Today would have been the 81st birthday of elegant actress JEAN SIMMONS … but sadly she died just nine days (02) short of celebrating it with us! As this New York Times obituary began: “Jean Simmons, the English actress who made the covers of Time and Life magazines by the time she was 20 {actually 21} and became a major mid-century star, died Friday at her home in Santa Monica, California. She was 80.” And quite a lady …

“Jean Simmons was the most beautiful actress I ever saw in the movies,” a fan wrote to Parade magazine in the 1980s … and Sleuth concurs. But after countless costume dramas in the Fifties such as playing Napoleon’s nymph in Desirée—where Sleuth managed to unearth a wardrobe test in which Jean’s costume was decidedly see thru {blow it up for maxi•mam exposure}—she derisively dubbed such roles “poker-up-the-ass parts … very boring.”

One playboy who found Simmons anything but boring was billionaire Howard Hughes {with Ginger Rogers}, who made it clear he’d like to poke•her up the ass … alas, he was overheard by her then-husband, actor Stewart Granger: “I’d sure like to get my teeth into that,” Hughes drooled to Cary Grant in the men’s room. “That Granger is a goddamn lucky son of a bitch.” The reclusive romeo was unlucky again, when he told Jean over the phone: “When are you going to get away from that goddamned husband of yours? I want to talk to you alone, honey.” Granger grabbed the phone and shouted: “Mr. Howard Bloody Hughes, you’ll be sorry if you don’t leave my wife alone!” As for Hughes being “sorry,” it was only a matter of Time.

And it was only a matter of time before the straight-laced Simmons would strip on screen: “I hope I don’t shock anybody,” Jean wondered when news leaked she’d skinny-dip in 1960’s Spartacus. “I must say I shocked myself a little in consenting to do it.” The nude swimming scene “was not in the original script,” the actress revealed, “but director Stanley Kubrick and Kirk {Douglas} both suggested that it would be more effective if played nude {and we’re betting Kubrick didn’t keep his Eyes Wide Shut!}. I kept agreeing, and then realized: ‘What have I said?’” What she’d done was prove her beautiful buoyancy … but only on HER side of the pond … as American audiences only saw her bare back before “doing” Douglas.

Yet unlike Spartacus, Sleuth is no slave to the censors … so he rebelled by importing these European exposures of Jean’s elegant epidermis from an overseas print of the film: Sipping some bubbly while her boobies bobbed below the surface, sultry Simmons showed a pair of flotation devices that might have saved the Tit•anic!

Jean would get along swimmingly for the next five decades … remarkably reprising the 1946 Great Expectations debut that made her famous forty-three years later … only this time as the malicious Miss Havisham! In her later years, the actress said she continued to receive fan mail but that younger writers “often confused me” with someone else: “One day a letter arrived from a 10-year-old,” she recalled. “It was the usual fan letter, saying things like, ‘I think you’re wonderful.’ Then I got to the P.S.:  ‘I love it when you spit blood!’ That’s when I realized,” joked Jean Simmons, “the letter wasn’t for me.”

But Sleuth’s favorite story concerns the time amorous Ava Gardner—then the lover of “Simmons-smitten” Howard Hughes—burst into Stewart Granger’s bedroom at 2 a.m. while on location in Africa in 1956 filming Bhowani Junction and demanded to know why he didn’t find her attractive. “Ava, you’re probably the most attractive woman in the world,” Granger gasped, “but I’m married to Jean.” Griped Gardner: “Oh, fuck Jean!” Grinned Granger: “I’d love to, darling.” Who wouldn’t …

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MARILYN MONROE would have been 83 this past Monday, June 1…and we don’t wish to blow it by merely paying lip service to the Greatest Sex Symbol in Hollywood History! {Guess whose picture appears on Wikipedia under “Sex Symbol”?}

Her early years were shrouded in mystery, but in case you doubt the date, Sleuth has unearthed a copy of the actual birth certificate of “Baby Norma Jeane Mortensen”…and even the original microfiche from which it was made! Not to mention a Department of Health Certificate verifying its accuracy. And since Sleuth is all about accuracy, let’s specify that she was born at 9:30 a.m. on June 1, 1926 in the charity ward of Los Angeles Hospital, as this detailed natal chart she had done later, attests.

