Fun Finds: Modern Screen, August 1973

Well, I've done it again! I was spelunking through a local antique mall and found this poor, distressed, heavily-abused magazine among the assorted bric-a-brac of a certain vendor's booth. Dated August of '73, it would have hit the streets a couple of months before that actual date. The poor thing was yellowed and barely held together, but I did what any other archeologist would do. I excavated it and have attempted to archive its contents the best I can! (Something Dr. Brockton of Trog taught me? LOL) You may need to open in a new tab or window to read the pages clearly.

First up is a review of the then-new feature film Paper Moon. The magazine gives the pic, especially star Tatum O'Neal (who would go on to win an Oscar), high marks and applauds it for harkening back to the good old days. (I do, however, seem to recall Paper Moon featuring at least some language that would NOT have been found in a 1930s movie!) On the same page is a photo of one of my best friends of the '80s & '90s, Aqua Net hairspray! I always used the Super Extra Hard-to-Hold Unscented in the lavender can, though. Remarkably, I'm not completely bald today, but it's coming...

I'm devoting a fair amount of coverage to longtime columnist Dorothy Manners' gossip section because we all love to read the various tidbits about this star and that. No matter how many times I see it in print, I always have a hard time imaging Liza Minnelli in a relationship with EITHER Desi Arnaz Jr. OR Peter Sellers. I mean, can you imagine Liza having Lucille Ball as a mother-in-law?! Then again, I've often had trouble buying into Ms. Minnelli's relationship's and marriages, especially that last one!

On this page, we're already back to Ryan O'Neal and daughter Tatum, this time describing the torment she was going through at being separated from him after they spent months filming their movie. O'Neal was dating Ursula Andress at the time and on the cusp of filming Barry Lyndon, which didn't see release until 1975! The project mentioned with Orson Welles didn't come to fruition. There is also mention of Patricia Neal's daughter Tessa Dahl, who acted with her mother in Happy Mother's Day, Love George (1973) alongside Bobby Darin, Cloris Leachman and Ron Howard. She did very little on screen after that (and her older, British boyfriend Freddie Eldrett never worked on screen again after 1967!)

An interview with the rather reclusive Al Pacino has him opening up about his childhood and even a bit about his love life. I had no clue that he and Jill Clayburgh had been an item for five years! Another blurb focuses on the (ill) health of Burt Reynolds and Laurence Harvey and blessedly includes a shirtless photo of Burt lifting a weight.

This page offers up a couple of treats. There's a photo of Carol Burnett receiving a trophy in the wake of a Friar's Club Roast in her "honor." Then there's one of her after being hit in the face with a cream pie, allegedly unexpected! We also see Miss Doris Day on the town astride her trusty bicycle. No one, perhaps not even Doris, realized that she would never again act in a movie or on TV after 1973. The article mentions the irony of Burt Reynolds' and Dinah Shore's exes appearing in television ads during Dinah's show, the recent marriage of Mannix' Gail Fisher and, sadly, the widow and son of Clark Gable being forced to sell their beloved ranch.

I positively love this page, riddled with Old Hollywood stars. At the top ate Alexis Smith and Alice Faye with some unnamed buddies. Where was Smith's husband Craig Stevens this night?! Joan Fonatine appears to have goosed her date right when the picture snapped. Joan Bennett receives a mother of the year award with her daughters and granddaughter. Then we have an highly unusual pairing - Myrna Loy and Lainie Kazan! It says that Kazan was fired from the 1973 Broadway revival of "The Women" (which Loy was in, as was Alexis Smith) because they "wanted a blonde." Wigs hadn't been invented yet in 1973?? That was a rough year because Kazan was also replaced in "Seesaw" by Michele Lee shortly before opening! Finally, Terpsichorean titans Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are reunited for a tribute to them.

