarro The Baby (1973) as a wild-haired member of a wacko family of women who keep their adult brother in diapers and treat him as an infant; and the Clint Eastwood-directed western High Plains Drifter (1973) as a feisty town belle. Her chance for real stardom came when cast as Fredo’s volatile wife in The Godfather, Part II. However, Francis Coppolla cut most of her big scenes. Click below to see that we should have seen much more of Marianna in the movie and much less of the dull Talia Shire.

TALKING ABOUT TINA

There is more to Tina Louise than Gilligan’s Island and most fans forget that she was a real movie star before being stranded on that island sitcom. After achieving success as Appassionata Von Climax in the hit Broadway musical Li’l Abner, luschious redhead Tina went Hollywood and received more kudos for her film debut as the sexy farm nymph Griselda in God’s Little Acre (1958) even sharing a Golden Globe Award for Most Prmising Newcomer – Female.

She was one of the hottest actresses of the time and decided to go the dramatic route opting for three not-so-memorable films with Robert Taylor, Robert Ryan and Richard Widmark while turning down two of the biggest box office hits of 1959. She passed on reprising her role in the movie version of Li’l Abner (Stella Stevens stepped in to fill the cleavage and won a Golden Globe) and said no to being Cary Grant’s leading lady in the comedy Operation Petticoat (1959) because of the “boob jokes.” What were you thinking Tina!?! Fantasy Femme Joan O’Brien took her place as the busty nurse, the screenplay (boob jokes and all) received an Academy Award nomination, and the movie was one of the five highest grossing films of the year.

Thinking she could get better roles in Europe, headstrong Tina fled to Rome. Though she did a cameo in the great Roberto Rossellini’s film Viva l’Italia!, her starring roles were in cheapy peplum movies such as The Warrior Empress and Siege of Syracuse. However, Tina always rose above her material. Checkout the below to watch a tantalizing Tina get a rise out of toga-clad Rossanno Brazzi.

IT’S 4:30PM. DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILDREN ARE?

If you were my mother and it was 1975, you’d know I was glued to the TV set watching the ABC 4:30 Movie. Airing right after Edge of Night on channel 7 in the New York metropolitan area, it was a widely popular program that aired teenage exploitation movies to big budget epics to B horror movies to TV Movies from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I especially loved 4:30 Movie’s theme weeks: Planet of the Apes Week, Beach Party Week, Elvis Presley Week, Horror Week, Troy Donahue Week, Gidget Week, etc. and would race home to watch them all.

I credit (or discredit?) this program for introducing me to the Sixties Starlets. They were all there—-Carol Lynley, Pamela Tiffin, Diane McBain, Annette Funicello, Anjanette Comer, Shelley Fabares, Deborah Walley, Linda Harrison, etc.–dancing on the shores of Malibu, trying to snare Elvis on some tropical island or screaming in fright from a hideous thing in the attic or a mad man on the loose

The one down side to the ABC 4;30 Movie was that they had the nasty habit of shoe horning the movies into a 90 minute timeslot usually cutting them to shreds. If you were lucky they split the films into two parts. Even still I loved it and everytime I see the opening it sends me back to my youth.