(Mini) Fun Find: Movie Stars Magazine, April 1965

Why mini? Well, the Fun Find I brought to you a short while back was not the magazine I had intended. It was an extra one I had around. The featured rag was supposed to be this one, purchased out of town at an antique mall during one of my periodic jaunts. Thing is, I took it out of its protective sleeve only to find that the original owner had sliced it to bits! Panels, pictures and even full pages were missing... What pissed me off is that the tag on it wasn't marked "as is" or anything. Still, I was able to salvage enough content for a smaller than usual presentation, with apologies for the occasional MIA section or segment. There's still a little bit of entertainment to be had.

Connie Stevens has fun hair here. She and James Stacy wed in 1963 and did not wind up having (or adopting) any babies before their 1966 divorce. In 1967, Stevens married singer Eddie Fisher and they had two daughters, but that union was doomed from the start and ended in divorce by 1969. Stacy was involved in a serious motorcycle accident in 1973 that took one arm and one leg from him and Stevens rose to the occasion, hosting a fundraiser to help with his expenses. He even returned to acting with some success, but as he got older, the wheels came off and he was involved in more than one incident of sexual imposition.

It's actually been fifty-five years since this fun photo-op and Mr. Richard Chamberlain is still with us at age eighty-five! He still acts occasionally, too.

When this blurb about Bewitched's Elizabeth Montgomery being directed by her real life husband while acting with her on-screen husband was written, no one knew that she'd ultimately have still another husband! Dick York had to leave Bewitched due to excruciating back pain in 1969 and was replaced by Dick Sergeant.

This is practically all that's left of a page for a column called "Inside Whispers." What's neat about it is that almost every single gossip blurb has a corresponding picture to go with. And rare pictures are always welcome! George Hamilton's pilot was not picked up. His date is actually Inger Stratton, who was a TV guest star in the mid-to-late 1960s and landed a couple of supporting film roles. Judy Garland and the kids look pretty happy. I think most of us know that Debbie Reynolds' husband gambled away a lot of his own money and most of hers, leaving her in a real mess!

John Wayne's "licking" of cancer was not permanent. By 1979, he succumbed to the disease. Michael Callan and his then-wife Carlyn divorced in 1967. Sammy Jackson was a southern-fried actor who starred in the TV series No Time for Sergeants after personally appealing to Jack Warner for a shot at the part. Laurie Sibbald left screen acting for good in 1967. Gene Barry was wed to his wife Betty for nearly sixty years until her death! Jack Mullaney died of a stroke at only age fifty-two.

A couple of Hollywood veterans here, Greer Garson (who took in a cast party for Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte!, 1964!) and Miss Barbara Stanwyck.

Sue Lyon has a cute up-do going on here. She was married five times in all, one of them to a prison inmate convicted of murder! Joan Crawford looks happy with her teen castmates, both of whom were quite pedestrian and never went anywhere. Stuart Whitman and his first wife divorced in 1966. He has quietly lived on to be ninety-two as of this writing! Carolyn Jones married again in 1968 to a Broadway conductor, her third of four unions.

At this time, Donna Reed was still enjoying the success of The Donna Reed Show, which ended in 1966. She barely acted again until coaxed onto the hit soap Dallas, with dire results. Sammy Davis' mother looks pretty good for having a thirty-nine year-old son!

The cover story contains some rare pics of Jackie Kennedy and the kids.

I know the mystery of which three words they are referring to is burning a whole in your psyche, so I will reveal them to you. As a nation continued to mourn the loss of its President and she was left with two small children who now had no father, the three words that allegedly made her bloom again are: "We need you."

Jeanette MacDonald was only sixty-one years old when she passed away. I didn't know it, but she had endured a lifelong heart condition (suffering a heart attack at age twenty-six) and was the reason she couldn't carry a child to term. 

The backstory of MacDonald, screen partner Nelson Eddy and MacDonald's husband Gene Raymond could hardly be more scandalous. She reportedly had eight miscarriages of Eddy's babies (!) and the two led a secret, on-again/off-again affair for most of their lives. Meanwhile, Raymond was discovered in bed with fellow actor Buddy Rogers on their honeymoon! The marriage had been arranged by Louis B. Mayer, who forbid her from marrying Eddy. Nonetheless, the pair stayed together twenty-eight years (and he rewed in 1974 for another two decades.) Eddy died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1967 at age sixty-five.

A full-page portrait of Peyton Place's Mia Farrow. At the time she was denying any sort of relationship (including any pending marriage) with Frank Sinatra but they did marry in 1966 (divorcing in 1968.)

