WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND
Jill St. John, one of the most disliked actresses to work with the starlets due to her selfish and obnoxious behavior, broke her hip recently in a ski mishap in Aspen. Poor baby. St. John treated her Diamonds Are Forever co-star, Fantasy Femme Lana Wood, shabbily during the making of the film and more recently refused to pose with her for a Vanity Fair Bond Girl tribute layout. Drive-in Dream Girl Quinn O’Hara worked with Jill on two Jerry Lewis movies during the sixties, and described the buxom redhead as being “an unbelievably cruel person who I am not fond of in the least!” I guess Quinn or Lana won’t be sending Jill a Get Well card anytime soon.

Incidentally, Jill is now married to Robert Wagner the former husband of Lana‘s sister, Natalie Wood.

IN THE NEWS
Francine York is just like the Energizer Bunny… she keeps going and going. The statuesque blonde bombshell is now filming a western titled Miracle at Sage Creek starring David Carradine and Bruce Boxleitner. Francine plays a character named Frances.

COMINGS AND GOINGS
Gail Gerber is jetting into New York City from Chicago to help out the guys at The New York Public Library sort through the papers of her longtime companion writer Terry Southern. Gail is still working on her memoirs about her life with Terry and has some hilarious stories involving Peter Sellers and the making of Easy Rider, among others.

It’s been awhile since my last blog due to the fact that I had to submit the index to my publisher for Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969. Let me tell you there is nothing more boring and mindless than composing an index. Ugh!

Took a peak at Marquise’s Corner (see link below) and loved his two-part blog on “3 Girls 3 Cinema” that looks at Come Fly with Me, The Pleasure Seekers and Valley of the Dolls.

A few of the starlets spoke to me about Valley of the Dolls so here is some backstage starlet gossip from that pill-popping camp fest:

20th Century Fox was pushing their new It Girl Raquel Welch for the role of doomed starlet Jennifer, she of the big bosom and no talent. Welch auditioned and won the role but she stupidly turned it down! I guess she felt it wasn’t up to the standards of One Million Years B.C.

The producers then offered it to another Fox contract player Fantasy Femme Jean Hale. This pretty blonde had just made an impression opposite James Coburn in the spy spoof In Like Flint (1967) and Fox head Richard Zanuck wanted her to down the blue pills but Hale too foolishly passed on it. Married to Dabney Coleman and now a new mother, she felt uncomfortable with the near nudity. This, coupled with the fact that she wouldn’t do an European promotion for Flint due to her baby, left her on the outs with Zanuck and Fox. After playing George Segal‘s gun moll in the St. Valentine Day’s Massacre, Hale‘s option was dropped. Worse than free-falling into the valley of the dolls Jean Hale (gasp!) settled for domesticity instead!

With the Fox roster of starlets exhausted, every gal in town vied for the role of Jennifer. Fantasy Femme Karen Jensen came real close to securing the role with either the producer, David Weisbart, or the director, Mark Robson, (Jensen couldn’t remember which it was) championing her for the part. Alas she lost out to the ill-fated Sharon Tate. Prophetic casting, no?

As a consolation, Jensen got to play a starlet, of the grasping kind, on the TV series Bracken’s World, which took the “3 Girls 3 Cinema” to the small screen. More on Bracken’s World next blog.

Yesterday, I recommended The Pleasure Seekers as being one of Pamela Tiffin‘s best films of the 60s. Check out a great tribute with lots of photos to this movie on Marquise’s Corner at www.marquisescorner.blogspot.com.

Behind-the-scenes, it was no pleasure for Pamela making this movie. She actually seeked a way out of it but was contractually obliged to do it. Ann-Margret and Carol Lynley were aloof towards her (Shame on you Carol! I luv ya but you should have been nicer to our Pamela), Tony Franciosa (Pamela‘s love interest) acted like a maniac even threatening to punch out the director (70-year-old Jean Negulesco), Gardner McKay wouldn’t speak with anyone, and that Latin hottie Andre Lawrence made it known to all that he would do ANYTHING or ANYONE to further his ambitions to become a star. Only Brian Keith was a pleasure to work with, per Pamela.

When filming finally wrapped to Pamela’s pleasure, a billing war erupted among the seekers. Despite her husband’s prodding to fight back, Pamela refused to stoop that low as the egos took over and the stars battled it out through their agents. The outcome? Pamela received 5th billing behind Ann-Margret, Tony Franciosa, Carol Lynley and Gardner McKay! Well folks that was 60s Hollywood in a starlet-eat-starlet world.

Good news turned sad.

I was elated to get an email from the LA Times who contacted me to do an interview about Annette Funicello and the beach party movies. However, I felt sad when I learned that it is for a future tribute article on Annette as word is her health has deteriorated a lot. Here’s hoping that she somehow recovers.

Pamela Tiffin seems to be the It Girl these days. Forgot to write yesterday that there is a Pamela – Laurel Goodwin connection. Pamela turned down the lead opposite Elvis in Girls! Girls! Girls! (after Dolores Hart passed) and Goodwin got the part.

To you wanting me to recommend Pamela Tiffin movies my choices are Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three (1961) for Pamela at her comedic best in her Golden Globe nominated role as a ditzy Southern gal who marries a Communist; The Pleasure Seekers (1964) for Pamela at her virginal best as the naive tourist in Madrid who exclaims to Carol Lynley, “I know everything about Spain except Spanish”; and Harper (1966) for Pamela at her sexiest as the sex-starved heiress who tries unsuccessfully to seduce gumshoe Paul Newman. What was that straight boy thinking!?!

Check out my web site for more on Pamela and also the blog www.marquisescorner.blogspot.com for a tribute on this underrated starlet of the 60s.