And while Edward Mortenson’s name is listed as her father on the birth certificate, Marilyn’s sire was almost certainly womanizing Charles Stanley Gifford, who had an affair with her lookalike mother Gladys Pearl Monroe, when they worked together as film cutters at RKO Studios in 1925. This family genealogy chart seems to seal the deal. Sleuth has learned that Gladys had married a Martin Mortensen in 1924, but they separated before she became pregnant…so the scared 23-year-old named the father as Edward Mortensen, with residence listed as “Unknown” on the birth record—hoping to avoid the “stigma of illegitimacy” for her daughter. To further cover her tracks, Gladys listed her last name as “Monroe” {her middle moniker and the source for Norma Jeane’s future nom de vroom} and the occupation of the fictional father as “Baker.”

But when the child was old enough, Marilyn recalled being shown this photo that Gladys identified as her “real father”—the cad who had deserted his lover on Christmas Eve 1925 when she told him she was pregnant! Gifford—whose wife Lillian charged him with “addiction to narcotics, abuse and associating with women of low character” in her divorce petition—had a pencil-thin mustache that reminded young Norma Jeane of then-heartthrob Clark Gable, and she thus carried the picture with her throughout her life! Near her death, she reportedly fell in love with “father figure” Gable—blatantly trying to “seduce him” by secretly going au naturel under the covers (though nudity couldn’t be shown in 1960) and then letting the sheet slip while making The Misfits, her final finished film!

Her very first nude, however, came when her troubled mom left her with a foster family just  two weeks after her birth … and, as the song goes, she “musta been a beautiful baby cuz baby look at you” then! Her second nude was taken as she played in front of the foster home of Ida and Wayne Bolender, where she spent the first 7 years of her life. And she only got more beautiful as she grew: check out this photo booth snap taken when she was just twelve! Just two years later, she was already unsurpassed.

Everyone knows her iconic images, so Sleuth prefers to include a few of the rare “firsts” from his mountain•ous Marilyn files, such as: her first ever glamour pose at age 18 in 1945; her first ever magazine cover for the airplane factory at which she was discovered, in 1946; her first ever billboard for Pabst beer; her first parking pass for the 20th Century Fox studio lot; her first starlet publicity shot; and her first national ad … for photo mounts! But what about, I hear you say, her first pubic mound?

“Throughout recorded history,” reads one review of The Seven Year Itch, “certain images and people become entrenched in the public consciousness. In 1955, wearing a dress {Sleuth even has the wardrobe test for the garment!} and standing over a subway grate, Marilyn Monroe became a sex symbol like no other. The dress flitting about in the breeze while she futilely tries to hold it in place became an image that was sought after as the very definition of sexuality. Yet, in the film quick cuts and angles stop you from actually seeing anything too revealing.” Yet they don’t stop Sleuth…

As an eyewitness to the legendary shoot in the early hours of  September 15, 1954 put it: “About 1,500 stay-up-late New Yorkers formed an audience—very appreciative, too—as the synthetic breeze unveiled the Monroe legs and nylon whatchamacallits.” What it gets called is many things…but, in this rare outtake, bountiful bush would seem to fit! “Here comes the wind machine,” recalled one lucky observer, “up goes the skirt and damned if she isn’t wearing something filmy. From back of me I hear a voice, pure New York, saying loud and clear, ‘Chees, I thought she was a real blonde!’”

The observer, a Mr. Morse, continued: “Her husband Joe DiMaggio hears it too, and this is his wife! He walks on the set, sorer than hell, and makes Marilyn go into the trailer and change into some underpants that you couldn’t see through with a spotlight” {actually two pairs}! The Yankee Clipper then stormed off the set, with what the film’s impish director Billy Wilder later called “the look of death” on his face. And when a 52-foot billboard of a mild image from the scene was erected over the theater for its opening night on Marilyn’s 29th BIRTHDAY, their marriage was dead. So, it’s only fitting that we present this one-of-a-kind rarity in its Digital Age fully expanded equivalent of her Times Square triumph! No wonder a young stringer on the scene that day recently remarked: “I hate the term ‘photo-op,’ but this was certainly the most important photo-op ever staged, notwithstanding George W. Bush landing on a battleship”—with similar, though much more padded, crotch focus.

“Do you wear underwear?” the sexy starlet was asked shortly after her nude calendar surfaced. “Men seldom jump hurdles,” MM mused, “for girls who wear girdles.” Which might explain why her next national calendar pose—for which Sleuth unearthed the original insert—was entitled “Southern Exposure“! Or that her favorite fur—a fetish inherited from her mom—was Beaver. Only when she married esteemed playwright Arthur Miller, in fact, did Marilyn finally decide to “Wear the Pants.”

