A Brief Camp-ing Getaway!

Oh, duckies... We've been overwhelmed by the final rehearsals and opening of our latest stage show (and positively pounded at work as well!), so we can only arrange for a little "camp"-ing trip until things let up a bit. A round of photos that tickle our camp sensibility for one reason or another. We hope you find them interesting or entertaining! Thanks to our cover boy Mark Damon (and his twirling, whirling friend!)

You know that we like vintage ads, especially vintage underwear ads, so we kick things off with four of them from a series of popular ones that have hooty camp characteristics (as well as some beefcake) now.

Hmmm... I like underwear ads that start off with a man naked but for a towel!

I beg your pardon??

The (cut-off) title of this one was "The Long and the Short of It" (and they were allegedly talking about their briefs...)

This publicity portrait for the kiddie show Space Patrol (1950-1955) has Lyn Osborn receiving some attention from gal-pals Virginia Hewitt and Nina Bara while Ed Kemmer and Ken Mayer look on. Are they jealous of Lyn or of the girls?  LOL

The plot and cast of The Girl in Black Stockings (1957), a murder thriller, has built-in camp value that this rather awkward publicity portrait only emphasizes further. Shown are Mamie Van Doran, Lex Barker, Anne Bancroft and Marie Windsor (though a scenery-chewing Ron Randell isn't depicted here.)

Presumably a portrait taken for a TV special (?), Chita Rivera brings along the camp and a trio of hirsute safety gays.

Populating the TV-movie High School U.S.A (1983) with a plethora of former child actors and sitcom stars past their "best if sold by" date was already a recipe for corniness, but this bizarre photo, in which Gilligan's Island's (1964-1967) Dawn Wells head is quite larger than anyone else's and looms over Michael J. Fox like a Carnival or Mardi Gras decoration seals the deal. Also shown are Father Knows Best's (1954-1960) Elinor Donahue and Make Room for Daddy's (1953-1965) Angela Cartwright. (The movie also included Bob Denver, Dwayne Hickman, Tony Dow, David Nelson and Dana Plato!)

In 1950's Return of the Frontiersman, velvet-voiced Gordon MacRae is serenading Julie London, but Rory Calhoun seems to be taking just as much, if not more, interest in what Gordy's got to offer!

This staged portrait is from the middle of Barbara Stanwyck's career (maybe around 1952's Clash By Night?), not the early days, so it is quite rare to find her doing swimsuit/cheesecake poses. The actress was resistant to anything of this sort from the very beginning of her film career, which started in the very late-1920s.

In the 1962 peplum adventure My Son, The Hero, Giuliano Gemma seems to be positioning himself for something more than a fight with Serge Nubret! Make love, not war, I always say...

I couldn't resist sharing a better view of Gemma's li'l get-up. Look closely at the cute construction of it, how it wraps around his torso. (P.S. - the King's outfit on the right is just the sort of thing that I would - and have - been put into in a show!)

We recently mentioned Vince Edwards' career start during our tribute to The Seduction (1982) and here he is (blond!) in Mister Universe (1950) with a collection of cohorts that includes Bert Lahr, Jack Carson and an unrecognizable Janis Paige.

Sal Mineo, during one of his films such as Tonka (1958) seems to have been caught with his pants down or over a barrel...

What an odd composition of humpy Van Williams for his series Surfside 6 (1960-1962), but then if I looked the way he did, I'd gaze at myself often, too!

Williams' pal and fellow TV hero Adam West had it far worse with this campy shot from Batman (1966-1968)  From the soaked-through chest sweat, we can surmise that the costume was an absolute furnace on that hot beach!

Talk about weird (but not unwelcome!), we have this promotional photo of 4/5ths of the cast of The Rat Patrol (1966-1968), a desert-set WWII action show that starred Christopher George, Lawrence Casey, Justin Tarr and Eric Braeden (then known as Hans Gudegast.) Missing from this uncharacteristically-undressed shot is Gary Raymond.

Here during a break in filming Planet of the Apes (1968), Charlton Heston enjoys a moment with a diminutive actor portraying one of the ape youngsters. We hope it's not an actual child, considering he's having a smoke - through a holder to avoid damaging the extensive make-up!

Even crazier is this shot of a couple of gals grabbing their masks, but not the rest of their simian get-ups!

What, you may ask, is happening here?! No this isn't a snapshot from Fire Island, but a publicity photo for the TV miniseries Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (1979.) The examination of the demise of six male friends' relationships starred Billy Crystal, Tony Musante, Ted Bessell, David Ogden Stiers, Robert Conrad and Jeff Conaway.

Look at him go! Gregory Harrison portrayed a male stripper in the landmark TV-movie For Ladies Only (1981)

You might recognize this couple, but do you know what the project was? No cheating! I'll tell you their names in any case:  Jean Simmons and Bert Convy. Answer a little later below.

The unfortunately silly disaster flick The Concorde...Airport '79 issued this press photo of the plane spinning upside down (something it did over and over, even after the passengers survived it and disembarked... they got back on for more!!)

Just for fun, here's that same press photo upside-down so you can see the flip side!

We really do love Jane Seymour, and she may very well warrant a tribute here one of these days for her stunning work in miniseries TV and Somewhere in Time (1980), but remember in the late-'80s when she was shoving her intensely romantic life down our throats?

She even prepared a coffee table book on the subject, as if members of her general fan base were going to in any way be able to live in a castle with swans floating around and bedeck themselves in jewels and voluminous gowns!

This over-the-top display of home perfection and romantic ecstasy did backfire a bit when she and her husband divorced about six years after the publication of her guide...

Look who we have here! Linda Rogo and Reverend Scott from The Poseidon Adventure (1972)?

Well, not quite, but sorta... this pair of models are wearing the film's costumes in order to demonstrate some of Paul Zastupnevich's work during the presentation of the Best Costume award at the 1973 Academy Awards ceremony!

In a trend that went on several times over the course of about a decade, music played while the clothing was shown off by models (or some years, making it even more fun, actresses!) Campy and tacky, but SO MUCH FUN! You can view the whole spectacle here. Do note that the same piece of John Williams music - from The Poseidon Adventure's New Year's Eve party - is reworked for each of the five vignettes!

And now we'll leave you with the answer to our earlier question about what Jean Simmons and Bert Convy were doing, gussied up and in an embrace. They were costars of the fabulously horrendous, thus captivatingly compelling, TV miniseries Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls (1981)! Seen here is David Birney as Lyon Burke and a gaggle of nautical chorines.

Someone somewhere felt the need to cast Bert Convy as the medically (and mentally!)-challenged Tony Polar and Jean Simmons as the fire-breathing diva Helen Lawson. They are shown in the program performing a number from their latest alleged spectacular movie musical! True, both had sung before - he in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway and she in Guys and Dolls (1955) - but they were hardly the types to portray hit musical stars of 1981! Pictured with Simmons is the movie's costumer Jean-Pierre Dorléac, who wrote to me once after reading a blog entry concerning Pamela Hensley, (whose costumes on Buck Rogers he'd designed!) but whose e-mail I accidentally deleted not long after receiving it! My apologies, Mssr. Dorléac!