In this instance, the "discrimination" is that Robert Vaughn was highly drawn to blonde, Marilyn Monroe types rather than brunettes or redheads. He claimed to be waiting until he'd achieved movie stardom before marrying, focusing mostly on his career in the meantime.

Vaughn waited until 1974 (when he was forty-two!) to finally wed for the first time. He married long-haired brunette actress Linda Staab, who he met while filming his TV show The Protectors in England. She became a blonde for periods of their marriage, which lasted until his death in 2016. They had two adopted children.

The grey block is a piece missing from the opposite page. If you know anything at all about The Fugitive, then you know that this whole "story" is nothing but a bit of fluff in which the plotline of the show is being used as headline bait for the star, David Janssen.

Janssen's show was very popular, with his unjustly-accused character endlessly on the run from town to town, encountering all new people with every episode.  The two-part finale, in which he finally comes face to face with the elusive one-armed man (who had killed his wife) still holds the #3 spot today for all time household television viewers with a 72% share!

Fans of Miss Annette Funicello ought to enjoy this photo-filled spread on her marriage to Jack Gilardi.

Of some interest in the Frankenstein-ish assembly of her wedding gown with bits of Marlene Dietrich's and Elizabeth Taylor's (who hated one another!) old costumes being absorbed into it! LOL

The gargantuan affair (check out that cake!) didn't mean the marriage was to last till death parted them. They split in 1981 after three children were born. She married again in 1986, which lasted until her death in 2013.

If you can tear your eyes away from the ad in the upper-left corner, this feature tells of various goings on in the month of December 1964 (despite the April 1965 cover date. Those were always far flung in the future to keep magazines on the stand for as long as possible.) Nat King Cole was gone by February 1965 having experienced weight loss and back pain from a sizable tumor in his lung, which was ultimately removed to little avail. He was forty-five when he died. (Lesser known is that he'd been "seeing" future Petticoat Junction and Hee Haw actress Gunilla Hutton, who pleaded with his wife and the mother of his five children to divorce him!) Lance Reventlow (the only child of Barbara Hutton) died in a 1972 plane crash. James Stacy's "series" And Baby Makes Three only saw light of day as a TV-movie in 1966.

The questions that these fans ask are so hooty (and sometimes nervy!) I always love seeing Chad Everett's face. Maureen from Portland, Oregon... hopefully she got a life. LOL

David Hedison is another man who waited a while to marry. He was forty-one when he wed in 1968, but it lasted until her 2016 death. He passed away three years later at ninety-two.

Jill Ireland did do a few more episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E but in 1967 she took off her wedding band from David McCallum for real and married her husband's friend Charles Bronson. "Grand Hotel" was going to star Jack Lord, Barry Fitzgerald, Barry Sullivan and Chad Everett, but wasn't picked up. Neither was "The Mayor," which costarred Robert Colbert.

Ann-Margret and Roger Smith had a successful union from 1967 until his death of a neuromuscular disease in 2017 at age eighty-four.

The "trouble" mentioned in the blurb about Richard Crenna is a defamation lawsuit (and injunction) that Notre Dame filed against 20th Century Fox over the way their football team and school in general was portrayed in John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! (1965.) Remarkably, the studio won the case rather than the school, but the movie was not a financial success.

Ernest Borgnine did wed Donna Ranscourt in 1965, but they were through by 1972. Brett Halsey's marriage to Heidi Bruhl lasted for a dozen years. Tommy Kirk's drug arrest was the beginning of the end of his Disney career, though there was more to it than that. He was also accused of a sexual relationship with a fifteen year-old boy (when Kirk was twenty-one) and Walt Disney fired him after receiving a complaint from the boy's mother.

The Hollywood Calendar continues on this final page. Elvis Presley's movie title was changed to Harem Scarum (1965.) I recently read Jim Brown's auto-bio and in it he says that singer Trini Lopez (who was experiencing a hot streak at the time) began making a lot of story-line and screen-time demands during The Dirty Dozen (1967) so Robert Aldrich had his character die in the initial parachute descent and wrote him out of the rest of the movie! (Other sources say Lopez walked out at Frank Sinatra's suggestion.) Some of the stories missing from this defaced issue include ones on Mia Farrow, Elvis Presley, Nick Adams and Yvette Mimieux.

For the sake of some color, I give you this "hooty" back cover.

BONUS PICS

After seeing Richard Chamberlain applying his Santa disguise, I thought maybe some of you might like to see more Dick Pics. LOL  Here are some more shots of Mr. C. as a young man during and shortly after his Dr. Kildare heyday.

"Now hold still... I'm just going to give you a little prick."

I figured y'all would just flip over this one...!

