Lovely Yvonne Craig’s passing has truly saddened me. She was one of my childhood favorites along with Miss Julie Newmar, Tina Louise, Deanna Lund from Land of the Giants, and Bridget Hanley from Here Come the Brides. Yvonne had the looks and knockout figure for sure, but she also had acting talent as evidenced by the varied roles she played. She was the ultimate 60s chick appearing in Elvis musicals, beach parties, spy flicks, melodramas, westerns, the original Gidget, and guest starring on all the popular TV shows of the decade. She was tops as Batgirl and would bring a smile to my face Friday nights when she frequently popped up on Love, American Style. Below is my tribute to her cribbed from my book Glamour Girls of Sixties Hollywood:

Yvonne Joyce Craig was born on May 16, 1937 in Taylorville, Illinois.  When her family relocated to Dallas, Craig began ballet training with Edith James.  A superlative dancer, Yvonne wowed guest teacher Alexandra Danilova who chose her to be her protégé.  It was through Danilova that Craig won a scholarship to the School of American Ballet in New York, which led her to become the youngest member of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo where she progressed to soloist.  While on tour in Hollywood, she passed on film offers but when she returned in 1957 (after abandoning a career in ballet possibly because she was a bit too voluptuous to be a dancer) she accepted the female lead in the handsomely produced western The Young Land (1959) starring Patrick Wayne as a lawman torn between the Anglos and Mexicans in the newly formed state of California.  Craig with cleavage amply on display played his Senorita girlfriend.  When filming was delayed, she accepted a supporting role in the teenage exploitation film Eighteen and Anxious (1958).  More movie roles followed—the disapproving high school friend of Sandra Dee’s surfing sweetie in Gidget (1959) and a pony-tailed teenage vixen who puts the moves on shy drummer Sal Mineo in The Gene Krupa Story (1959).  Craig also began appearing on the small screen with small guest roles on Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, Perry Mason, Bronco, Philip Marlowe, and a few appearances on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

In 1960, television viewers were treated to Yvonne Craig playing the sweet ingénue on episodes of The Barbara Stanwyck Show, Channing, The Dick Powell Show, Dr. Kildare, Follow the Sun, Hennessy, and many others.   On the big screen she played a brainy college coed in the Bing Crosby comedy High Time (1960) where she met her first husband Jimmy Boyd (they divorced two years later) and a young nurse held captive by the Japanese in the WWII adventure Seven Women from Hell (1961).  Craig then shocked her fans when cast as the town tramp who vamped rich playboy George Hamilton in By Love Possessed (1961).  Sitting in his car, the amorous Craig seductively purrs, “If, ah, I get drunk and pass out…it’s no fun for me.  If you get drunk and pass out…it’s no fun for me.”  After their roll in the hay he gives her the brush off.  Furious, the gold digging tart then accuses him of rape.

 

Craig’s big screen persona softened during the mid-Sixties after signing a contract with MGM and co-starring twice with Elvis Presley.  In It Happened at the World’s Fair (1963) she was a small town girl clad in a tight form-fitting dress caught making out on the family sofa with playboy pilot Elvis by her gun-toting father who runs the poor boy out of his house and in Kissin’ Cousins (1964) she vied with her hillbilly sister Pamela Austin for the charms of distant cousin GI Presley.  In a surprising twist, brunette Craig’s charm lands the King while blonde Austin has to settle for another.

Craig was next wasted in a small part as a saloon girl in the comedy western Advance to the Rear (1964) starring Glenn Ford and Stella Stevens, and then played the spoiled fiancée of meek news reporter Robert Morse who almost loses him to half-Maori girl Anjanette Comer while on assignment in Antarctica in the lightweight romantic comedy, Quick, Before It Melts (1964).  In Ski Party (1965) a beach party in the snow starring Frankie Avalon and Deborah Wally, Yvonne played the love interest of Dwayne Hickman.  When she and Walley go gaga over ladies man Aron Kincaid, the guys dress in drag and pretend to be British lasses determined to discover what women look for in a man.  Craig gives a perky performance and looks simply fetching in her ski outfits but unfortunately she is no where to be found when the bikini girls gyrate poolside to a warbling Avalon. Though a professional ballet dancer, Yvonne could not muster sixties pop go-go dancing.