Interesting reading here about Debbie Reynolds and her then-hit Broadway show "Irene." She talks about moving from Hollywood to New York with her kids, Carrie and Todd (Carrie is in the show, too, seated prettily on the floor!) and a potentially deadly accident that Todd had with an old "prop" gun. Of course, one burning question is: Why did Irene Sharaff decide to costume the petite, still-in-shape musical comedy star as if she were one of those Barbie doll birthday cakes in which the person icing it was unable to stop until he covered the arms and got all the way up to the chin?!

The final page has an article about motion picture up-and-comer Marisa Berenson, on the verge of costarring with Ryan O'Neal in Barry Lyndon. The article suggests that they might become lovers even though he was then dating Ursula Andress and even still married to Leigh Taylor-Young! Maybe the columnists knew him pretty well. LOL The final part of the page is devoted to some letters from readers and Manners' responses to them.

This was a fun feature! "Catching Up With..." (a precursor to, or is it rip-off of, those "What Ever Became Of..." books that I adore.) We get a contemporary photo of Laraine Day, who left the movie business in the late-1940s, tired of the empty promises of studio execs and eager to begin a new life in New York City with her second husband. She worked on TV and still did the occasional film (such as 1954's The High and the Mighty), but her more high-profile years were finished. (She looks lovely - a lifelong avoider of smoking & drinking of any alcohol, coffee or tea! - but those eyebrows!! Wowza.)

Day was a devout Morman, though married three times in all! The final marriage was to a man who converted to her religion and was her most satisfying. They wed in 1961 and remained together until 2007 when they died about six months or so apart. The final page of the interview had some remaining copy about her working with C.B. DeMille whose difficult reputation she didn't encounter (though he did have a man following him around with stools to put down for him) and Josef von Sternburg who required people to write his or her name on a chalkboard if they wanted to speak to him and he'd call on them when he was ready! Marlene Dietrich was a glamorous visitor to the set with ruby and diamond garters on her famous legs. Day's last screen work was as a guest on Murder, She Wrote in 1986.

Next we come to a feature on Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland. Both of these stars were married to other people when they first met. The night Bronson met Ireland at a party, he went up to her then-husband David McCallum and - kidding or not - told him, "I must warn you, I'm going to take your wife away from you." McCallum had no response.

In time, the two did draw together, a mutual interest in painting solidifying their connection. Their shaky, respective marriages were dissolved after a lengthy period of time and The Bronsons became a new, inseparable, blended family. Her three plus his two and then one together, shown in this spread, went on location together whenever possible and the couple strove to avoid long separations.

Bronson earned every single line in that craggy face. His father died when he was ten, leaving he and his fourteen siblings in the care of a mother who was, needless to say, overwhelmed and penniless. Bronson and his brother worked double shifts in a coal mine as kids at base wages to try to help pitch in.

Bronson and Ireland worked together many times in movies until she died of cancer at only age fifty-four in 1990. Bronson lived to be eighty-one, passing away in 2003 of pneumonia and complications from Alzheimer's Disease.

For some reason (the heavy black border/background?), I had so much trouble scanning these next two pages. In any case, fans of Al Pacino might be happy with the large photo of him. I always forget that he was once involved with Tuesday Weld.

The article delves into their relationship as two wounded souls brought together by difficult childhoods. He had a possessive, erratic, emotionally disturbed mother who kept him close by and she had a pushy, demanding stage mother who drove her to an early nervous breakdown. (She later became a wild child, simultaneously dating Frank Sinatra and big John Ireland when she was FIFTEEN, which doesn't say a lot about the sensibility of those two gents either.)Weld married Dudley Moore in 1975 and Pacino has never married but has three children from two women, one of who is Beverly D'Angelo.

This feature "Cooking With a Star" focuses on Shirley Jones, then married to Jack Cassidy and wrangling stepson David and three other sons Shaun, Patrick and Ryan for the occasional family dinner. The Partridge Family, which starred David and her, was still in full swing, but Shaun's and Patrick's fame as actors was still to come. Jones and Cassidy divorced in 1975 and Cassidy died in a 1976 fire. Ms. Jones is still with us now at eighty-one and has been married to outspoken comic Marty Ingels since 1977.

