“If Lucille Ball is the Queen of Television,” the 1980s book TV Sirens opines, ” BETTY WHITE is its Princess.” Or, as her late Golden Girls co-star Estelle Getty put it: “The whole country’s in love with Betty White. The minute you meet her, you know why.  She’s Miss America!” Well, a few of them have posed nude too!!

Voted “Best Looking” in her class at Beverly Hills High, the six-time Emmy winner {her first was as Outstanding Lead Actress for Life With Elizabeth in 1952} has just received her greatest honor: a Lifetime Achievement Award from her peers of the Screen Actors Guild (aka “SAG”). “I was only 88 last Sunday {born January 17, 1922 in Oak Park, Illinois},” Betty vowed, “so I have lots more stuff to do.” But stuffing … her bra … is one thing this fine-figure of an actress has never had to do!

“Seventy-one years ago when I sang on an experimental thing and it was called ‘television,’” Betty gushed upon receiving her SAG award, “who would have dreamed it would culminate in an evening like this!” Or that Betty’s successor as ‘America’s Sweetheart,’ SAG Best Actress awardee Sandra Bullock—whom she got to “feel up” in The Proposal—would introduce her by saying: “Yes, I know a lot of people find Betty White inspiring. Me, I find Betty White annoying. I’m sorry, it’s true!” Not to be outdone, the Golden Girl held Bullock’s hand and nearly brought her to tears—accepting the award by sighing of Sandy: “Isn’t it heartening to see how far a girl as plain as she is can go?”—as Miss Congeniality and the audience broke up.

Genuinely “touched and appreciative” of the award, White concluded: “It would never even have occurred to me to imagine this. This is the highest point of my entire professional life.” One of Sleuth’s came when, in his very first issue back in 1985, we featured Betty in the Buff … on a deck of playing cards! Perhaps more than anything else, that photo “find” contributed to our fledgling publication’s success—boosted by Betty appearing on the October 1, 1985 show of Late Night with David Letterman … where he confronted her with the magazine!

“Now what’s with these earmuffs?” Letterman laughed–showing the audience her aural augmentation {while covering the bare chest}, which mirrored her covering curls in this vintage 1940s publicity pose taken just a few years later. “You didn’t do this, did you?” he asked incredulously. “I don’t know,” Betty stammered—clearly taken aback. “It must have been awfully chilly in the studio that day! It does look like me,” she admitted, “except the ear muffs would not have been there—they would have been here!” {pointing to her chest}. Her chest has never been a laughing matter … and check out the identical eyebrows, nose and dimples—facial features that rarely change over time {without surgery}—in this side-by-side com•pair•ison!

“It’s somebody who looks an awful lot like you!” Dave persisted … prompting Betty to backtrack: “Well,” quipped the blushing Rose, “Rue McClanahan swears that they used her body and pasted on my head!” There was hardly PhotoShop back when this strip poker card surfaced in the early 1940s … but if you have any doubts, we’ve blown up the “stacked” deck so you can clearly see it has the “White Stuff!”

The resultant publicity caused us to set up a special hotline to handle the overflow of orders … helping our initial issue sell an astounding 121,000 copies! So looking back, we might “largely” have The Happy Homemaker to thank for putting food on our table this past quarter century! And looking front, Betty also draws kudos: “If you’ve got it, flaunt it!” is her credo—though she stopped short of actually posing for this infamous  “Golden Girls Gone Wild” portrait. “We all have boobs and bottoms,” she first declared in 1990, “they’re just a little wider and lower than they used to be.” But much less than you’d think: For while a February 1989 episode of the Golden Girls wondered if Betty’s character Rose could still “get a rise out of her boyfriend?”—all up in arms in a pose recalling her younger days—White managed to wow the crowd even after stealing the show from Sandra. “This year’s winner of SAG’s 46th annual Lifetime Achievement Award,” wrote the L.A. Times, “heated up the ice-cold press room by showing off a slit in her sparkling turquoise gown that went riiiiiiiiiiight up to—oh, my, it went quite high” {where are those muffs when you need ‘em?}.