Now she belongs to the Angels—amazingly, Sleuth snapped these glowing halos of light circling above her crypt when he paid homage in 1993—so let us fondly remember not only her current birthday but also her final one, on the set of the unfinished Something’s Got to Give in 1962, just days after filming her only screen nude scene {to which the cast’s card refers}. And what a fitting END it makes …

So Goodbye, Norma Jeane … and Happy 83rd Birthday {a good guess how she’d look today}! You were truly, and uniquely, A Candle in the Wind.

Cheers!, my dear. Dots all she wrote…

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Last week the HBO series Big Love concluded its third year with a bang, a fitting finale to what the L.A. Times called “a terrific season.” As its east coast counterpart, New York magazine marveled: “Can Big Love Possibly Get Any Better?” Happily, HBO agrees: “As the series’ lead character contemplates a fourth wife,” noted Variety after just four episodes this February, “HBO has committed to a fourth season of its polygamy-themed drama Big Love.” As a spokesman for the network noted: “The stellar reviews and solid viewership {averaging 5 million per episode} this season confirm that this is a signature series for HBO. The show keeps getting better and better. I can’t wait to see what they have planned for Season Four.” Coming in January…

“Everyone’s favorite family of Utah polygamists are back,” raved one review this January. Quipped another: “By a rough count, the Henrickson family was guilty of six of the seven Deadly Sins in last night’s episode”—no one could ever accuse them of sloth! As critic Emily Nussbaum enumerated: “Man, what a kinky episode of Big Love—dishing up one graphic sequence for each sister-wife: a Bill-on-Barb makeout session cut short by interruption, ‘naughty-girl’ oral sex between Bill and Margene, and ‘good girl’ petticoat intercourse with Nicki. Bill Henrickson may be trapped in every man’s dream—three naked ladies!—but he’s also living every man’s nightmare: relationship processing so endless it might paralyze a 70s lesbian cooperative.”

Fifty-five years ago, the strangest show on television was entitled I Led Three Lives, the true account of advertising executive turned Communist Party infiltrator Herbert Philbrick, which became the favorite show of 12-year-old future assassin Lee Harvey Oswald: “He became really engrossed in that particular show,” believes brother Robert Oswald.  “The fact that he could put on a facade and pretend to be somebody he wasn’t—to me, it gets down to what happened later on.” Today, Big Love could be subtitled, I Wed Three Wives, as star Bill Paxton can barely watch the Three Ring Circus that revolves around him! And like Three Lives, the HBO series is inspired by real life—based on a Texan known only as Brian, the subject of a 2006 Learning Channel documentary titled My Husband’s Three Wives.

“If there’s a better written, better acted, more originally conceived show on television,” Matt Fowler of the L.A. Times wrote of Big Love on 2/5/09, “I defy you to name it.” Just 24 days later, wife #2 Chloë Sevigny came the closest: “I was watching some episodes the other night and I was like, ‘This is the weirdest show I’ve ever seen in my life!,” she smiled. “And then my friend was over, and she said, ‘Yeah, weirdest show since Twin Peaks.’” She took the words right out of my mouth…

Sleuth holds this original 1989 VHS cassette of the not-yet-aired pilot {April 8th, 1990} as a treasured icon, and still laments that the landmark series ended on his birthday {June 10th, 1991}. “It was the first of its kind,” observes one TV historian, “and raised the bar on the look of television series.  Twin Peaks tested the limits of prime-time television {at either extreme before places like HBO had stepped into the game.” And that’s where we step in…

The two shows share some eerie similarities: Both had a core quartet at the center of the action, with three hot women always up in arms. Yet, if the “king” played his cards right, he might score a four-way! Each then branched out into family trees that required an org chart to unravel, featuring no shortage of crazed villains in various guises—including false prophets steeped in scripture. And who can ignore the ravishing resemblance between Twin totty Sherilyn Fenn and Love lust object Ginnifer Goodwin, who maintained the same sexpot aura when both went briefly blonde? Why, each even knew her way around a ripe cherry pie! Or a cherry stem—Fenn’s Audrey tying it in a knot with her tongue paid tribute to a true talent of castmate Mädchen Amick!

The series also shared a comely cross-dresser {David Duchovny pre-X Files} and a terrorized transvestite {Roman’s sister Selma}…not to mention a tall, bald and menacing stranger popping up from time to time. And they don’t get much stranger than Grace Zabriskie—called upon as Laura’s loony mother on Peaks and Bill’s beserk mom on Love ! Will we ever erase the memory of her Lois telling Bruce Dern, as hated husband Frank: “I’ll let you come in the back door” if he hands over the hidden cash? “If I want an old caboose,” he smirks, “I’ll call Union Pacific.” The edgy shows also had in common a logo for the ages: a haunting theme song that’s become a classic; a beautiful blond waitress in a diner looking for love; and even a raped runaway clad in virginal white. But let’s be honest, most of all the two shows offered a plethora of prime-time pulchritude!

