Actress/dancer Gail Gerber passed away on Saturday, March 1, 2014 due to complications from lung cancer. A petite, blonde beauty with a shapely figure, she is best remembered by movie fans as a starlet with a vivacious personality that brightened up several beach cult films as well as two Elvis features during the mid-Sixties.

Gerber was born on October 4, 1937 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and began studying ballet at age seven. Her talent was evident even as a young girl and at fifteen she became the youngest member of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal. She grew up touring with the ballet troupe and eventually married a jazz musician. But in the late 1950s, she abandoned the unsuccessful marriage and moved to Toronto to work as an actress. She appeared on stage and in many live CBC television dramas. Gerber also had a flair for comedy, and was one of the last to perform in TV sketches with the legendary vaudeville duo Smith and Dale (who inspired the film The Sunshine Boys) on both The Wayne and Schuster Show and The Ed Sullivan Show.

Moving to Hollywood in 1963, the talented blonde quickly snagged the lead role in the play Under the Yum Yum Tree and made guest appearances on such popular TV series as My Three Sons, Perry Mason, and Wagon Train.  In 1965, she made her film debut in The Girls on the Beach, co-starring The Beach Boys, before her agent suggested she change her name and, as Gail Gilmore, she went on to have principle roles opposite Elvis Presley in Girl Happy (1965) and Harum Scarum (1965). She then returned to the sands of Malibu to co-star with Edd “Kookie” Byrnes in Beach Ball (1965) before growing to gigantic proportions along with five other delinquent teenagers (including Beau Bridges and Tisha Sterling), who terrorize a town in Village of the Giants (1965).

httpv://youtu.be/Oa2dTcxwOMI

Gerber had a minor role as a cosmetician in The Loved One (1965), directed by Academy Award winner Tony Richardson. It was on the set of that movie where she met its screenwriter Terry Southern, who was riding high due to the success of his satirical novels Candy and The Magic Christian, as well as the smash movie Dr. Strangelove, which he co-wrote. The two hit it off immediately and, despite their marriages to others, became inseparable. Gerber even abandoned her acting career in 1966 to live with Southern in New York, then in Connecticut, where she taught ballet for over twenty-five years and tended to their 200-year-old farmhouse, the chickens and pigs. Gerber remained Southern’s steadfast companion and muse until his death thirty years later in 1995.

After Southern’s death, Gerber spent most of her time living in New   York City. During the last twenty years of her life, she was the secretary of the Terry Southern Trust. She also returned to acting – playing a dotty old woman in Lucky Days (2008) an independent film written/directed by and starring her friend Angelica Page. Next she played a Wake Guest in avant-garde filmmaker Matthew Barney’s just completed film River of Fundament (2014).

httpv://youtu.be/0wvbBK9Nlsc

She also wrote her colorful memoir (with Tom Lisanti) Trippin’ with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember (published in 2010 by McFarland and Company, Inc.)  The book details what life was like with “the hippest guy on the planet” as Gerber and Southern traveled from LA to New York to Europe and back again. Gerber reveals what went on behind the scenes of her movies as well as Southern’s, including The Cincinnati Kid, End of the Road, and, most infamously, Easy Rider.  The book recounts the “highs” with Terry—hanging out with The Rolling Stones, Peter Sellers, Lenny Bruce, Roger Vadim and Jane Fonda, William Burroughs, Rip Torn and Geraldine Page, David Amram, George Segal, and Ringo Starr—as well as the “lows” in the 1970s & 1980s, when they were barely scraping by on their Berkshires farm. The book received an Independent Publishers Book Award Silver Medal for Best Autobiography/Memoir of 2011.

Gail Gerber is survived by her stepfather Karl Dudda and will be remembered by her many fans and loving friends.

[amazon_enhanced asin=”0786415754″ /] [amazon_enhanced asin=”0786441143″ /]

 

Today is actress Carol Lynley’s 72^nd birthday and I realized it has been 40 years since I became obsessed with this gorgeous angelic-looking blonde actress with the bluest eyes and porcelain doll skin. Most people think it was due to The Poseidon Adventure that made me flip my lid but in actuality it was a Glen Campbell/Joe Namath comedy called Norwood.

