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An update to this BLog of last week.

A Blog or two ago I mentioned the 3-Girls-3 TV series Bracken’s World (1969-1971). This was a sort of waterdowned version of Valley of the Dolls that looked at life at a Hollywood movie studio through the eyes of 3 struggling actresses: Karen Jensen as the grasping glamour girl, Laraine Stephens as the icy sophisticate, and Linda Harrison as the put-upon ingenue. The studio was replete with the work-alcoholic director (Peter Haskell), the dedicated assistant to the studio head (Eleanor Parker), the lonely talent school coordinator (Elizabeth Allen), the arrogant leading man (Dennis Cole), and the domineering mother (Jeanne Cooper).

Karen Jensen (above) wowwed the producers at her audition. Though she auditioned for the rich girl, she was offered the bad girl part. She at first did not want to play such a vile character but she relented. “Rachel Holt was every actress’s dream role,” remarked Karen in Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema. “Rachel was very ambitious and would do anything to get a part. As the series progressed, the character stayed bitchy but they tried to show why she was like that—she had a terrible childhood living with foster parents and came from a very poor background. Her vulnerability began to surface, which I thought was interesting. I learned after doing the role that the bad girls are the best parts. I’m glad I got that part.”

Linda Harrison (see pic below) recalled in Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema the shock of going from playing mute Nova in the Planet of the Apes movies to Bracken’s World. “I quickly agreed to do this series because I could be dressed beautifully and I could speak! I finally had lines and could be more diversified. But I remember clearly having to go from Beneath the Planet of the Apes with essentially no lines to having lots of dialogue in Bracken’s World. I was not prepared my first day of shooting and got a verbal reprimand by my producer. That entire weekend Dick Zanuck [Fox studio head and Linda’s boyfriend] rehearsed my lines with me.”

As a footnote, Celeste Yarnall won the role of the rich girl but real-life studio politics played a part in her not getting to do it. Per Celeste, producer David Gerber maneuvered his then girlfriend (and later his wife) Laraine Stephens into the role.

Bracken’s World should have a been a very popular camp fest riot but it seems the producers did not have faith in the talented cast. Instead each week’s contained episode focused on a big name guest star rather than the regular cast ala Peyton Place. Eleanor Parker quickly became dissatisfied and quit the show mid-season. Leslie Nielsen was brought in at the start of season two as the previously unseen studio head but he was not able to help Bracken’s World conquer its competition Love, American Style and the series came to an end in January 1971.

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With great sadness, I have to report the death of Sandra Dee on Feb. 20, 2005 from kidney disease. Our sweet little Gidget has caught her last wave. I was never a huge fan of Dee‘s because she usually came off as too icky sweet for my tastes in drivel like the Tammy movies and her romantic comedies with Bobby Darin whom she wed and then divorced. But there were exceptions.

I enjoy that camp classic A Summer Place (1959) with Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue thrown together on an island off the Maine coast while her adulterous father (Richard Egan) hits the sheets with his neglected mother (Dorothy McGuire). And who can forget Constance Ford as Dee‘s icy steely-eyed mother who calls in a doctor to make sure Dee is still a virgin after she spends the night on the beach with Donahue after a boating accident. Dee was the envy of every girl (and gay boy) in America as she got to cavort with the gorgeous blonde hottie Troy Donahue on the sandy shores of Maine with Max Steiner‘s lush musical score as background.

Dee is very funny in Take Her, She’s Mine (1963) as a rambunctious coed who makes life difficult for her put-upon father, Jimmy Stewart. And finally Dee‘s most memorable role has to be Gidget (1959). Only fourteen at the time, she is just adorable as the girl-midget who is determined to surf because she just wants to belong.

For years Sandra was dealing with a drinking problem but with the birth of her granddaughter a few years ago had been sober a number of years and was finally getting her life back in order.

So here’s to you Sandra Dee. You may have not been a Carol Lynley or Pamela Tiffin in my eyes but you made a swell Gidget. You’ll be missed!

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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.

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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.