Sleuth used to jokingly call Twin Peaks‘ Snoqualmie Falls, Washington location {where the show’s sign stood},  “The Babe Capital of the Pacific Northwest” … and now Big Love’s Sandy, Utah exteriors {Triplet Peaks?} make it “The Babe Capital of the Mountain West!” But the hottie quotient is hardly limited to The Big Three or the Mormon Trifecta … there are more carnal cast members than the Log Lady or the Log Man can shake a stick at! Beginning with the very first line of the very first show of Peaks: “She’s day-ud. Wrapped in plastic,” forlorn fisherman Pete Martell moans in the 911 call that opened the pilot. “She” was Laura Palmer–the prom queen with a past embodied by Sheryl Lee, a local girl from Seattle whom director David Lynch intended to cast, due to budget restraints, “just to play a dead girl.” Reveals Lynch: “But no one had any idea that she could act {she bloody well could!}, or that she was going to be so powerful just being dead”–both during and after the show {as a spokescorpse for PETA}.

Not so enduring was the happy but hapless husband who found her body,  played by Jack Nance  of Eraserhead cult fame, who married Kelly Van Dyke {Sleuth somehow found their wedding photo!} a mere month before Twin Peaks’ final episode. With his show salary no longer coming in, the daughter of comedian Jerry Van Dyke {playing brother Dick’s brother on the latter’s classic sitcom} secretly sought to capitalize on dad’s role on the series Coach by starring in a porn film called The Coach’s Daughter under the name Nancee Kellie {a play on Kelly Nance}. Instead she used the money on drugs, and after her final film Anal Adventures, the end came quickly: When Jack told her over the phone he was leaving, a crushed Kelly hanged herself on Nov. 17, 1991, just 6 months into their marriage! Distraught, her Peaks partner was day-ud within 5 years…falling down drunk and hitting his eraserhead on the bathroom floor. He lives on like Laura, whose body he unearthed, in Twin t-shirts worn over the Peaks whose sales never seem to die.

With all this booty, I feel it my duty to link the lovely ladies from Twin Peaks (listed first) and Big Love, grouped with their character counterparts beneath descriptions often quoted directly from their cast bios. And since Peaks revolved around the two lawmen’s love of donuts—which they devoured by the stacked dozen—while the governing body of the Mormons is the Council of the Twelve Apostles, dubbed “The Twelve” when established in 1835 {two have no surviving images; the handsome head shown first is none other than Brigham Young!}—it seems only fitting that we present the “Dirty Dozen” below…

Similar Archetypes on Twin Peaks and Big Love :

1.  Teen beauty queen turned “charitable pillar of the community” and major M.I.L.F.
PEGGY LIPTON as Norma Jennings, former Miss Twin Peaks, nude in rare photoshoot
JEANNE TRIPPLEHORN as Barb Henrickson, mother of three, nude in Basic Instinct

2.  “Goody two-shoes” from deranged family with powerful father who’s not what he seems
LARA FLYNN BOYLE as Donna Hayward, daughter of town doctor, nude in The Road to Wellville
CHLOË SEVIGNY as Nicolette Grant, daughter of ‘ The Prophet,’ nude in frontal photoshoot

3.  Sultry nymphet who’s much more savvy and kind than she seems and has head for business
SHERILYN FENN as Audrey Horne, secret half-sister of Donna, rare autographed nude
GINNIFER GOODWIN as Margene Heffman, secret sister-wife of Nicki, spied-on having sex in Big Love

4.  17-year-old blond beauty, “a figurehead of youthful innocence and purity,” with a secret sex life
SHERYL LEE as Laura Palmer, whose death is the catalyst for the series, nude in Backbeat
AMANDA SEYFRIED as Sarah Henrickson, whose pregnancy shapes the season, nude in Alpha Dog

5.  “Manipulative and cold-blooded” wealthy wife who “can’t be trusted”
JOAN CHEN as Josie Packard, tries to kill Agent Cooper and first husband, nude in Wild Side
MARY KAY PLACE as Adaleen Grant, tries to kill anyone who crosses husband, nude in Captain Ron

6.  Wife of “a monstrous home dictator, wife-beater, and dangerous criminal” who controls her life
MÄDCHEN AMICK as Shelly Johnson, angelic high school dropout wife of Leo, nude in Dream Lover
ANNE DUDEK as Laura Grant, seemingly sweet home-schooled wife of Alby, nude in Park