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At this time Yvonne started landing bigger and even more memorable roles especially in the spy genre on TV beginning with an appearance on The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in “The Brain Killer Affair” as the young innocent who joins Robert Vaughn’s Napoleon Solo as he searches for U.N.C.L.E. chief Mr. Waverly who is being held prisoner by THRUSH agent Elsa Lanchester the creator of a mind-altering machine whose rays render the captive ineffectual.  On The Wild Wild West Craig gave a passionate performance as the amusingly named Ectascy La Joie, a seductive assassin whose every attempt to kill a Middle-Eastern despot is foiled by Robert Conrad’s agent James West in “The Night of the Grand Emir.” For marquee name value only Craig appeared in added scenes in two theatrically released Man from U.N.C.L.E. features.  In One Spy Too Many (1966) she played Leo G. Carroll’s niece who is attracted to Robert Vaughn’s virile agent.  But the role was just created for gratuitous titillation as Craig is seen lying topless on her stomach in a bikini tanning under a sun lamp while working in the communication room at UNCLE headquarters.  One of Our Spies Is Missing (1966) featured Craig as agent “Wanda” who unfortunately keeps her uniform on but has no interaction with any of the other actors in her brief scenes in the control room.

She next played a sexy mini-skirted scientist who recites a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo in the sci-fi cheapie Mars Needs Women (1966) opposite Tommy Kirk as a Martian sent to abduct nubile lasses to bring back to the Red Planet where their female population has plummeted.  However despite the film’s tag line “They were looking for chicks…to go all the way!” it is not as fun as it sounds.  After putting her ballet skills to good use in the more high profile role of a Russian ballerina/enemy agent in In Like Flint (1967) opposite James Coburn as suave Derek Flint (though she does her own dancing Craig was disappointed that they shot her scenes from what looks like the balcony), Yvonne landed the role that will make her live on in infamy—Batgirl on TV’s Batman.  With the ratings falling during the second season, the producers wanted to inject the series with a female crime fighter.  The network was skeptical but after watching Craig who measuring 37-23-35 was a knockout in her skintight purple cat suit during a short promo film Batman was renewed for a third season in 1967.  Her meek librarian Barbara Gordon by day morphed into crime fighter Batgirl by night aiding the Dynamic Duo in keeping Gotham City safe from a rogue’s list of felonious felons. Her best episode was perhaps the first one that introduced her to the series as Barbara Gordon is kidnapped by Burgess Meredith’s Penguin who aims to marry her making him the son-in-law of the city’s police commissioner.  Though Craig brought more excitement to the show it did not translate into bigger ratings so the series was cancelled in 1968.

Yvonne finished up the decade playing various roles on such series as The Mod Squad as a singer with meningitis on the lam from the mob in “Find Tara Chapman!,” Star Trek as a demented green-skinned alien denizen of a space asylum in “Whom Gods Destroy,” and Land of the Giants as a time-traveling researcher in “Wild Journey.” Yvonne also turned up four times on Love, American Style. She was perfect for this late ’60s/early ’70s lightweight satire on love between the sexes.

Yvonne returned to the big screen wearing a auburn wig in the comedy How to Frame a Fig (1971) playing a duplicitous secretary aiding crooked politicians to set up bookkeeper Don Knotts to take the fall for their looting of the town’s coffers.  She is quite seductive in her fur coats and mini-dresses as she tries to romance Knotts to keep him distracted from catching on to the politicians’ scam but she disappears from the movie far too soon.  The rest of her credits include small dramatic roles in the made-for TV movie Jarrett (1973) and on O’Hara, U.S. Treasury, Mannix, The Magician, Kojak, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Starsky and Hutch.  Tired of being typed in sexy roles, Craig instructed her agents not to accept them anymore.  Hence, her career came to a screeching halt as she wasn’t able to progress to mother-type roles.  Needing to support herself, she obtained a real estate license while accepting an occasional acting role such as in “Remember…When?” on Fantasy Island in 1983.  Yvonne received a resurgence of popularity when then the remake of Batman was released in 1989, which led to many talk show appearances and a small role in the direct-to-video comedy Diggin’ Up Business (1990).  At this time, she began doing autograph conventions where she was a fan favorite.  Her popularity inspired her to write her memoirs entitled From Ballet to the Batcave and Beyond, which was released in 2000 by Kudu Press.  After appearing as herself reminiscing about her dancing days in the documentary Ballet Russes (2005), she announced her retirement from making personal appearances in 2006 to spend more time with her husband Kenneth Aldrich whom she wed in 1988. Sadly, she passed away on August 17, 2015.