Fun Finds: TV's Top Ten, November, 1961

If you're a regular reader of Poseidon's Underworld, then you know I frequently scrounge through all sorts of vintage book stores, thrift stores, flea markets and other places like an antique algae eater, looking for any and all interesting old entertainment publications that I can lay my grubby little hands on. Then often I share them here, saving you the trouble of having to locate them yourselves! Today's magazine is unique because there is not one advertisement anywhere in it, so, uncharacteristically, I've gone and scanned the entire thing except for the table of contents. There are ten stars who have photo-heavy profiles here and you'll doubtlessly enjoy this more if you like one or more of them. (The other three sides of the cover have "Bonus Pinups" with performers unrelated to the featured articles.) There is no color, however, apart from the tinted cover. I have a mini-bonus at the end as well. With this many pics, I won't comment unless I feel moved to! Now off we go...

This young lady, Lori Martin, was in the midst of a two-year run on the series National Velvet. Her "black" hair was actually dyed that way to suggest Elizabeth Taylor, who'd starred in the 1944 movie. The year after this, she had a memorable role in Cape Fear (1962) and later appeared in The Chase (1966), but she left the business in 1970 to reassess her career and to take care of her sick mother. In 2010, at age sixty-two, she took her own life, having endured mental health and drug dependency issues in the wake of her husband's death a decade beforehand.

This photo shoot of Michael Landon (who has a tribute of his own here) is all from a U.S. Marine combat preparation exercise that the Bonanza star was taking part in as a publicity gimmick.

Mike and his gun look more impressive when not broken apart on two pages, so I did a mashup for you here.

Despite their apparent happiness, Michael and Dodie split in 1962 and he remarried in 1963 to Lynn (who he famously left twenty years later for a makeup artist from Little House on the Prairie.)

This is Miss Dorothy Provine, a pretty singer and (chiefly) comic actress who was then starring on The Roaring '20s following a stint on The Alaskans with Roger Moore.

Provine had (and has!) a loyal fan following. I've never seen her in anything except 1963's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, for which she didn't register all that much for me against the scads of others among the cast.

Despite this article's headline that 1962 would be her year for love, Provine did not wed until 1968. But, unlike countless other Hollywood blondes, it was the only time she married and it lasted until her death in 2010. Emphysema claimed her at age seventy-five.

At the time of this publication, Troy Donahue was just about at the peak of his popularity, starring on Surfside 6, but simultaneously starring in movies such as Parrish and Susan Slade (both 1961.) Soon, he would make Rome Adventure (1962), referred to in this text under its initial title "Lovers Must Learn," and marry his costar Suzanne Pleshette, though it lasted only months.

This article suggests that he was engaged to Warner Brothers starlet Lili Kardell, but as I said, that would all be history once he met Suzanne!

If Lili truly was on site during filming, that must have really been something! But she was well out of it. Reportedly, Donahue was quite abusive to Pleshette, especially when he drank (which was often!) He married three more times before his death at sixty-five of a heart attack in 2001.

This person is interesting for a few reasons. I truly can't say I'd ever heard of him, yet here he was being featured for eight pages along with all the other prominent names. The short-lived western show Gunslinger was also unfamiliar.

Even his face didn't ring a bell!

Young's first wife was a minor young actress named Connie Mason. The lady he's with here did not become his second. In 1962, he wed Madlyn Rhue and they were together until 1970.

Kristina Hansen only did a small handful of on-screen acting gigs and was all but done even by the time of this article (probably readying to be a wife!) She ultimately left the biz and became an elementary school teacher.

Young wed a third time, unsuccessfully, to curvaceous redheaded actress Sondra Currie, and I can't find any record of the movie "A Very Important Person." He did a slew of TV guest roles and bit parts until the late-1980s - often as henchmen, then passed away of lung cancer in 2002 at age sixty-four.

Someone most of us are better acquainted with is this gal, Miss Connie Stevens.

Like Troy Donahue, she was just about at her peak during this period with Parrish and Susan Slade (both 1961) behind her, the hit show Hawaiian Eye still running and Palm Springs Weekend (1963) on the horizon.

It was fun to see her cavorting with Michael Dante, the subject of a profile here not too long ago.

Stevens wanted to marry "for keeps," but sadly her 1963 union with James Stacy ended in 1966 and her 1967 marriage to Eddie Fisher was disastrous despite giving her two daughters. It was over by 1969 (and he painted a terrible picture of her in his autobiographies, though in truth it reflected worse on him than it did her because he was such a slimeball.)

Route 66's George Maharis.

Oh dear...

There's a certain element of (apt) mystery to a couple of these pics.

"[He] made a new friend (a fellow Greek actor, top, who he met on a street corner)" - !!!

I so wanted to avoid any sort of mention about Maharis getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but I'm not strong enough...