7.  “High-voiced childlike” waif who gets pregnant and marries presumed father of her child
KIMMY ROBERTSON as Lucy Moran, quiet but conflicted sheriff’s receptionist, nude in Bad Manners
MELORA WALTERS as Wanda Henrickson, “at least mildly insane” poisoner, nude in Desert Saints

8.  Middle aged wife and mother, estranged from family and “cold and calculating,” {but still ‘hot’}
PIPER LAURIE as Catherine Martell, gets revenge on Josie for killing her brother, nude in Ruby
ELLEN BURSTYN as Nancy Dutton, gets revenge on Barb and Bill by siding with sister, nude in Tropic of Cancer

9.  Cold blooded, “repressed bitch” disapproving of alternate lifestyles
BRENDA STRONG as Ms. Jones, assassin who tries to rub out Sheriff Harry Truman, nude in Undercurrents
JUDITH HOAG as Cindy Dutton-Price, Barb’s sister who gets her excommunicated, nude in Carnivale

10. Busty, fresh-faced “Cherry Pie” teen ripe for the ‘plucking’
HEATHER GRAHAM as Annie Blackburn, who gives herself to Agent Cooper, nude in Killing Me Softly
SARAH JONES as Brynn, curly haired cutie who takes virginity of gentle Ben, ‘losing it’ on Big Love

11. Exotic and sexy immigrant who finds menial job to make ends meet while keeping her pride
LISA ANN CABASA as Jenny (3rd from left), perfume counter girl at Horne’s Dept. Store, nude in Wild at Heart
BRANKA KATIC as Ana, counter waitress who became Bill’s 4th wife, bra in bed in The Truth About Love

12. Budding beauty and music prodigy, the youngest of several sisters, who dreams of stardom
ALICIA WITT as Gersten Hayward, Donna’s little sister whose piano skills are featured, bareback in 9/00 pose
DAVEIGH CHASE as Rhonda Volmer, psycho singer and Roman’s bride-to-be, buns on the beach in 9/07 candid

Reviewer Sara Cardace’s conclusion to the 2009 season of Big Love might equally apply to both the Polygamists and their Peaks predecessors: “The terror of being exposed, which once simmered under the dialogue in almost every scene, has died down, to a far-off-in-the-future problem that doesn’t seem to bother anyone all that much.” Least of all us …

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A lovely and romantic Valentine’s Day with Mrs. Sleuth alas began with the sad news of the death of Our Gang’s blonde baby girl “Shirley“: Long before SMG (playing Buffy on The Vampire Slayer) or SJP (as Carrie on Sex and the City), there was SJR—SHIRLEY JEAN RICKERT, the Littlest Rascal {hats off to her!}.

Born March 25, 1926 in Seattle, her stage-mother mom moved the family to Hollywood after the 18-month-old tot won a local Beautiful Baby contest. Joining Central Casting at age 3, Shirley snagged an interview with movie mogul Hal Roach and a part in his Our Gang comedy series at the ripe old age of four as “the little vamp in the platinum pageboy” haircut {her first test shot was a pinup}! In all she made five films in 1931 as the cutest of “The Little Rascals“—the adults’ term for the naughty neighborhood tykes—the first filmed was suggestively titled Love Business {sitting on teacher Miss Crabtree’s lap) as rising star Jackie Cooper glares at Chubby}. And male fans got a “Chubby”–today it would be considered “kiddie porn”–when Shirley slurped milk with Norman “Chubby” Chaney {the first Rascal to die, at just 21}, “Mary Ann” Jackson {who lived past 80} and “Pete the Pup” {whose iconic eye circle was drawn on by an unknown Polish makeup artist named Max Factor!}. And when Shirley Jean—whose curls were “developed by Mr. Factor and glued to my face every morning with Wave Set”–joined Dorothy DeBorba, one of the few Rascals to outlive her {she’ll be 84 next month}, in licking an ice cream cone, in “Little Daddy,” the censors became aroused as well.

Our Gang “broke new ground,” according to film historian Leonard Maltin, by putting “boys, girls, whites and blacks together in a group as equals, which had never been done before in cinema.” As another historian added, “Italian Americans were also depicted without stereotyping, notably Mickey Gubitosi” {with brown bangs}—who 9 years later changed his name to Robert Blake…and 66 years later was charged with shooting his wife,  a bottle blond who proved it in this exclusive Polaroid sent to potential “sugar daddies.” Platinum blond Shirley Jean enjoyed her most memorable moment in the Gang with bowler-hatted black boy Matthew “Stymie” Beard in their classic “Watt Street” sketch: “What street?” Shirley asks about a candy store. “Watt Street” replies Stymie. “That’s what I’m asking you!” she grows exasperated.  The bit later inspired the “Best Comedy Sketch of the 20th Century,” according to Time magazine, the classic “Who’s on First?” by Abbott and Costello. “I now live in Albany,” Shirley Jean joked in April 2007, “and darned if they don’t have a Watt Street!”

