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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.

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Greetings from the Big Easy! I’m away on vacation in New Orleans but sixties starlet questions are coming in and must be addressed!

First to Marquise, yes Pamela Tiffin is still a blonde and as expected is still a beautiful, elegant woman albeit a bit on the heavy side. But living with an Italian husband since 1974 it is no surprise that she put on a few pounds. She resides in a fabulous townhouse in New York City. The last time I saw her was soon after Princess Diana was killed. Pamela shared with me a story of one of her run-ins with the rude, persistent paparazzi during her heyday in Italy. A secret renedevous with her lover in a out-of-the-way cafe was spoiled by the invasion of the paparazzi screaming “Pamela! Pamela!” as the flash bulbs kept popping.

Another poster asked about Laurel Goodwin who co-starred with Elvis in Girls! Girls! Girls! and was in the original pilot for Star Trek. The outspoken Laurel is featured in my book Drive-in Dream Girls where she gives a funny, no-holds barred interview trashing everyone from Stella Stevens to Jackie Gleason to Majel Barrett, the wife of Gene Roddenberry. She also offers an honest reflection of why she thinks she did not get further in her career, her sisterly love for Elvis and her disappointment with her firing from Star Trek.

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Received an inquiry about Pamela Tiffin. Poster agreed with a previous blog where I voiced my opinion that I always found Stefanie Powers to be bland and one-note and not worthy of the “fame” that she achieved over some more worthy 60s starlets like Carol Lynley, Anjanette Comer and Pamela Tiffin.

As for the question regarding Pamela, you can read a lengthy interview with her in my first book Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema, but in a nutshell Pamela refused to dye her hair blonde despite pressure from Hollywood. However, when producer Carlo Ponti came a-calling with an offer to be the first American leading lady to star opposite Marcello Mastroianni, Pamela yelled “Si” even though there was a stipulation that she had to dye her hair. The film was called Oggi, domani, dopodomani (1966) but released in the US in 1968 as Kiss the Other Sheik. Pamela was so enthused with the attention she received and unhappy with her marriage to Esquire publisher Clay Felker who encouraged his wife to work much to her distress that she decided blondes really do have more fun and kept her hair that way. Returning to the states, she took a role on Broadway in the Jean Harlow part in the revival of Dinner at Eight and when the show closed so did her marriage. Pamela packed her bags and moved to Roma to act in films that were beneath her.

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A few blogs ago I mentioned Anjanette Comer being one of my faves. During the 60s Comer starred in The Loved One, The Appaloosa with Marlon Brando, and Rabbit, Run with James Caan. The 70’s saw her movie career trail off but she starred in a number of TV-movies including one of my faves Death Stalk. An exciting rip-off of Deliverance, escaped cons kidnap the two wives of businessmen on a river rafting trip. Anjanette played the “good” wife married to Vince “Ben Casey” Edwards who falls for her captor, Vic Morrow, while Carol Lynley was the adulterous party girl trophy wife who fights them off to return to her older husband.

Well, I just learned that Comer is co-starring in a Robert Altman-esque comedy called Screen Door Jesus yet to be released. Set in a small town in Texas where the towns folk are super religious, the film’s plot revolves around the sighting of the image of Jesus on a screen door of one of the town’s residents and how it affects the lives and spirit of the town and its inhabitants. Comer plays Vernalynn (she thinks TV is a sin), the only white member of a Pentecostal church, whose grandkids are left with her while her son goes off on his “4th or 5th” honeymoon. She vows to give the boys that ole time religion despite their disinterest. For more information visit the web site: www.screendoorjesusthemovie.com.

This week’s featured 60s beach boy is Frankie Avalon or should I say Frankie Avalon’s cute butt. This is from Muscle Beach Party where Frankie was at his sexiest stuffed into tight square-cut trunks to compete with the Speedo-clad muscle boys. (For you girl watchers that’s Annette Funicello kneeling, Luree Holmes on far right, and Valora Noland second from right).