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On August 14^th the highly anticipated feature film The Man from U.N.C.L.E. starring Henry Cavill as Napoleon Solo and Armie Hammer as Illya Kuryakin will be released. I am excited to see it since they are keeping the movie set in the 1960s and making it an origin story as how the two agents came to be paired up. Of course, the wildly popular TV series starred Robert Vaughn as Solo and David McCallum as Kuryakin. Every U.N.C.L.E. episode had lovely ladies in it and the film is no exception co-starring Elisabeth Debicki and Alicia Vikander.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E., (originally conceived by James Bond creator Ian Fleming as Solo), became one of the biggest hits on television during the 1964-65 season. Solo was teamed with sexy Russian Illya Kuryakin, both who took orders from their no-nonsense bureau chief Mr. Waverly (Leo G. Carroll).

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was a true delight for young viewers, especially men as a number of sexy starlets including Senta Berger, Yvonne Craig, Carol Lynley, Danielle de Metz, Irene Tsu, Barbara Luna, France Nuyen, Luciana Paluzzi, Diane McBain, Anna Capri and others could be seen on the program.  The show was so popular that a number of two part episodes were re-edited, padded with new footage or outtakes and rushed into theatres.  During the show’s first two years on the air, fans could see their favorite U.N.C.L.E. stars on the big screen in To Trap a Spy (1965), The Spy with My Face (1965), One Spy Too Many (1966) and One of Our Spies Is Missing (1966).  Unfortunately, as the series began to become more of a spoof than a dramatic show by season three, the quality of the program suffered though it vastly improved in Season four but not enough to defeat the weak ratings (NBC kept jerking fans around by moving the series time slot) killing the show in mid-season.

Over the years I have interviewed many an actress who worked on the series and below are some of the more notable:

Sharyn Hillyer recurring role as U.N.C.L.E. agent Wanda during 3rd season 1966-67

“There was always this flirtation between Wanda and Solo. I was usually in a huff because he would go off and get involved with other women. I was left back at headquarters so there were always scenes of me steaming. I remember one episode [“The My Friend the Gorilla Affair” (12/16/66)] where Vaughn’s character was going to Africa and I got to give him his inoculations before he went. And so Wanda kind of got even with him for always running off and flirting with women all over the world. She got to give him a number of shots with a big needle.

Robert Vaughn was nice and friendly enough but he kept to himself. He was professional but he wasn’t much fun. He wouldn’t hang out where as David McCallum would. David was playful and would have lunch with me. I don’t remember a lot about Leo G. Carroll. He didn’t hang around much between scenes. He was very nice and always courteous to me. He was also very generous as far as time and working with someone but he was sometimes a bit forgetful.”

Sue Ane Langdon  in “The Shark Affair” aired October 13, 1964

“I had met Robert Vaughn previously before doing this. He has the same atmosphere about himself as Napoleon Solo in the show—a very tongue-in-cheek polish and too, too suave! Bob Culp played the villain and didn’t hang around the set that much. He was not unfriendly but we didn’t have much opportunity to talk to each other. I also think he immersed himself in his character on and off screen. I saw him years later and he was much looser with a great sense of humor. That didn’t come out when we worked together.”

Joan O’Brien in “The Green Opal Affair” aired October 27, 1964

“I played a housewife who was abducted off the streets of Bedesda, Maryland—I have an amazing memory, don’t I? This was fun to do because we had a scene where we had to run through the jungle barefoot chased by a live cheetah. I had to wear mold skin on my feet to help me from tearing up the skin.  It was a very far out episode.  Again it was fun, but not anything I’m extremely proud of.