Up next, young love in bloom, courtesy of The Waltons star Richard Thomas and Sian Barbara Allen, who costarred in the creepy 1972 feature film You'll Like My Mother alongside Patty Duke and Rosemary Murphy. Allen later appeared in two episodes of The Waltons.

A ton of photos were taken of the young couple posed in various stages of '70s chewing gum and deodorant ad bliss.  LOL Thomas did marry in 1975, but not to Allen. It was to a woman named Alma with whom he had four kids before divorcing in 1990. He married his present wife in 1994. Allen apparently wed at some point, too, but I don't know the details. She retired from acting in 1990 and turned to writing instead.

I must confess that I was never attracted to Thomas, though I know that many people have been and are. Somehow when I was a kid, that mole on his face disturbed me. I didn't really ever warm up to it as an adult either! Ha! And I also cannot deny that I never considered Allen "pretty" as the author of the article does.

Still, they were pleasant, talented performers, just not my own personal cup of tea. If you looked closely at a few of these shots of Thomas, you will see that he seemed to have something of a Walton's Mountain of his own peering out from those salmon-tinted trousers.








See?

Speaking of trousers, how about the high-waisters on Mr. Lawrence Welk?!? I love Mr. Welk as much as the next gay... er, guy, but this is not a good look on him! I've read two or three of Welk's autobiographical books and they are all entertaining and uplifting, if a tad heavy on the religious aspects at times.

Nevertheless, he had a lot to say about the morals and morale of people and I must say some of it ought to have been taken to heart by those who probably would rather take a bullet than read any of it. In fact, the last book of his I read warned of things that could have been written yesterday, yet the book was about forty years old! Whatever anyone thinks, he was certainly a mentor to many people and lived a highly positive life before passing away at eighty-nine in 1992 of pneumonia. His biggest legacy for me, however, is a raft of colorful shows with chiffon and camp galore!

This color photo is of Dean Martin and, at far left, his then-new bride Cathy Hawn. In what was something of a midlife crisis, Dino left his wife of 24 years, Jeanne, and married the younger (natch!) Cathy. The article allegedly includes all sorts of quotes from her about their wedding night, though if she intended to stay married to Martin for long I doubt she said all this verbatim shortly after her wedding (of between $50,000 and $100,000!), at least not to a gossip reporter!

Martin, it turns out, was suffering from severe ulcers and apparently wasn't able to lay claim to the marital bed ('cause, you know, I'm sure they "waited"...) Martin, already the natural father of seven, adopted Hawn's seven year-old daughter Sasha. The marriage, however, was over by 1976 at Martin's choosing. I did have to chuckle about how the article states that Cathy "began removing flowers from my hair" in anticipation of their honeymoon night. Um... from the looks of things, that might have taken until morning all in itself!!! The ornate wedding had 200 dozen lilies of the valley flown in from Paris along with 150 white lilacs and other flora. Despite the divorce, Martin and his prior wife Jeanne did remain lifelong friends (after she got a nice settlement!)

This article about Michael Landon is billed as "gossip," but it was actually quite a serious story! Landon, another prolific Hollywood progenitor, had fathered three children with his first wife and would ultimately produce four more with his second (and two more still with a third wife!), but also had a step-daughter with second wife Lynn, who he unsuccessfully attempted to adopt. It was she who was involved in the accident relayed in this article (her picture is on the NEXT page of the spread.) Then nineteen, she was in a roll-over car wreck that killed her female friend and two male companions! She did, however, survive and make a full recovery despite massive head injuries and broken bones.

Here we see Cheryl Landon as well as a story on Ali MacGraw and Steve McQueen, not yet married thanks to a drawn out divorce and custody battle with her husband, producer Robert Evans. McQueen went to Jamaica to film Papillon (1973) and MacGraw joined him there at a rented beachfront estate. Against his advice, she swam in the ocean below the house and was caught in an undertow that almost swept her out to sea! McQueen had to jump in fully-clothed and retrieve her, causing a day-long rift in their relationship. The twosome did wed in 1973, but the marriage was over by 1978.