Every pubescent boy in 1973 wanted to see The Poseidon Adventure and I was no different. I was mesmerized by the TV commercials and desperately wanted to see the movie. My family rarely took us to indoor movies but we frequented the drive-in during the Spring and Summer months often. My birthday rolled around on May 11 and The Poseidon Adventure was still playing in theaters across the country five months after it premiered. Needless to say, guess what I wanted for a present? So on a warm Saturday night, off to the drive-in we went.

I was too excited for words and got to sit in the front seat between my mom and dad while my three siblings settled down in back. The sun went down and the movie began. I was fascinated as it began to unspool introducing the passengers and crew hours before the New Year’s Eve countdown. Of course, I knew what was in store for all and sat there waiting anxiously for the big moment. Then it came. As the ocean liner began to roll over after being hit by a 90-foot tidal wave, I was mesmerized. I had never seen anything like it. My heart was racing as the people in the ballroom began to reach out desperately for anything to grab on to, as the ship began to tilt. “Hold on Linda,” Mike Rogo yelled to his wife. It was to no avail as they, Belle, Nonnie, Manny, Reverend Scott, Susan, Robin, and the rest all began tumbling down as the ocean liner began to capsize. It is the best piece of trick photography, stunt work, and special effects for me to this day.

httpv://youtu.be/dd03qev59Jo

After that capsizing scene, I sat there mouth agape for the rest of the movie as the passengers and crew made their way up to the bottom of the boat–climbing, swimming, crawling their way to try to escape. The movie was tense, exciting, shocking (they killed off major characters in horrific ways!), tender, and funny. I loved all the characters but the one that fascinated me the most was the hippie singer Nonnie clad in hot pants and go-go boots. She was the lone character who expressed sheer terror regarding their predicament. I could relate, as I was petrified just watching in a parked car.

When the movie ended, it was like I just awoke from a dream. First thing I asked my mother was “who was the pretty blond playing Nonnie?” She said, “Carol Lynley. She was in that vampire movie [The Night Stalker] that I told you not to watch last year.”

I put this “Carol Lynley” out of my mind. Then one Saturday night the following year NBC-TV was broadcasting a Glen Campbell comedy called Norwood from 1970. He played a returning G.I. who wanted to get out of his sleepy hometown and make it as a vocalist on some hayseed radio show. At a local roller rink he meets up with shady Grady (Pat Hingle) who tells the naïve boy that he has connections to the show and all Norwood needs to do is drive one of his cars to New   York City unaware they are hot. When Norwood shows up the next day, he finds there are actually two cars and a passenger sitting in it named, “Yvonne Phillips and she is a dandy.” Grady tells Norwood that Yvonne has her own spending money, but whatever arrangements they make between them is Norwood and Yvonne’s business. Norwood says he doesn’t think she wants to. Funny, she hasn’t said a word so why we would he automatically assume that I thought. Years later I discovered that censors cut the prior scene when Yvonne gets out of the car and cusses out Grady and Norwood.

(Carol is featured in below video at the 8:13 mark)

httpv://youtu.be/xXGtP4eRUuw

Calling Yvonne Philips a dandy was an under statement. A pretty sun-drenched blond with short hair in an orange mini-dress Yvonne was a ball of energy eating her can of peaches as the duo began arguing their way across the country. Norwood keeps calling his passenger Laverne  and she exclaims, “My name is not Laverne it’s Yvonne! But I don’t want you calling me nuthin’” Unfortunately, after Norwood runs a stop sign and the duo are chased by an inept deputy and his sheriff, he gives the stolen car to Yvonne who drives off to find her “cannonball” Sammy Ortega in Illinois and disappears from the movie. I watched until the end to see who the actress was and I was stunned to see it was Carol Lynley! The same Carol Lynley who has long hair and a hippieish look in The Night Stalker and The Poseidon Adventure? It couldn’t be. She had a totally different look and played such an animated role. But it was.