Robert Vaughn and I went together for a couple of years prior to this. We had an on-again off-again relationship. He was fine to work with. David McCallum was a typical British actor. I really didn’t care for Carroll O’Connor who played the villain all that much. He was rather smug and not particularly warm. He was all business, but he did give me some interesting tips on acting. He told me I was moving my head around too much in the tight shots. I had never thought about that. He said, ‘If you really want people to listen to what you are saying and observe you closely don’t move your head. It’s distracting.’  I realized he was right and took his advice.”

Irene Tsu in “The Hong Kong Schilling Affair” aired March 15, 1965

“I remember working with David McCallum and he was a very precise actor. In one scene we were playing Chinese checkers. He didn’t want me to come in and say my line until he did a certain move. The first couple of times I goofed it up.  He said sternly, ‘Don’t say anything until I make my move!’ I finally got it right.”

Danica d’Hondt in “The Girls of Nazarone Affair” aired April 12, 1965

“David McCallum was a nice guy and very professional to work. I wasn’t so impressed with Robert Vaughn who acted ‘the star.’  Sharon Tate was so sweet and we socialized a bit after this shoot. When I heard about her murder it was extremely disturbing to me. She was such a lovely girl.

I had to learn how to drive a finely tuned sports car called a Cobra. They had one that was the show’s car and another that was this guy’s prize possession that they were going to use for the speed scenes. Well, the TV car’s back axel locked so we could only use the really fancy one. The guy who owned it did not want me driving it. The stuntman had parked the car with the wheels turned and I didn’t notice that. They gave me strict instructions not to baby the car but to put my foot on the gas and go. I got in the car with this actor [Ben Wright], I said my lines, I put my foot on the gas and since the wheels were turned I was headed for about fifty crew members. I swung the car around and careened down the road. I think it was being in character that saved me otherwise I would have been too scared to do that. They got it all on film and everyone was thrilled to death except the poor guy in the car with me who I think had to go and change his underwear.

Danica is pictured holding pistol; Sharon Tate in center; and Kathy Kersh on right.

Kathy Kersh in “The Girls of Nazarone Affair” aired April 12, 1965

“I respected Robert Vaughn very much as an actor but he was rather pompous and a bit full of himself. At one point [during a fight scene], Sharon [Tate] was supposed to hold his arms back and I was supposed to hit him in the stomach. In the rehearsal, I didn’t hit him very hard. I didn’t have a lot of experience doing this so he stopped the scene and said, ‘Now look, you can hit me as hard as you want. Hit me as hard as you can.’ He was holding in his stomach tight. So I hit him and he said, ‘See, you can’t hurt me.’ He was a little annoying the way he carried on and on.

Before we actually went before the cameras, I said to Sharon, ‘When you grab his arms from behind rather than just grabbing him—I want you to grab his arms and snap him back. And then quickly stick your knee right in the small of his back. I’ll hit him in the stomach.’ Sharon was very athletic and she thought that it was a great idea. And that’s what we did. Sharon snapped him back, which he totally did not expect and I punched him good in the tummy. He doubled over. We really didn’t hurt him—that wasn’t the point—but it was his pride that was injured. I remember some of the cast and crew turning away so as not to laugh in front of him.  After he got up he said something like ‘Maybe you shouldn’t do it like that.’ Sharon and I had a good laugh.”

 

Celeste Yarnall in “The Monks of St. Thomas Affair” aired October 14, 1966

“There is a great story of how I won this role.  They were only auditioning French actresses like Claudine Longet for this part. I just signed with a new agent and told him I did dialects. He sent me to MGM to interview for this. When I walked in I said in a French accent, “Bon jour. My name is Celeste Yarnall and I’m from Paris.’ The producer [Boris Ingster] who was foreign, started speaking to me in French. I know only a little bit of French so I said using a French accent, ‘No, no, no.  I am in this country to practice my English. Don’t speak French to me. I will read the script in English and you tell me how I do.’ One of the words in the script was the Beatles. When I got to it, I pronounced it ‘the Be-a-tles.’ They fell on the floor laughing and I got the part almost on the spot. After we started shooting, I said to Boris Ingster, using my normal American accent, ‘You know I’m really not French.’ His jaw dropped and he said that I had totally convinced them that I was from France.