And darned if her pushy mother didn’t insist she leave the show after Fly My Kite in late 1931–telling Hal Roach to “go fly a kite” by jumping to “the competing Mickey McGuire comedy series starring Mickey Rooney.” Of her time with the Gang, Rickert recalled: “We had fun. the mothers on the other hand, were awful. Stage mothers are just vile women, including my own.” Still just six, Shirley Jean took her Mae West persona upstairs with debonair dwarf Rooney {think they’d allow this today?} and later wrote a poem about her time as temptress Tomboy Taylor: “With that screwball Mickey Rooney/Though Mick was only eight/Even then he was looking for a mate … Mickey grabbed me one day behind the railroad station/I wasn’t drowning/Why did he tell me it was artificial respiration?”

Her first on-screen smooch came from a much bigger star: “I can proudly say that I’m one of the few females who can boast that I kissed John Wayne. Of course I was only seven years old, but it still counts.” As her obituary confirmed: “She donned a black wig to play a young half-Indian oil heiress in the 1934 John Wayne B-western ‘Neath the Arizona Skies.” Future child stars Rooney, Judy Garland and Shirley Temple had never even made it past the audition stage of Our Gang, so by this time the “Little Girl with the Curl” was “perhaps the best known youngster in the country,” according to a leading scribe. Shirley Jean and “Mary Ann” became the Mae West and Louise Brooks-type tykes as best-selling paper doll cutouts, and she even had a sit-down with Mary Pickford, the most popular actress of the day! However, SJR remarked, “Stardom was my mother’s dream. It wasn’t mine.”

FROM TOT…TO HOT!!

“By then, I had made a small fortune,” sighed the small fortunate one, “by the standards of the day. In a few years it was all frittered away in one bad real estate deal after another {welcome to today!}. At the age of 12 I was washed up in show business. I was literally a has-been .” And not only had mom’s investments gone bust, but little Shirley Jean was beginning to “blossom”—proving the point in starter starlet bra—so she decided to go en pointe to dancing school. Renaming herself “Juli Mason” to avoid the Gang bangers, she got uncredited work as a background dancer in over 100 musicals—culminating in 1951’s Royal Wedding with Fred Astaire {Sleuth spotted her as the blond at back left) before moving up to be one of Gene Kelly’s fine feathered femmes (far left) the next year for the classic Singin’ in the Rain.

“The pay was good and the work was glamorous, but jobs were few and far between,” Juli Mason learned. So she searched for “something steadier and with more of a future”…. before becoming burlesque queen “Gilda and Her Crowing Glory” in 1953. “When they stopped making movie musicals,” Shirley freely admitted, “I became a strip tease in Burlesque and traveled all over the U.S. and Canada playing in theaters and nightclubs.” Her Crowning Glory was her long-flowing hair, those forehead curls still bang-in’, which added the “tease element” to her routines: “Once peeled down to her pasties, she swings her long blond tresses in a wide head roll, fore and aft,” read one review of her revue, “alternately revealing and concealing her well-formed 37-1/2 inch bosom.” Since her married name—which she kept for the rest of her life—was Shirley Jean Measures, we should fill in the flanks: a 24-inch waist, 36″ at the hips, with 118 lbs. displaced evenly across her 5-foot-5 frame. A full C cup by then, Gilda was top billed among her zipper-sorority sisters in the 1953 movie A.B.Cs of Love.

Quickly dubbed “Burlesque’s Sexiest Blonde,” Shirley said of her fellow Rascals: “I don’t think the kids would mind if they knew what I’m doing.” And the platinum peeler made sure to point out her roots while taking it off: “As Shirley Jean I played the flirt/In Our Gang comedies,” she purred when stripping to pasties. “I never dreamed I would wind up as Gilda/But who does it hurt?,” as her panties hit the floor. “The women in the audience will be taking inventory,” the patter continued. “Oh, but I seem to be getting a little behind in my story.” Butt she’d always stop her tale before showing too much: “I won ‘t do anything that could get the owners into trouble,” Gilda stressed (while dressed). Some girls will do a ‘flash.’ Just before the lights go out, they’ll take everything off for a second to let the boys in the audience see what little girls are made of. That’s the phony and easy way out. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll take off everything the law allows.”