From that moment on I tried to catch every movie and TV show she appeared in. I would buy the TV Guide a week early to plan my watching. If Carol turned up during the daytime on The Hollywood Squares or Dinah’s Place I would plan to be sick that day to stay home from school. It only worked a few times as my mom began to catch on. If one of Carol’s movies appeared on the Late Late Show (as Harlow often did) I would try to keep myself awake or set my alarm to get up (remember this was pre-VCR days). Luckily, a number of her films (particularly The Pleasure Seekers and The Shuttered Room) were regular features on the ABC-TV 4:30 Movie and that Carol was a frequent guest on The Mike Douglas Show. Both programs aired after school was out.

httpv://youtu.be/b3TetDSN09I

I began a scrapbook of clippings on Carol tearing out her picture or magazine/newspaper articles on her wherever I saw them including a few library books I am sorry to admit. Hell, I was desperate. Due to her romances with David Frost, Jack Haley, Jr. (later whom Carol confessed was just a friendship since he was gay) and others she popped up in the Enquirer, the Star, and Rona Barrett’s Gossip and Hollywood magazines frequently. I wrote in to Newsday’s TV column with questions I already knew the answers to such as “Was there a movie sequel to Peyton Place and, if so, who played Alison?” and “Did Carol Lynley sing ‘The Morning After’ in The Poseidon Adventure?” only to get her picture in the paper. It worked both times. My fascination became so acute and my family so aware that I overheard my mom tell her friend, “Tom stays up to all hours to watch Carol Lynley movies and pro wrestling.” The latter is for another discussion.

Some Carol experiences stand out for me. In 1975, our junior high school English class went to see the musical Raisin in NYC. It was my first Broadway show. But I was more interested in seeing the marquee for Absurd Person Singular “the longest running comedy on Broadway starring Geraldine Page, Carol Lynley and Fritz Weaver” as the TV commercial would blare. My nose was pressed to our bus’ window as we rode by since the theaters for the two shows were near each other. At this time Carol was the very fit spokeswoman for New York Health & Raquet Club and I always would run to the TV when her commercial aired. But I was most excited when I read that Carol was going to be a presenter on the 1979 Academy Awards most likely due to Jack Haley, Jr. who was directing. Carol looked simply stunning in a aqua blue evening gown that brought her eyes out even more and a blown back hairdo. She and co-presenter Robby Benson made a nice pairing and thankfully did not make fools of themselves as celebrities often do at these things.

I am the first to admit that Carol Lynley is not the greatest actress. There are no Oscars or Emmys on her mantle. And in her later years she could be guilty of delivering a bland and lazy performance. But for me she had that certain something that makes you stand up and take notice. Perhaps it is the cool elegance that she exudes. She had the guts to take on varied roles and fought typecasting.  As she once said, “I’ve played murderesses, nuns, whores and neurotics.” 40 years later I am still taking notice.

Happy Birthday Carol Lynley!

Below are 2 of my books Carol is featured in and hopefully one more to come in the near future.

[amazon_enhanced asin=”B00GEB9N6Q” /] [amazon_enhanced asin=”0786411945″ /]

 

In 1967, former model and Miss Rheingold Celeste Yarnall risked her life savings to travel to the Cannes Film Festival in hopes of being “discovered” even though she was acting in television and films (The Nutty Professor, Around the World Under the Sea, among others) since 1963.  Discouraged that her career hadn’t taken off, she and her husband Sheldon Silverstein headed to that international city hoping Celeste would wow some producers. And wow them she did!  Producer Harry Alan Towers, who was looking for a girl to play a female Tarzan in Eve, spotted her strolling down the street. According to Yarnall, he yelled and pointed, ‘Stop that girl!  That’s my Eve!’ Yarnall made a breathtaking jungle goddess in Eve, but the film wasn’t a success though a cult favorite today.

The jungle adventure Eve (1968) starring Celeste Yarnall was reminiscent of One Million Years B.C. with Raquel Welch and She with Ursula Andress. It was the story of an alluring half-savage jungle woman named Eve living in the wilds of Brazil where the natives worship her as a goddess. Trouble begins for Eve when she rescues a downed pilot (Robert Walker Jr.) who brings back news of this female Tarzan. A smalltime showman (Fred Clark) wants to capture her to put her on display while villainous Diego (Herbert Lom) wants her dead because he has been passing of his mistress (Rosenda Monteros) as the long-lost Eve, heir to her grandfather’s (Christopher Lee) fortune. To make matters worse, the natives want to kill Eve for helping a white man and there is Incan treasure wanted by all. In the end the villains get their due and Eve is reunited with her grandfather on his deathbed. However, she rejects the noise and confusion of the civilized world only to return to the jungle, despite her love for the pilot who vows to find her. The ending left it open for an intended sequel, which was never made to the relief of Yarnall who called Eve “one of the worst movies of all time.”

