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WHO IS THAT BEACH BOY?

I had a few inquiries about Christopher Riordan, pictured in my previous Blog. He was an accomplshed dancer who was hand picked by Fred Astaire to replace him as Barrie Chase’s dance partner in the early Sixties. To make some extra dough to support his son, Christopher began working without credit as a dancer in a number of TV shows and Elvis, beach, and teenage exploitation movies such as Viva Las Vegas, Looking for Love, Get Yourself a College Girl, A Swingin’s Summer, The Girls on the Beach, etc. AIP took notice of his dancing ability and hired him (again without screen credit) to work as the assistant to its resident choreographer on Ski Party, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini. Due to Annette Funicello’s insistence, he was hired as lead choreographer on Fireball 500.

By the late Sixties, Riordan was finally landing supporting roles in such camp classics as The Gay Deceivers, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and The Curious Female. Today he is still very active in show business and most recently turned up in an episode of Ugly Betty produced by one of his sons.

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MORE FROM HOLLYWOOD

One of my favorite 60s movie genres is the three girls looking for love and romance in some exotic port of call. For example, Dolores Hart, Pamela Tiffin and Lois Nettleston as stewardesses who fly the NY to Viena and Paris routes out to trap themselves a husband in Come Fly with Me (1963); or Ann-Margret, Carol Lynley and Pamela Tiffin (again) as Madrid roommates out for a good time in The Pleasure Seekers (1964).

In honor of those movies I give you Aron Kincaid, Christopher Riordan, and Tom Lisanti in Three Boys in the Garden a tale of a fading beach movie star, an ex-dancing show boy, and a starlet stalker searching for rekindled fame and glory in the hills of Hollywood.

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I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES

Here are photos of me at the Hollywood Collectors Show. One is of me hammying it up with my books, one is me with Adam Phillips from McFarland and Company, and then me with Drive-in Dream Girl Quinn O’Hara whom I finally got to meet in person after speaking with her for about 5 years.

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RADIO DAYS

This Sunday, Feb. 24 I will be a guest on the LA-based radio show Talking Television with Dave White discussing my new book Glamour Girls of Sixties Hollywood as well as the others I have written. Normally, Talking Television airs on Tuesday nights, but this interview will be recorded this Sunday for a later broadcast over online radio station, KSAV.

Listeners can not only hear the live interview this Sunday, but can pose your own questions via e-mail or phone. Click here for instructions on how to receive the stream and go to the link at the homepage, “KSAV Select” to participate.

On the West Coast, the show will begin at 11:00, the interview starting at 11:30 a.m. If you’re Eastern Standard Time, the show begins at 2:00 and I will join him at 2:30. At 3:00 Gail Gerber will join us for a fifteen minute session where she’ll share stories about Terry Southern, Elvis Presley and Easy Rider from her upcoming memoir Terry Southern and Me: Uneasy Riders in Hollywood.