But not enough for famed critic George Jean Nathan, writing partner of jug-eared icon H. L. Mencken {who famously coined the term ecdysiast in 1940}.  Nathan—on whom cold-blooded theater critic Addison DeWitt of All About Eve was based, winning an Oscar for George Sanders while introducing Marilyn Monroe—blasted Gilda in Esquire as “that over-clothed stripper who doesn’t taken enough of it all off”! Never mess with a former Gang member, as Shirley shot back: “That doddering old idiot thinks I didn’t take enough off ? Do you know how far down we strip at Minsky’s, where he saw me? To a G-string and nothing else, I mean nothing! And you know how big a G-string is? Why, that old man {what a dummy} could fit one into his hearing aid!” So this old man put his ear to the ground to unearth this ultra-rare glimpse of Gilda’s nipples sans pasties on the Night They Raided Minsky’s {a 1968 film starring blond Britt Ekland}.

By 1959, Gilda had grown tired of the (bump and) grind…and Little Miss Curly quit the Burly. “I like burlesque,” she snapped at her critics. “It’s what a person is, not what they’re doing. A lot of idiots are secretaries.” Over the next 50 years, Shirley became a secretary, bartender {”One of my husbands’ ideas”}, and a traveling saleswoman for industrial hardware. “I walk in and they say, ‘Not another nuts-and-bolts salesman,” Ms. Rickert told the Associated Press in 1993. “And then I open my sales folder and show them an 8×10 of me in Our Gang. I say, ‘You grew up with me.’ Then they do a 360.” So let’s come full circle with what must Shirley be the finest finds ever of this ravishing Rascal: a nude set taken in a hotel room shortly before she quit stripping for good! Starting out shyly in a see thru negligee, the Our Gang girl slipped it off to reveal a bare breast … then doffed her undies for the only time…losing the prop to reveal her pillows … before laying back on the bed to fulfill the areolar fantasies of fans who’ve wanted to sleep with “Shirley Jean” for nearly 80 years!

“I guess once you’ve been bitten by the Show Biz Bug, the bite mark never goes away,” Shirley Jean Measures observed two years before her death…and she continued to do burlesque skits in local playhouses, attend conventions in her retro roadster, and speak to classes about her nine decade career. “It’s really great to be over 80,” the retired Rascalian remarked in March 2007, “and know that a lot of people have had good memories of you for so long.” Those good mammaries landed “Gilda” on the Dancers Wall of Fame, selection in the Top 10 Strippers of the ’50s by the Erotic Dancers League, a museum exhibit tribute to her remarkable run 5 months before her death, and now a posthumous place atop a classic 2009 calendar as being among the all-time greats.

“My mother was very full of life and proud of what she had done in show business,” her only child, lookalike daughter Melody Kennedy said upon her parent’s passing in Sarasota Springs, NY. “I had a child,” mom once mugged, “found out what caused it and quit. (Yeah, sure!).” Observed that offspring: “Her whole thing was making people happy and making them laugh.” They cried when she died…but let’s leave her last words as those she chose when asked why hers was the only website run by a surviving Little Rascal: “I’m just about the only one left who can both sit up and type on a keyboard,” the youngest comic in recorded history quipped. “It was a fun life and I enjoyed it. Ain’t life grand?”

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In this section of the site, we’ll single out celebrities who deserve more in depth uncoverage…and gradually reveal more and more about them throughout the month—culminating in the rarest and usually never-before-seen revelations that only the Sleuth has unearthed!

The women chosen will generally be in the news at that particular time, either because they’ve just come out with a hit film, they’ve just “come out” {as loving the ladies}, or perhaps they’ve just gone out {to the great beyond}!

Such is the case with our first Spotlighted Celeb–who better to inaugurate a site dedicated to finding long-hidden revelations than that long-hidden heroine of millions of men’s fantasies, the legendary BETTIE PAGE !

This gorgeous “Ghost of Christmas Past” didn’t quite make it to her 86th Christmas, succumbing to a heart attack two weeks shy of 2008’s Noel. “My biggest regret,” Bettie admitted a year before she died—a measure of her fame was being pictured (along with Paul Newman, Tim Russert and Bernie Mac) on AOL’s “In Memorium” review of the year—”is that I didn’t answer that telegram to be a movie star at Warner Bros.” The young starlet rejected both a screen test and honcho Howard Hughes! “I’ve heard that even Marilyn Monroe went to bed with one of them at 20th Century Fox (arranged by her smitten agent Johnny Hyde), in order to get into the movies,” Page dished. “If I had wanted to do that, I might have been a movie star in 1948!” Ironic then, that 60 years later Bettie was laid to rest at Westwood Memorial Park within sight of Marilyn’s famous wall crypt (top left in the right rear)!