When Harry Alan Towers discovered Yarnall walking down the promenade in Cannes he offered her the lead in Eve on the spot. “I don’t know why Towers thought I was right for this part,” speculated Celeste. “I was never a tomboy and hadn’t climbed a tree in my life. I was more the sedate type. I even had to take some Judo classes to train for the role.”  When the start date of the film was postponed, Celeste returned to Los Angeles and was signed by Columbia to play one of the glamorous showgirls in Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand. She had to back out because “the start date for Eve was at the same time.” Threatened by Towers with a lawsuit, Yarnall had no choice but to turn down the acclaimed musical.

This was only the first of many problems Celeste encountered with her producer. “If you notice there is a whole section in the middle of Eve that has to do with Rosenda Monteros pretending to be me,” said Yarnall. “I am missing from the film for a long stretch because Towers stopped paying me. My husband wouldn’t let me show up on the set until I was paid. They re-wrote the whole middle of the script so that they could keep shooting. The movie’s called Eve and you’re wondering, ‘Where in God’s earth is Eve?’ My husband showed up at Towers’ office with a water pistol pretending it was a gun and said, ‘If you don’t pay Celeste, she’s not going to show up.’ Towers was a notorious schemer. I ran into him years later and he was like a normal person, but back then he was absolutely wild! He had a little German girlfriend named Schnitzel and he worked in a small part for her.”

Despite his shadiness, producer/screenwriter Harry Alan Towers had a knack for getting high caliber actors to appear in his foreign productions. Here was no exception, as he assembled such stalwarts as Christopher Lee, Herbert Lom, and Fred Clark to support Celeste and her leading man Robert Walker, Jr. “Herbert Lom was an amazing gentlemen—just a very elegant, intelligent man,” said Celeste fondly. “Christopher Lee was totally bent out of shape that he was playing my grandfather because he felt he would have been a much better leading man for me than Robert Walker was! And he just hated being made up to look old.”

As for her leading man, per Celeste he was truly an actor of the Sixties. “Robert was very far out.  He was into psychedelia and meditation. I know for awhile that he and his family lived off of nature somewhere in the canyons of Malibu. They bathed in a creek!  He is a very interesting man, but at that time he was too way out there for me. In retrospect, I liked him and I still like him.”

httpv://youtu.be/sLkJTYQ_BrA

One of the film’s pluses was that it was filmed on location in Spain and Brazil. However, shooting amongst the gorgeous scenery came with a price. “I got very sick in Spain,” recalled Celeste. “They put rancid oil all over their vegetables and I got food poisoning. Then I got injured while filming in Brazil.  A stuntman had taught me some moves for my fight scene with Rosenda Monteros. It was carefully choreographed because we were high up on a bluff. Rosenda was supposed to put the sole of her right boot into my stomach and I would fall into the stuntman’s arms. But she used her left foot and pushed me the wrong way and I almost went over the cliff. The stuntman did one of those flying leaps and caught the back of my head in the palm of his hand. We both fell into this bush—I was all cut up—but he saved me from a two hundred foot drop.”

Once the film was completed, Celeste saw a preview and was horrified. “I was incensed because I think I’m dubbed in this —it doesn’t sound like my voice,” she exclaimed. “I remember that they didn’t want to fly me back to do the looping.” Despite that fact, the actress agreed to help promote the movie in the U.S. “I remember climbing up on a drive-in movie theater marquee and having my picture taken. I did a small tour promoting the film because I was voted one of the Most Promising New Stars of 1968 by the National Association of Theatre Owners [for this and her performance in Live a Little, Love a Little opposite Elvis Presley].”

Any film that has Christopher Lee and the stunning Celeste Yarnall in a loin cloth is worth seeing and here you will not be disappointed. The story keeps your interest; the scenery is picturesque; and the actors, though not at their best, all play their roles competently.

You can read more about Celeste Yarnall in my books Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema and Film Fatales (co-written with Louis Paul).

