In 1966, Bob Kuban and The In-Men had a Billboard Top 40 hit with “The Cheater,” a catchy pop tune that gave a word of warning to potential adulterers. The In-Men, an eight-piece band with a horn section, were a throwback for the time. Competition from guitar-driven bands of the British Invasion was tough to …
Just out of her teens, Ellen Stowe left her hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas and headed to Los Angeles — her eyes set on becoming a professional dancer. She began dancing is different strip clubs until a scout from Playboy spotted her. He offered the petite blond a chance at some test shots for the …
Jean Spangler danced in Beryl Wallace‘s shadow at Earl Carroll’s nightclub on Sunset Boulevard. She had dreams and aspirations, though. She had a few uncredited roles in some big Hollywood pictures – Miracles of the Bells, When My Baby Smiles at Me, Young Man with a Horn. She had just completed a small part in The …
Jenny Maxwell, a distant relative of Marilyn Monroe, began her acting career in small roles — mostly in TV westerns and sitcoms in the late 1950s. She made her big screen debut with an uncredited part in the 1959 teen melodrama Blue Denim, which dealt with the then-controversial subject of abortion. After an unsuccessful audition for …
From her first part on the early 60s ABC soap opera The Young Marrieds, Brenda Benet became an in-demand character actress. She played roles in both top prime-time comedies and dramas in the 1960s and 70s, appearing in Mannix, Love American Style, I Dream of Jeannie, Hogan’s Heroes and many others. She even landed a part …
After brief nursing training, Alexandra Denny — “Sandy” to her friends — went against her parents’ strict wishes and took a shot at a singing career. She made regular appearances at clubs in south London. Her popularity increased by word of mouth and soon Sandy joined up with British folk group The Strawbs. American folk …
Walter Slezak was working as a bank teller in his native Austria when he was talked into a role in the 1922 silent biblical epic Sodom and Gomorrah by his friend, director Michael Curtiz. Walter was one of over 14,000 performers in the film, which was the largest and most expensive production in Austrian film …
In the end, Wendy O. Williams had just about enough of the world’s shit. As a child in Webster, New York, Wendy was a student of music, studying the clarinet and even making an appearance on The Howdy Doody Show. At 16, she ditched school and hitchhiked her way across the country, selling crocheted bikinis …
Jill Banner was born Mary Molumby near Puget Sound in Washington. Her widowed mother moved around the country when Jill was a child until the family finally settled in Glendale, California. Jill attended Hollywood Professional School with classmates Peggy Lipton (of TV’s Mod Squad and future mother of actress Rashida Jones), Carl Wilson (of the Beach Boys) …
Barbara Nichols was definitely “in on it”. For nearly four decades, she flaunted her way across Hollywood in small (even uncredited) roles as strippers, gold-diggers, prostitutes, gun molls and other assorted floozies. She played characters with names like “Lola”, “Brandy”, “Candy” and even “Poopsie”. She played her brassy, buxom, wise-cracking dumb-blond scene-stealer to its absolute …