Overall, doing The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was an excellent experience for me. Robert Vaughn was wonderful to work with. He is a very elegant and intelligent man. I must have done a good job because it lead to many more acting offers for me.

Diane McBain in “The Five Daughters Affair” aired January 11 & 18, 1967

“[Fellow guest star] Telly Savalas was such a sexy man, very virile, as was David McCullum. Telly was the kind of man who could go up to any woman, sweep her into his arms and take her right there, no matter where. Not that he did that to me—I only imagined it.  But, I’d bet a bundle he could. David McCullum wouldn’t have had any trouble doing the same thing, either. It may not be true, but I imagined these men had endless women crawling in and out of their dressing rooms, at all hours.  When you work with actors in that milieu, especially on a set with limited contact, it is difficult to get to know them all that well. Telly seemed to keep to himself unless it had something to do with business. Then, he was always available. But, he was, on every relevant occasion, very pleasant to be around and to work with.”

 

 

Thordis Brandt in “The Prince of Darkness Affair Part II” aired October 9, 1967

“Robert Vaughn and David McCallum kept to themselves. Neither one socialized with me on the set.”

She had more fun working on the sister series The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. “Stefanie Powers and Noel Harrison were wonderful. Noel was such a sweet man. This show was a lot of fun to work on. The producers told me that they could use me in the background a lot if I could change the way I look.  I was a real chameleon so I was able to pull it off.”

Marlyn Mason in “The Deadly Quest Affair” aired October 30, 1967

“We [Robert Vaughn and her] had to do a kissing scene In those days when people kissed on television and in movies it was all very tame stuff. There was no slurping and nobody was eating anybody’s face like you see nowadays. So we do this scene and Vaughn just jams his tongue down my throat. Of course the actress in me just kept on acting but I was not responsive. I was trying to keep my mouth shut. I was so stunned and I decided that I was just not going to say anything. We did this in one take but I thought, ‘There is no way that they are going to see this in the dailies and pass it.  We’re going to have to do this again.’ Sure enough, the next day the director came and told us we had to do the scene over again. I was watching out of the corner of my eye as the director took Robert Vaughn aside and told him, ‘You can’t kiss her like that.’ We did it a second time and he made a half-ass attempt to do it again. But my mouth was tightly shut!”

Photo is from her Marlyn’s prior appearance in “The Fiddlesticks Affair.”

 

BarBara Luna in “The Man from Thrush Affair” aired December 4, 1967

“When I saw this episode recently it looked like I was walking through it. I was very boring in it. I thought Robert Vaughn was very good though. As for acting with him, he is not unpleasant to work with, just aloof. When I see him at conventions, he still is very aloof, but I like him anyway.”

To read more about the U.N.C.L.E. gals and other spy chicks, check out our book (co-written with Louis Paul) Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films and Television, 1963-1973 and some of my others:

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The gals from the web sites Speakeasy and Silver Screenings are co-hosting this week a Beach Party Blogathon. Below is my contribution about 1965’s The Girls on the Beach with excerpts taken from my books Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies; Trippin with Terry Southern; and Drive-in Dream Girls.

After the success American International Pictures had with Beach Party (1963) followed by Muscle Beach Party (1964) and Bikini Beach (1964), every studio and independent producer wanted in on the beach movie action. Paramount Pictures picked up the distribution rights to The Girls on the Beach. A gaggle of coeds (including Noreen Corcoran from TV’s Bachelor Father; Natalie Wood’s sexier sister Lana Wood; Linda Saunders soon to morph into Lori Saunders on TV’s Petticoat Junction; and fresh faces Mary Mitchel, Gail Gerber, Linda Marshall, and Anna Capri) are trying to raise funds to save their sorority house using various schemes including try to win a crossword challenge, a bakeoff, and a beauty pageant. Then three surfer dudes (Martin West, Aron Kincaid, and Steve Rogers) who want to score with them trick the gals into thinking that they are tight with The Beatles. Things go awry when the girls announce a fundraiser with the Fab Four as headliners much to the detriment of the guys. When they learn that they have been duped, four of the coeds don longhaired wigs and impersonate The Beatles to an appreciative audience and save the day. Interspersed amongst the action are musical performances from The Beach Boys, Lesley Gore, and The Crickets.