This story is suggestively designed (Richard Burton teaching his sixteen year-old stepdaughter Liza Todd love lessons?!), but is actually about how the much-married Elizabeth Taylor and her then-husband Burton showed Liza how love should be by example.  Ahem! Todd was born during Taylor's third marriage. Her father died and Taylor wound up with his best friend, who was married to someone else, then she left that man for Burton!

Not only that, but Burton and Taylor divorced in 1974, then remarried each other for about a year before divorcing again! Love lessons indeed. Mama had two more husbands after that! But, anyway, the article describes how Burton's undying love for Taylor was demonstrated with gifts, protectiveness and passion. Todd, by the way, looks at this point to be the spitting image of her father Mike.

This gossip section is called Marvene on the Scene. She chats about meeting up with a Speedo-clad Mark Spitz at a pool in which he refused to swim because the water was too warm! Also, she offers love advice to Dinah Shore regarding her then-boyfriend Burt Reynolds. Pictures include Carroll O'Connor, Alan Bates and Patty Duke and John Astin.

On the next page we discover that John Wayne, having had an entire lung removed due to cancer, is still smoking. Other ailing stars noted include Susan Hayward, Laurence Harvey and Betty Grable. Hayward held on until 1975, but the other two were gone before the year was out. Photos on this page include Dinah Shore with Frank Sinatra, Mark Spitz on his wedding day and the just-deceased Lex Barker.

I've continued the pages by Marvene because her stories are pretty interesting and entertaining. Here, she continues about Grable and then talks about nearly being cast in a bit role in Mame (1974) with Lucille Ball. Before she could even finish writing about Lucy's plans for a grandbaby between Desi Jr. and Liza Minnelli, Liza had dumped Desi for Peter Sellers!

Moving on, we hear more about Minnelli and Sellers as well as further info regarding Ali MacGraw, Steve McQueen, Robert Evans and then Lois Chiles (misprinted as Lois Childs!) A couple of blurbs concern Barbra Streisand and Merle Oberon (!) as well as more gossip about the cost of Dean Martin's and Mark Spitz's weddings. Elizabeth Taylor's recent bout with the measles is also discussed along with more on Lex Barker. By the way, I cannot tell you how adversely I was affected as a child by undergarment ads like the one shown here! LOL

Those who are aware of the post-mortem allegations made against Barker by Lana Turner's daughter will note that Turner's reaction to Barker's death is completely at odds with the attitude she described in her book. We may never know the full story there. There is a blurb about Cary Grant's recent datemate and another about Marlon Brando nearly falling into a pond. 1973 was a bad year for celebrities. Robert Ryan is quoted as having "licked" his lung cancer, but, in fact, died that year. There are tidbits about Jackie Onassis' lifestyle and then, hilariously, a photo of Marvene in makeup for a scene in Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), erroneously called "Battle of."

She continues describing her adventure with chimpanzee makeup on the next page. She also mentions a tennis tournament with Bill Cosby (hopefully she didn't accept any drinks from him!), and another with Robert Stack. She finishes with a blurb about Mae West and a blind item about a cheating TV star.

This page is a tad out of order, but I didn't want to break up Marvene! It's an interview with British actor Edward Fox, then hot from Day of the Jackal (1973.) In the interview, he discusses filming a nude scene with Delphine Seyrig and how impersonal it all was, almost like an army induction exam. He also reveals that he and actor brother James Fox have drifted apart somewhat thanks to James' recent, serious immersion into religious teachings. He also notes that he felt he was not nearly as handsome as his brother and, thus, led a different type of career.

The final two things I am featuring from the magazine are for amusement purposes. One is this ultra-tacky wig ad with a lot of tacky pictures and hooty names.

The other is a crossword puzzle that was printed in the magazine!  If you want, you could print it off and try your hand at old time Hollywood trivia...  Till next time, my loves!  Poseidon.