Since this is our very first Celeb Spotlight, let’s conclude by revealing these rare debuts from “The All-Time Queen of the Pinups” … her very first: pinup pose (at 15); modeling composite (from San Francisco in 1945); visit to New York City (1947, who’d have guessed?!); professional headshot; studio pose (holding her shirt closed); tentative topless exposure; and full nude–accidentally exposiing her pubic hair (totally forbidden at the time)!

LEARNING THE ROPES

“I was trying to be the Valedictorian in high school,” Bettie Mae Page recalled, “because if you were first in your class you would win a 4-year scholarship to Vanderbilt University. I was beat out by one quarter of a point—all I got was a $100 scholarship to George Peabody teachers college in Nashville.” Our salute to the Salutatorian of Hume-Fogg High, Class of 1940, shows Bettie was also voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by her classmates, who left her “nothing” in the class will because “she already has everything.” Alas, she had too much—when she tried teaching 5th and 6th grade, Miss Page was all the rage: “I couldn’t control my students, especially the boys. They would make cat calls at me.” Gee, wonder why…

Though she’d later go on to inspire lunch boxes and dolls in her image, the teacher-turned-typist admits: “I was never the girl next door.” Especially after she moved…to the Big Apple…and was spotted strolling the beach at Coney Island in October 1950 by NYPD cop and amateur photographer Jerry Tibbs. “He gave me his card,” Bettie shrugged, “and offered to make up a portfolio for me free of charge.” But not free of hassle: “I didn’t like what he did with my breasts. He had me stuff Kleenex inside the bikini. I didn’t need the Kleenex.” But she did need “a look”…which Tibbs came up with: “Jerry said I had a very high protruding forehead, and that I’d look good with bangs. I’ve been wearing them ever since.” He also had her wear some mild fetish attire in one shoot–which caught the attention of “New York’s pin-up and bondage king,” Irving Klaw … and that was all she rope.

The only thing I find upsetting,” Bettie later revealed, “is that they keep referring to me as the Queen of Bondage. The only bondage posing I ever did was for Irving Klaw and his sister Paula,” she made clear {the trio became “like family”}. “Usually they would shoot 4 or 5 models every Saturday. He wouldn’t pay for the regular pictures unless we did some bondage. So I did the bondage shots to get paid for the other photos! And that was the only reason I did it. I never had any inkling that way {liking to be tied up}. You had to do the bondage or you didn’t get paid!” And how much was Page paid for these 4-hour sessions? “Eighty dollars” {Paula Klaw recalled it was $100 “with a tip”}. And here’s the best tip of all: Sleuth got to know Paula quite well in the ’80s and ’90s…and she gifted him with many rare original prints she and her brother had taken of Bettie in bondage. So let’s share, shall we?

“Irving was a wonderful man,” the model who made him famous felt {the notation at bottom right of this original indicates it was the 357th shot they printed of “BP”}. “For years it was rumored that he and I were involved, but that was ridiculous”—besides, she quickly became the “love object” of Klaw’s anonymous benefactor , known only as “Little John”! And “Paula was one of the nicest women I’ve ever known in my life—bar none {Lili Taylor played her in the 2006 film The Notorious Bettie Page}. Only Paula was allowed to tie us up. She never tied any ropes too tight.” Knot ever?!

The bondage sessions “were safe and relaxed,” Bettie remembered…and in those days when models “took a coke break,” it was much more innocent. The only time it wasn’t, she was genuinely afraid: “I had just one bad experience,” the model moaned in her deep Southern drawl, “when I was tied spread-eagled between two big wooden beams with my arms up and out and my legs spread and then my feet were about 6 inches off the ground and before they got through taking what seemed like umpteen pictures, I thought it was gonna pull the sockets right out of my shoulders. And I started hollering, ‘Hurry up, I’m hurting!’ Later, Irving Klaw told me that those pictures of me spread-eagled off the ground sold more than any pictures he ever sold in all of his years of selling pin-ups and even movie star pictures, those things of me in agony,” she laughed.

Otherwise, Bettie was “delighted to admit” the bondage sessions were “a ball” … make that ball gag! “It was fun {a real sight gag. Much like this rarity of Page playing a reel Lucille Ball gag!} I got a kick out of it {floored with legs reared up}. But I never thought those pictures would have such a lasting effect.” With no END in sight…

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