The Girls on the Beach was the first of two movies backed by producer Roger Corman though his name does not appear on the credits. He enlisted his brother Gene Corman to act as Executive Producer to watch over his investment during production. Roger Corman had just signed an exclusive contract with Columbia Pictures, which forbade him from directing movies for any other studio. Corman put the movie in the hands of veteran director William N. Whitney. He had experience directing numerous TV shows and a few low-budget exploitation movies of the fifties such as Young and Wild (1958), Juvenile Jungle (1958,) and The Cool and the Crazy (1958). The Girls on the Beach had a three-week shooting schedule with interiors shot at Occidental Studios on Pico Boulevard and only two days filming on the beach in Santa Monica rather than Malibu the usual locale for the beach movies, which would have been too costly for this low-budget production.

The screenplay for The Girls on the Beach was by David Malcolm, which was a pseudonym for TV comedy scribe Sam Locke, who went on to author the screenplay for Corman’s next movie Beach Ball. The one common thread that can be found in both of these movies is that in each the actors have to dress in drag. Aron Kincaid said, “It was only years afterwards that I realized that the same man wrote them. I don’t know but he must have liked to see all of us in dresses or something!”

Actor Bart Patton was working for Roger Corman at the time and invited a number of his friends to come down to Corman’s office to interview for roles in the movie. Aron Kincaid recalls, “I knew Bart from UCLA. He had done a lot of other things and was one of the stars of Francis Ford Coppola’s Dementia 13. His wife was Mary Mitchel, who I also knew from UCLA. We all seemed to be connected one way or another—it was like one degree of separation. He called me to come down and audition. I had only been out of the Coast Guard for about a week or two so I was in the best physical shape I had been in, which is not to say that it was anything great! In those days people didn’t have the bodies like they do today. Just not having a tire around your middle was considered a great physique. I went on the interview and got one of the starring roles in The Girls on the Beach.”

To assure that teenagers would flood the theatres, the film was peppered with musical guest stars Lesley Gore, the Crickets, and the Beach Boys (who perform three tunes). Brian Wilson wrote the songs “The Girls on the Beach” and “Little Honda” especially for the movie and the recordings appeared on the Beach Boys’ LP All Summer Long.

With three weeks to shoot, William Whitney did not waste any time and worked his cast hard and fast. Describing Whitney’s directing style, Aron Kincaid remarked, “He encouraged everybody to improvise I think because he thought of us just a bunch of dumb young kids. But we were all professional and dead serious about our work. It’s funny regarding these beach movies. You’d think it was just a bunch of kids slapping around and having a good time. But everybody analyzed every scene that they did.

“For instance, in the opening scene Martin West is telling Steve Rogers and I what we got to do to pick up these girls at the next table,” continued Kincaid. “While he is talking he is playing with a straw. Whitney yelled cut because they had to set up a light differently so I stepped over to the side. Steve Rogers said, ‘Do you notice what Martin is doing with the straw.’ I said, ‘Yeah, he’s playing with it. He didn’t do that in rehearsal.’ Steve then said, ‘He’s doing this to draw all the attention and eyes to him on the screen.’ I said, ‘We’ve got to fight back!’”