[amazon_enhanced asin=”0786408685″ /][amazon_enhanced asin=”0786411945″ /]

When one thinks of heroines of British horror films of the seventies, actresses Veronica Carlson, Ingrid Pitt, and Caroline Munro quickly come to mind.  But another English lass named Jill Haworth also made her mark in the genre with her appearances in It!; The Haunted House of Horror/Horror House; Tower of Evil/Horror on Snape Island; Home for the Holidays (TV), and The Mutations.  A saucy petite blonde with a wonderfully throaty voice and just a trace of an English accent, Haworth had the qualities to expertly play the damsel in distress.  Though she appeared in the horror genre begrudgingly, you would never guess it from watching her performances.

Jill was discovered in 1959 by producer/director Otto Preminger (or as he was referred to, “Otto the Ogre”) and appeared in his films Exodus as an ill-fated young Jewish girl settling in the new Israel (earning a Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising Newcomer – Female); The Cardinal wasted playing a novitiate nun who spends most of limited time on screen washing the feet of dying priest Burgess Meredith; and In Harm’s Way as an army nurse who survives the bombing of Pearl Harbor only to be raped by Col. Kirk Douglas. “When you make three films with Otto Preminger, you’ve made three films with Otto Preminger and no one dicks around with you after that,” said Jill with a laugh.

httpv://youtu.be/6gmBfWDW9tU

After filming In Harm’s Way, Haworth’s contract with Otto Preminger was terminated since he had no roles in the pipeline suitable for her. She then returned to her native England in 1966 to co-star opposite Roddy McDowall in It!—her first excursion into the realm of horror. She plays the innocent young girl lusted after by disturbed museum curator Roddy McDowall who (ala Norman Bates) keeps his mummified mommy around the house. If that’s not bad enough, he brings to life a Hebrew statue called the Golem and uses it to do away with his enemies. Despite the premise, director Herbert J. Leder did a decent job in creating suspense. “I only did this film because I needed the money,” divulged Jill. “I hated everything about this movie—particularly what they did to my hair. They gave me an atrocious hairstyle for it. But I did like Roddy McDowall. He was very nice to work with. And with Roddy, what you see is what you get. He even brought me the poster for It! on the opening night of Cabaret. I couldn’t believe they were going to release it. He signed it and put an S-h before the It!  This film really was a piece of shit.”

httpv://youtu.be/O9hZrIUVXIg

It! did have an upside. During filming Jill was introduced to director Hal Prince who was on his way to Germany to do research for his new show Cabaret, the musical version of Charles Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin stories. “Hal Prince asked if I could sing,” recalled Jill, “and I responded, ‘louder than Merman.’” She flew to New York to audition and director Hal Prince cast her over Liza Minnelli and countless other actresses in the coveted role of Sally Bowles. The musical was a smash hit. Unfortunately, one terrible mean-spirited review by New York Times critic Walter Kerr dogged Haworth’s time in the show despite overall positive reviews from the other critics and receiving a New York Drama Desk Award nomination for her performance. She stayed with the show for two and a half years “to spite Kerr,” as she joked.

httpv://youtu.be/RC4g4wkiN_I

After leaving Cabaret, Jill returned to England to do her second thriller called The Haunted House of Horror aka Horror House (1970) or as the critics nicknamed it “Haunted House a-Go-Go”. (“My agents at ICM thought this would be a good career move.  It wasn’t!”) Mini-skirted Jill (who unbeknownst to her stepped in after Carol Lynley and Sue Lyon turned it down) and perennial teenager Frankie Avalon are part of a bunch of young swingers who hold a séance in a supposedly haunted house. One of them turns up murdered and the survivors begin suspecting each other. When Scotland Yard begins snooping, the teens return to the scene of the crime to flush out the killer. “Frankie didn’t want to do this film either but he was under contract to the studio [AIP]. But we just made the best of the situation and had a fabulous time working together. He has a great sense of humor. And you needed one doing this film. They housed us with the crew in this old, supposedly haunted hotel in Southport, England. The conditions were horrible. There weren’t any private bathrooms and you even had to take your own toilet paper to use the john! Frankie and I just kept laughing. Sometimes you need to laugh to get through unpleasant things.”

httpv://youtu.be/qVtUziaXzio

Speaking of unpleasant things, Jill’s characters faced a number of disturbing situations in her horror films to come.  She is terrorized by a maniac in Tower of Evil (1972); pitch forked to death in the ABC Movie of the Week, Home for the Holidays (1972); and after being accosted by her mutated boyfriend goes into a catatonic state of shock in The Mutations (1973), directed by Jack Cardiff. “I never wanted to do horror movies,” admitted Jill. “But when acting is your livelihood you sometimes have to accept unwanted roles just to survive. The only film I really like and remember much about is Home for the Holidays.”