The text of this article says that Roger Smith is identified mostly with the fact that he's married to Victoria Shaw. That's fascinating since within a few years he would be even more associated with his wife, only by then it was Ann-Margret!

Smith was then starring on 77 Sunset Strip and had played Rosalind Russell's college-aged nephew in Auntie Mame (1958.)

Smith and Shaw had three children and seemed an ideal couple, but by 1965 it was all through. He married A-M in 1967 and famously guided her career, leaving any acting jobs behind from 1968 on. A debilitating bout of myasthenia gravis affected him greatly for periods of time.

He did manage to keep the disease in check for many years, but in 2017 at age eighty-four, he succumbed to complications from it. For her part, Shaw wed once more briefly and did continue acting, mostly in TV guest roles, through the late-'70s, but passed away of emphysema in 1988 at only age fifty-three.

Diane McBain has been a personal favorite of ours for quite a few years.

The sultry blonde was capable of playing both naughty and nice with equal ease. Still near the dawn of her career (an early break came with Ice Palace, 1960), she was working on Surfside 6 and also got a shot at her very own movie vehicle Claudelle Inglish (1961.)

We adore cutie Rian Garrick, who she's nuzzling in these pics.

Anyone else see some Sharon Stone in her face with the upper-right pic?

Though she remained active, mostly on TV, until about 2001, McBain never quite fulfilled the promise of her early roles. She's still with us today at age seventy-seven.

Gardner McKay didn't do a great deal of acting outside of his series Adventures in Paradise, but he is fondly remembered by many fans even now.

It's easy to see why so many folks still recall the lanky, dark, handsome actor. He didn't end up marrying until 1983, but it lasted until his death and produced two children.

McKay could hardly wait to exit the acting game and turned to writing, also becoming a drama critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner for a few years. Prostate cancer claimed him in 2001 at age sixty-nine.

Everyone's favorite Mouseketeer-turned-Beach Babe.

Here, on the cover and in the Table of C0ntents Annette Funicello is listed as merely "Annette," like Cher or Madonna! Ha ha! I guess there was only one Annette of note at the time.

I think sometimes, perhaps because of the lightweight, campy aspect of all those beach pictures, that I underestimate just how wildly popular Miss Funicello was in her day. She married in 1963 and had three children, but the couple split up in 1983. Then in 1987 she wed again for good.

I really like the top picture of her. Miss Funicello was dealt a cruel hand in 1987 when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and suffered its deteriorating effects up until her passing in 2013 at age seventy.

The inside back cover features Pernell Roberts of Bonanza (and later Trapper John, M.D.) Cancer claimed Mr. Roberts in 2010 at age eighty-one.

On the back cover is Canadian actor Lee Patterson, then starring in Surfside 6. Later, he played Joe Riley on One Life to Live among other acting roles, mostly on TV. He died of cancer in 2007 at age seventy-seven.

But I did promise a mini bonus after the main post. I often collect photos that might someday be of use or of they catch my eye for some reason and I do have a few of Troy Donahue (in color, which is how those who like him probably prefer to see him!) As I don't foresee a Donahue tribute, this is as good a time as any to post them.

With his A Summer Place (1959) costar Sandra Dee.

I do love his sun-streaked hair in this brooding shot.

This TV Times channel guide is of note because it erroneously has the photo flipped with his hair parted on the incorrect side...

This is the way he actually should have looked. Lots of makeup/retouching going on here!

Donahue hung on as long as he could until changing tastes doomed his movie career. He was utterly anachronistic by 1968.

But I'm not done yet. I also wanted to share a little bit more about the aforementioned Rian Garrick. You know, the guy shown in his swimsuit nestled up against Diane McBain. First, this pic of McBain that I held onto because I liked it monochromatic neatness.

Rian Garrick was an up and comer who won fourth billing in The Flying Fontaines (1959), a movie that has successfully eluded me for years, but which I long to see. I was not happy about the placement of the blurbs in the yellow boxes. Ha ha! His reads: "Bill - longed for the spotlight, lived in the shadow," which could almost be Garrick's epitath!

This German flyer shows the original picture and why the boxes needed to be the way they were when they cut the performers apart.

I love old movies about trapeze artists. This one is in color, too!

Here we see him practicing his ass off! LOL

Garrick had small roles in Up Periscope and Battle of the Coral Sea (both 1959) and a featured part in Edge of Eternity (1959.) He also had a recurring role on the TV show Manhunt and an uncredited part in Two Rode Together (1962.) By 1966 it was all over, though, inexplicably, because he was very charming and nice looking.

There is precious little info out there on Rian Garrick. He is presumably still alive and in his mid-eighties. We hope he had a happy life!