Corman knew what he was doing by hiring Whitney. Working on a short production schedule, the veteran director tried to keep on time and within budget. Aron Kincaid remembers that at one point they just finished a scene that took a number of takes and Whitney only gave them a five-minute break before the next set up. As the young actors and actresses plopped down in their chairs, there was a lot of grumbling from the cast. “Gail Gerber was this little tough blonde,” says Aron. “I remember she was puffing on a cigarette and she shouted in frustration, ‘Who do you have to fuck to get off this picture?’ A crew guy yelled back, ‘The same guy you fucked to get on it!’  Gail laughed as hard as the rest of us.” Gail Gerber recalled this incident in her memoir Trippin’ with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember. It is all true and she remarked, “I think I stole that line from Bette Davis.”

Though the girls play well on screen behind the scenes was another matter. With a number of aspiring actresses in the film, you’d expect the fur was sure to fly and it did according to Aron Kincaid once the buxom Lana Wood hit the sound stage. “None of us had seen Lana other than in The Searchers when she was eight or nine years old,” recalled Aron Kincaid. “She came on the set the first day and it was like Jayne Mansfield’s entrance in The Girl Can’t Help It. There was everything but a drum going bump, bump, a-bump, bump, a-bump. She was in this gold lame bathing suit and I guess she was only eighteen at the time. She was built far beyond the other girls. Most of the others huddled with towels around them to hide false and imagined flaws. Linda Marshall carried a big white towel with red flowers on it and always had it draped around her because she was terrified that her thighs were going to look too big on the screen.  But Lana—the brave soul that she was—just came on with this well here I am, take it or leave it attitude. Well, everybody wanted to take it. She was a knockout. I think the other girls in their little two-piece cotton polka-dot numbers felt sort of shone up but nobody could compete with a gold bikini.

“The other gal in it who was a pretty hot number was Anna Capri [pictured below with Peter Brooks],” continued Aron.  “To say that the other girls on the picture ostracized Anna and Lana is an understatement.  You think guys are competitive and scheming—you should see the women!  They realized that they had some rough competition in Lana and Anna.  Happily, it didn’t show on the screen.  Though Anna’s character was sort of ostracized in the movie too.”

Though this was Gail Gerber’s first movie, she came from a impressive background of ballet, theater, and live TV in her native Canada. Commenting on what was going on around her, she said in her memoir, “Noreen Corcoran [pictured below] was the female lead in the movie and she refused to wear a bikini or a two-piece swimsuit. The costumer had to outfit her in these hideous floral one-piece bathing suits with matching cover-ups. However they also made her dye her beautiful chestnut brown hair blonde for the movie against her wishes so I did feel a bit sorry for her. Linda Marshall thought her thighs would look fat on the big screen so she draped herself in a beach towel in most of our scenes. I couldn’t believe the producers would let them get away with this. If you are ashamed or prudish about your body why agree to star in a beach movie!?! I thought all these girls were a bit ridiculous with their attitudes even more so when their claws came out, especially Linda’s, when Lana Wood pranced onto the soundstage in her gold lame bikini. She had no inhibitions whatsoever, which I think intimidated them. Being a bit older than these gals, I pretty much kept to myself. But seeing how they ostracized poor Lana, I sort of befriended her. I think they were jealous because her sister Natalie was a big movie star.”

Pictured above (clockwise from center: Gail Gerber; Lana Wood; Steve Rogers and Linda Marshall; and Lori Saunders. Click on image to get full-size.

Though both Aron and Gail felt Lana Wood was not treated very well by her co-stars, she did not convey that in my interview with her for Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema, “The Girls on the Beach was a lot of fun to do. What I especially remember is having to wear the Beatles wigs and that dreadful gold lame bikini. It was a really ugly bathing suit. We shot the sorority house and club scenes on this little bitsy stage but most of the film was shot at the beach. For a low budget independent film it went very smoothly.”

