Designer Double-Dip: Pooled Resources

Now I don't want to get anyone's hopes up too high because as it turns out, today's recycled costume didn't in fact show up in more than one movie. But it was reused, as I'll soon point out. If you don't already know, the lovely lady on the left is Gila Golan. Golan's life could easily have served as the basis of a movie itself (or at least a Lifetime network offering!)

Born in German-occupied Poland, she was found abandoned in a bundle at a train station, her Jewish parents striving to save her from an uncertain, and likely deadly, fate. Taken in by Catholic Poles who kept her hidden and alive through the war, she chose December 30th, 1940 as her birth date. She wound up after the war in a home for "lost" children and later emigrated to Israel as a teen in 1951, attending boarding school with plans to become a teacher. But she'd blossomed into a striking young lady and was photographed for a popular ladies magazine there. (Pic above-right is from later.)

Her attention-getting looks landed her in an Israeli beauty pageant, which she won! It is here that she first utilized the name Gila Golan (already the fifth name she'd lived under - the very first one unknown), to avoid offending the strictly religious folks who'd been assisting her to date. From there, she went on to compete in the Miss World pageant in 1960 and she almost won that, too, losing to Miss Argentina but coming in second. This led to a contract with Columbia Pictures as one of the studio's executives was in attendance with his wife! They fostered the young girl's career.

Soon spotted by director Stanley Kramer, he placed her in his all-star drama Ship of Fools (1965.) Thereafter, she was thrust into the limelight with a full-on publicity treatment.

This series of shots trumpeted her featured presence in the 1966 spy spoof Our Man Flint, with James Coburn. She was loaned out to 20th Century Fox for the film.

The deep-cut, black one-piece with mesh front was a bit provocative, but she wound up wearing an even briefer suit in the finished film...

In the final product, it was an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, red bikini she wore. The mesh number was used solely for advance promotion. But eagle-eyed viewers may have seen it someplace else!

The deep-cut mesh suit was worn by Pamela Tiffin in the Paul Newman detective thriller Harper (1966.) Much of Tiffin's screen time in the movie is spent poolside with Robert Wagner as seen above. This scene comes at close to the hour-and-a-half mark.

Far more famous, though, is the itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, blue polka dot bikini that Tiffin wore earlier in the movie. Gyrating around on a diving board, she set hearts aflutter and was used in many of the promotional materials for Harper.

Tiffin had heretofore been seen mostly as sweet, pure ingenue types in movies like Summer and Smoke (1961), State Fair (1962) and The Hallelujah Trail (1965), among others. She longed for an image change and before long dove into it...

She moved to Italy, lightened her hair and pursued an entirely new career in European movies. She also, in the wake of a divorce, posed (only semi-nude) for Playboy in 1969. Though her new career as a comedienne in saucy Italian comedies was successful, she retired from the screen following a second marriage in 1974.

Golan's career as an actress was even more brief than Tiffin's. Despite a featured role in the Jerry Lewis comedy Three on a Couch (1966), she found parts scarce. She made the Italian comedy Catch as Catch Can (1967) with Vittorio Gassman and then the highly unusual but fun adventure The Valley of Gwangi (1969) - with James Franciscus - taking on stop-motion dinosaurs. This was the last anyone saw of her in the U.S. She remarried in 1969 and settled into being a mother to three, along with non-show business interests.

There were only two times that Golan appeared on American TV. Once was in Kraft Suspense Theatre in 1965 and then once on I Dream of Jeannie, as seen here (with Larry Hagman.) Her diving board is decidedly less elegant than the one Tiffin cavorted on! But amazingly enough, even this wrap-suit with belt was not original to the episode...

She had previously been poured into this very swimsuit for some campy Easter studio publicity stills! So this post is sort of a double-double dip!

Ms. Tiffin passed away in December of 2020 at age 78. Her 1974 marriage had lasted to that point and yielded two daughters. As for this mesh-front suit. One has to assume that it was from her home studio, 20th Century Fox, and not part of her Harper (a Warner Brothers project) wardrobe. Strangely, there is no costume designer credited for Harper, even though it features Lauren Bacall, Shelley Winters, Janet Leigh and Julie Harris! Someone had to dress these gals.

How else could it have fallen onto Golan's body when she was working at Fox instead of her home studio Columbia? Maybe someday I'll see it in a prior Fox film and learn its origins. As for Golan, she wed a Columbia board member (and magnate of the company who produces Geritol!), had three girls of her own and remained wed until her husband died of a heart attack in 1980. He (Matty Rosenhaus) incidentally was depicted very unflatteringly in a book about the David Begalman-Cliff Robertson embezzlement scandal of the late-'70s. (A description, by the way, his own grandson claimed was totally on the money!) She is still with us today at (a presumed) age 80. She reportedly wed again and lives in Florida, with interests in the music and religion of Judaism.

***UPDATE!***

It didn't take long for one of my eagle-eyed readers to alert me to the fact that this storied swimsuit did in fact make at least one further appearance on-screen beyond what's been shown above. One year after Harper and Our Man Flint, the mesh-front article was utilized for television! As it was rather revealing for the time (showing an inversion of what people now lovingly describe as "side boob,") the teeny bow at the waist was snipped off and a larger, more skin-covering one was sewn into the chest of it!  The suit appeared in 1967 in an episode of Batman, a series produced by, natch, 20th Century Fox Television.

This particular episode is the (infamous) one in which Batman dons some yellow trunks over his Batsuit and surfs in costume! (The Joker catches a wave as well.) Judging from the inset with Burt Ward's Robin held captive, the surf might not be all that was up!

By this point in the series' run, Yvonne Craig was on hand as Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl. She's on the scene at the beach in the very suit detailed above. As this show was aimed at kids (with the added wit to keep adults invested as well), having her chest exposed that much simply would not do... hence the bow.

Someone there knew that this was going to make for some eye-catching publicity. She was photographed extensively on set.

Of course it's a matter of taste, but I daresay she filled out the little black number better than anyone else! Fans (and she has legions) probably bemoan the addition of that meddlesome bow. Holy Obscuring Detail, Batman!