But it was the opening up top that caught Sleuth’s eye: When an 88-year-old woman wins a SAG award, the jokes generally take on a certain gravity … but as Betty’s bodice slipped lower and lower while Bullock’s barbs warmed up the frozen January joint, there definitely seemed to be a bit of a nip in the air! “I can’t settle now into a nice, dignified approach, as would become a woman my age,” Betty White recently remarked. “I still smart off. Many times I wish I hadn’t—but it just pops out.”

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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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So Phil Spector was finally convicted {after a jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of guilt in the first trial} of the February 3, 2003 murder of beautiful blonde actress LANA CLARKSON, who was found dead of a gunshot wound, in his foyer. The defense maintained she killed herself, but Sleuth had spoken with Lana just weeks before her death…and the B-movie Queen was anything but suicidal. So perhaps justice has finally been done…which means we should also do justice to the photo-filled blog I wrote during the first trial. Here it is for those who missed it … and who still miss lovely Lana:

“I think,” LANA CLARKSON said at the start of 2003, “that I will act till I die! God willing, this is the year it will happen.” It did…and now rock legend Phil Spector is on trial for her murder photo.

Spector first found fame by borrowing the inscription on his father’s tombstone to write “To Know Him Is To Love Him,” the 1958 hit for his group The Teddy Bears. But ever since, he’s been no picnic…and one of the trial’s opening witnesses, Joan Rivers’ former personal assistant Dorothy Melvin claimed that Spector smacked her in the head with a gun in 1993 and sneered, “Take your fucking clothes off.”

At least Lana didn’t need to be coerced in her acting days: After getting her Screen Actors Guild card at 18 for a bit part in Fast Times at Ridgemont High photo, she showed a natural SAG a year later in Deathstalker photo. No wonder Clarkson once angrily wrote to reviewer Joe Bob Briggs–after he noted that “she seemed to become more buxom in her later movies”–”wanting the public to know that she had never enhanced herself and was 100% natural.”

Lana was 100% au naturel in 1985’s Barbarian Queen photo, but insisted: “The unrated scene is where I’m topless photo. The R-rated version was all filmed above the bust, but I’ve never done full-frontal nudity anyway.” Sounds like a challenge for Sleuth…who has managed to unearth this rare candid self-portrait Lana took in her dressing room mirror photo while an extra on the set of Brainstorm in late 1982. Though the flash obscures her face in the flash, the identical fringed belt of her costume photo proves the bottom line.

Spector hopes to prove his innocence by painting Lana as a “broke” actress who “picked him up that night at the bar” and “really wanted to go to bed with him and get some money.” After her death, Vanity Fair quoted a source claiming that Clarkson “was a $1,000-an-hour call girl working under the name ‘Alana’ photo for notorious Jody ‘Babydol’ Gibson,” who has just published her juicy tell-all autobio Secrets of a Hollywood Super Madam. Ironically, her final film–2000’s aptly titled Vice Girls–perhaps was a preview of Lana getting pawed by the producer photo in her little black dress.

So what really happened in Spector’s palatial mansion that night? From knowing Lana even slightly, I can report that she seemed happy and hopeful (photo might show how she looked in the legend’s limo that night), so suicide is highly unlikely. Besides, who goes to a stranger’s house to commit suicide…so she might borrow a gun for the night?! No, far more likely is that, as the prosecutor said in his opening statement: “There were candles lit, the lights were dimmed, he put on soft music. The evidence will show that Phillip Spector had romance in mind that night.”

Perhaps Lana even took a sensual bath to freshen up (like a dozen years before in The Haunting of Morella, photo) , but changed her mind when Spector grew menacing (”You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” was one of his greatest hits). And we all know what Phil’s favorite method of carnal coercion was (photo, from Lana’s last film, Vice Girls). So, our verdict? That the erstwhile rock producer finally found a way to once again be “Number One…with a bullet” photo.