In The Girls on the Beach, West, Rogers, and Kincaid get trapped in the girls’ sorority house so the only way they can sneak out is by donning the girls’ clothes and wigs. Of course, they could have hung out the window and dropped to the ground but that would not have been as much fun. Though he didn’t mind dressing up, Kincaid didn’t think the scene was very realistic. “If three guys did have to do such a thing they would hardly be putting on false eyelashes and lip gloss with a lipstick brush, which is what the make-up man did to us. Everybody said that I looked like Lana Wood. I swore that Steve Rogers looked like Lizabeth Scott and Martin West resembled Rose Marie of The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

Despite the hard working cast giving it their all, The Girls on the Beach is best remembered today for The Beach Boys rare big screen appearance. “I knew some of the Beach Boys before we even did the film,” said Aron Kincaid. “Dennis Wilson lived up the street. I’d be out in front of my house watering the lawn and he’d always wander by with the girl-of-the-moment that he was dating. I didn’t know Mike Love or Al Jardine but I did know Brian and Carl Wilson. When we did the musical number “Little Honda” with them in a nightclub scene I didn’t think, ‘Oh God, the Beach Boys!’ I just thought of Dennis as being the guy from around the corner and that we were all being paid to do some crazy work. On the set they were very friendly and did their job.”

Gail Gerber, coming from the world of classical ballet and jazz, had a different experience working with them. She revealed in her memoir, “The one thing that stands out for me while shooting The Girls on the Beach is that Mr. Witney asked me to dance in front of the dreaded Beach Boys while they sang “Little Honda.” I was never a fan of rock ‘n’ roll but after meeting Terry [Southern] I did learn to appreciate some of it—but to this day not the Beach Boys! I’m shaking and shimmying and I am thinking, “If they don’t yell cut pretty soon there is nothing more in my repertoire that I can do. This music is so boring—I can’t stand it. If they play that riff one more time I’m going to kill somebody!” They just kept banging away. Thirty years later I am reading about Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys describing this scene in his early youth, which he said was his lowest moment because there was this girl gyrating out in front during his very important song in his first movie. I am sorry I caused him so much grief. If only we were able to read each other’s minds. Then again considering my dislike for his song and his group it is better that we couldn’t.”

The Beach Boys third number called “The Lonely Sea” was shot on the beach.  According to Aron Kincaid, “It was supposed to be at night scene but it was filmed during the afternoon as a day for night shot.  It was about ninety-seven degrees and we are all bundled up with sweat pouring down our backs.”

The Girls on the Beach is one of the better Beach Party clones enhanced by witty dialog, a pleasant, wholesome cast, and outstanding musical performances by the Beach Boys in their sole beach movie appearance. As expected from the title, there are lots of girls on the beach. Wisecracking Gail Gerber stands out as the ditzy, man-hungry Georgia. Her car scene near the end of the movie is one of the film’s funniest bits. Gail is a knockout in her skimpy swimsuit too but has stiff competition from Lana Wood as the girl in the gold lame bikini and Anna Capri as the curvaceous, busty Arlene. Noreen Corcoran is cute with dyed blonde hair, but she comes across stilted and uncomfortable clad in some of the ugliest swimsuits to ever appear on the California coast. Linda Marshall as Cynthia spends most of the movie ridiculously draped in a towel that she carries around with her. She’s the female Linus Van Pelt of the beach set. As the trio of lothario surfers, hunky Martin West is fine as the leader, handsome blonde Aron Kincaid shows comedic talent, and pretty boy Steve Rogers with his striking dark features and penetrating crystal blue eyes has a disarming charm about him.

As with the latter crop of low-budget Hollywood surf movies, surfing scenes are minimal though the guys are actually filmed out in the ocean sitting on their surfboards rather than in a tank in front of a blue screen on the studio lot. There are lots of scenes filmed at the seashore and the movie is strongly enhanced by the presence of the Beach Boys who elevate the movie due to their appearance (despite what Gail Gerber felt). Their performance of “Little Honda” is classic and that clip has been broadcast on music video outlets and used in practically every Beach Boys documentary. The Crickets and Ledley Gore do well, but unfortunately the viewing audience has to sit through two numbers of the girls masquerading badly as The Beatles while the crowd on screen goes wild in appreciation at the film’s climax.  Disregarding this ending, The Girls on the Beach, though short on surfing scenes, is still one of the better copycat Beach Party movies as it is fast moving fun populated by fine looking young people some of whom can really act. It surely deserves a DVD release paired with its sister movie Beach Ball. This also came from the team of Roger Corman/Gene Corman/Bart Patton and featured Aron Kincaid and Gail Gerber.

 

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