Home for the Holidays was directed John Llewllyn Moxey who achieves suspense with this made-for-TV film, but not as much as he did with The Night Stalker. The film (from a script by Joseph Stefano) doesn’t hold up too well. It stars Walter Brennan as a cantankerous dying old man who summons his four estranged daughters back home for the Christmas holidays after he begins to suspect that his second wife (Julie Harris) is poisoning him and wants them to off her first before she does him in. The reunited siblings—the oft married party girl (Haworth); the innocent college coed (doe-eyed Sally Field); the stalwart eldest sister (Eleanor Parker); and the pill popping mess (Jessica Walter)—are doubtful but then two are brutally butchered. “We were the most disparate group of sisters ever to hit the screen,” laughed Jill. “None of us looked anything alike. Sally Field and I had star billing and we got along famously. She is a serious actress and was taking classes at the Actor’s Studio. She also had a great sense of humor and a mouth worse than mine. Julie Harris is a great actress and it was an honor to work with her. Eleanor Parker always had to make a grand entrance onto the set.” Jill adored Jessica Walter too, but Parker ranked right up there with John Wayne on In Harm’s Way as her two most disliked co-stars.

The entertaining Tower of Evil was directed by Jim O’Connelly and produced by prolific horror movie producer Richard Gordon. It was released in the United States as Horror on Snape Island and re-released to theaters here in 1981 as Beyond the Fog to trick young naïve moviegoers to think it was a sequel to John Carpenter’s hit movie The Fog. The movie was an ahead of its time slasher film with a madman running around an island killing off promiscuous teenagers. And it is notorious for its abundant male and female nudity.

httpv://youtu.be/uMHhZzWCoxw

Three American teenage tourists (including the hunky John Hamill not shy about revealing his hot naked body and British sex comedy fan fave Robin Askwith wasted in a small role) are discovered gruesomely murdered on SnapeIsland and the lone survivor Penny, lingering in a catatonic state, is wrongly suspected of being the killer. Coincidentally a Phoenician artifact is found on the island and a team archeologists is sent to excavate. Their private lives however on more akin to All My Children than a horror movie. Haughty Rose (Jill Haworth) is the ex-fiancée of Adam (Mark Edwards) and is having an affair with meek Dan (Derek Fowlds) whose pot smoking promiscuous wife Nora (Anna Palk) had a one night stand with Adam and still won’t give Dan a divorce. Also along for the ride is Evan Brent (Bryant Haliday) a detective hired by Penny’s family to unearth the truth; boatman Hamp who has a family connection to the island; and his horny hip long-haired tight-pants wearing nephew Brom (Gary Hamilton) who scores with Nora. Back in London, as Penny remembers what happened on Snape Island, the body counts begins to pile up after their boat is blown to bits and the castaways begin to realize Hamp’s mad brother Saul, who resided here with his wife Martha and supposed dead infant son Michael, is the culprit…or is he?

In the book The Horror Hits of Richard Gordon by Tom Weaver, the producer mentioned that he had seen Jill in Cabaret and was “grateful” she agreed to be in the movie. He commented, “She was absolutely cooperative  in any and every respect. I was shocked and saddened when I heard that she had passed away…” He also revealed that 99% of the movie was shot at Shepperton Studios and just one scene on location. Kudos to the cinematographer, set designers, and special effects team for making it look quite realistic.

After a few intermittent film and theatre roles in the late seventies and eighties (she received rave reviews for the national tours of Bedroom Farce and Butterflies Are Free), Jill quietly dropped from the limelight.  Her last screen credit was the independent movie Mergers & Acquisitions in 2001. Sadly, Jill Haworth passed away on January 3, 2011.

[amazon_enhanced asin=”B00CXRTH5W” /][amazon_enhanced asin=”0786408685″ /][amazon_enhanced asin=”1593936419″ /]