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When it comes to the OSCARS, Sleuth has been PUSHING THE ENVELOPE for more than two decades! In fact, when yours truly first coined the term “THE ANATOMY AWARDS” way back in 1988 for just our fifth issue ever, we were so leery of the reaction of Oscar officials that “the suits” insisted on including this disclaimer on the very first page! Nowadays, a Google search for “Anatomy Awards” returns 15 MILLION hits…

You can view this landmark issue in its entirety by subscribing, then entering the Issue Archive for 1988. We began with alphabetical uncoverage of awardees and nominees from A {Andrews, Julie} to W {Winger, Debra), since no actress with a Z surname has ever even been nominated—though Pia Zadora, a natural breasted bimbo {if not a natural blonde} infamously won a 1981 Golden Globe bought and paid for by her aging hu$band. In that first-ever “Anatomy Awards” edition,  we termed it “the most ambitious, and erotic, celebrity gold digging ever done.” Since then, we’ve published TEN more “Anatomy Awards” volumes—the latest in late 2007—and introduced numerous other related phrases into the vernacular: “On a Pedestal,” “Academy Adored,” “Oscar Mire,” “Trophy Wives,”"Golden Girls,” “Statue-esque,” “Foreign Intrigue” and “Same Time, Last Year,” to name a few. Perhaps the Academy will consider giving me a “Lifetime Achievement Award“…

In this year’s ceremonies, airing Sunday, the women are again much more interesting than the men—and not just for the obvious reasons,  like the prospect of nominee Anne Hathaway on the red carpet {despite having dropped her jailed financier fiance and “two bra sizes,” due to the anxiety…all the more likelihood of a wardrobe galfunction!}. No, it’s also because of the uncertainty of the outcome: while sensational Sean Penn playing slain Harvey Milk and the late Heath Ledger are almost {ahem} dead certain to win Best Actor and Best Supporting, the women are comparatively up for grabs. So you’re invited…

In our eleven editions of “The Anatomy Awards” we’ve uncovered over 385 actresses…and considering we chose not to go back before 1960, there have only been 500 Best Actress and Supporting nominees during that time! {clearly with many multiple nods…and bods}, so that means we’ve laid bare 77 % of the total “prized” personalities possible. This year is no sexception, with 9 of the 10 female actresses “going for the bold.” However, since Sleuth always seeks to go where no mag has gone before, we’re adding a second, rarer revelation to the Class of 2009:

BEST ACTRESS

Anne Hathaway Nom’d for Rachel Getting Married, Nude in Brokeback Mountain, Rarer Nude in Havoc

Angelina Jolie Nom’d for Changeling, Nude in Original Sin, Rarer Nude in early outtake

Melissa Leo Nom’d for Frozen River, Nude in Three Burials…, Rarer Nude in Silent Witness

Meryl Streep Nom’d for Doubt, Nude in Silkwood, Rarer Nude in She-Devil

Kate Winslet Nom’d for The Reader, Similar Nude in Heavenly Creatures, Rarer Nude in Jude

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Amy Adams Nom’d for Doubt, Nude in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Rarer Nude in Psycho Beach Party

Penelope Cruz Nom’d for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Nude in Elegy, Rarer Nude in Open Your Eyes

Taraji P. Henson Nom’d for Benjamin Button, Nude in Baby Boy, Rarer Nude in pre-fame pose

Marisa Tomei Nom’d for The Wrestler, Nude in Before the Devil…, Rarer Nude in Untamed Heart

Viola Davis Nom’d for Doubt, Braless Pokie on red carpet, Camel Toe on stage in shorts

Sleuth never goes with the flow, however, so his personal picks for the female acting awards might differ from those of the Academy: While Best Actress will likely be between the best actress of her generation, Meryl Streep, and her heir apparent, Kate Winslet, we shouldn’t forget the delightful Sally Hawkins of Happy Go Lucky fame … and 2002’s All or Nothing frame. And my Supporting trophy would probably be a three-way tie between: Thandie Newton as a clueless Condi Rice in W … and awesomely areolae’d in 1998’s Besieged; Canadian cutie Alison Pill as the lesbian campaign manager in Milk … and udderly milk-fed in 2005’s Dear Wendy; and sweet Sophie Okonedo as doomed May in The Secret Life of Bees … whom it took all of Sleuth’s sleight-of-gland to uncover in this single frame flash from the 1996 BBC-TV drama Deep Secrets!

Lastly, let’s not overlook the Academy Awards debut of host Hugh Jackman, the reigning “Sexiest Man Alive” as picked by People magazine. “I could have told them that years ago!” quipped his wife of a lucky 13 years, Australian actress Deborra-Lee Furness {on the red carpet together}. “Obviously, Brad wasn’t available this year!” Raves X-Men superhero Jackman: “I have a terrific marriage…you fall deeper in love every day!” And every night he wears a different “get up” to bed Deb: “She loves me in costume because it makes her feel like she’s having an affair, in a good way,” he reveals about dressing as “Wolverine” when they make love. The Academy Award host’s only regret is that he “didn’t get to see my wife run naked down Broadway” when he won the Tony Award for The Boy from Oz in 2006: “She had promised to strip and sprint along” the legendary theater street if her forecast of his victory proved wrong. “And I said, I kind of wouldn’t mind not winning actually,’ Jackman joked.  “I think I’d prefer to see that.  That would be kind of fun.” Sleuth does his part by discovering Deborra-Lee’s only nude screen scene: a topless skinnydip 18 years ago in the Australian-made Waiting. “I’m ballsy,” Deb declares…let’s hope that didn’t prevent her from conceiving. Now after “several miscarriages,” Mrs. Jackman runs a charity to lobby for adoption rights. The couple has adopted two…the first, a boy in May 2000, checks out the cheeky cheerleaders with Dad at a Knicks game last month. Their son’s name? Why, OSCAR of course…

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This past Sunday, the Mississippi Press published a column that began: “Is it me or does MARIE OSMOND need a ‘What Not to Wear” intervention? Now I don’t want to be mean or pick on Marie Osmond, but somebody should be able to help her update her image.” And we’re here to help…

Just two weeks ago, Marie announced she’s launching a new talk show this Fall, so it’s time we had a “talk”: She famously fainted on Dancing with the Stars in October 2007…but she should really be in for a shock when Sleuth opens his VAULT (accessible on the Home Page) for the first time…and Marie’s only topless pose ever pops out! The mother of eight quickly recovered from her Dancing swoon—her first words after coming to were “Oh, crap!”–but her bountiful bosom gasping for air as she rose gave a clue as what she’d look like without clothes!

Well, now we KNOW...and now we SHOW !!

Evidently, Marie’s first husband, Mormon Steve Craig had a “Big Love” all right…for multiple partners)…and reportedly placed an anonymous ad in a national swinger’s magazine—without his wife’s permission—to solicit “other couples and versatile single girls” to the newlyweds’ marriage bed! Sample the faces of Mr. and Mrs. Craig with those of the “Foxy couple” living in Tennessee {where Marie was recording an album at the time} and decide for yourself … whether to keep reading, that is, or SUBSCRIBE immediately to peek inside the Vault {and the 15,000 pages of issues and hundreds of thousands of images inside the site!}

For unlike Geraldo Riviera’s ballyhooed boondoggle with Al Capone’s Vault in which he left empty handed, or the Titanic vault failure depicted in James Cameron’s epic movie–which is still spoofed today–there truly are HIDDEN TREASURES waiting for you in every conceivable combination !

And we’re not just talking about what resides in the Osmonds’ fan favorite footlockers.

Why, even Marie herself might SIGN UP TODAY !!

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Paul McCartney wrote the jaunty “Silly Love Songs,” but his silliest move was undoubtedly marrying hyper Heather Mills–which cost him nearly $50 million in their divorce. Now we can all see what Macca saw in Heather, as Sleuth has uncovered explicit nude poses of Ms. Mills before she became Mrs. Mac. The future amputee had all her private parts in good working order shortly before her 1993 collision with a police motor scooter! At first, after their 2002 marriage, it was all “My Love” for the duo. But soon, the ambitious amputee was moaning, “You Never Give Me Your Money” as Sir Paul pouted.

Heather didn’t let her monoped status inhibit her free-wheelin’ ways, posing nude to promote her pet land mines cause. Before the scooter hit, her hooters were a BIG hit with glamour photographers in London. She also apparently sold her bodacious bod to wealthy client$, such as Arab billionaire Adnan Khashoggi.

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