OK, contestants: on to the intermediate round
As models on photo shoots generally go by their first names only, and the agency sending them out (“Ship us a redhead, a blonde, and a brunette, will you?”) would have little incentive to ask or keep track of the artist whose LP was in the process of being “jacketed,” I know of no definitive source of documentation for which models we’re looking at on these old record jackets. (See “These kids are going places!”, Nov. 18.)
Thanks to all of you who squinted at our last set of images and ventured a guess. (My computer ineptitude is legendary, but you MAY be able to bring up a larger version by double-clicking on these images.) Mary Tyler Moore and Doug McClure in the last group were pretty easy, I think, though I have no idea about Mr. McClure’s dance partner. I concur that the radiant face on “Day Dreams” could only be the future Princess Grace. Someone in Florida might remember the talented young lady who went water skiing with Lenny Dee in 1963; if so we’d love to hear a report.
(For that matter, if any lovely lady, probably now in her 70s, recognizes herself here and wants to drop us a reminiscence about that day in the studio, we’d be gratified.)
Today we offer tenor sax virtuoso Dave Pell and his Octet on Capitol’s “I had the craziest dream,” 1958, and then Jack Marshall and his Music, also on Capitol, in “Soundsville!”, 1959.
It could be we’re just eyeing a couple of lookalikes, of course. If one of these gals is wearing a wig, that makes things even tougher. But the poor underfed beauty to Mr. Pell’s right (our left — the one with the attenuated toes) looks familiar to me, as does the blonde with Mr. Marshall.
I don’t know that anyone has ever explained why some few photo subjects generate a “presence,” while all the others are “just pretty,” but these two ladies already seem to be the class of the field. Something in their expressions says “I won’t be stuck doing THIS much longer.”
We’d be looking for young ladies who entered modeling in the late 1950s, possibly through the beauty pageant route, and then broke into movies or television between 1958 and, say 1965.
Remember: sometimes the cardboard is collectable, too!
December 22nd, 2014 at 2:24 am
Looks like Barbera Eden
January 12th, 2015 at 10:23 am
Not much interest in this set, apparently. True, the Christmas season intervened, but after six weeks we’re going to declare this pair of minor mysteries unsolved.
Remember, we’re looking for gals who would have been born between about 1932 and 1942 (they’d be pushing 80 now, fearful thought), working as anonymous record-jacket models circa 1958-59 and possibly graduating from walk-ons to major roles in movies or TV in the early 1960s.
And again, there is no “official answer book,” unless we’re lucky enough to have one of these lovely ladies, or an offspring, write in to say, “That’s mom, she remembers that session.”
Darren doesn’t specify whether it’s Dave Pell’s brunette or Jack Marshall’s blonde in which he finds a resemblance to Barbara Eden (born 1931), who starred in TV’s “I Dream of Jeannie” from 1965 to 1970. Eden’s breakthrough film role was opposite Elvis Presley in “Flaming Star” (1960), so the dates might work. Stella Stevens (born 1938, Playboy’s January 1960 Playmate of the Month, who played opposite Elvis in “Girls! Girls! Girls!” in 1962 and opposite Jerry Lewis in “The Nutty Professor” in 1963) has also been suggested as a possible match for Mr. Pell’s brunette. It’s hard to recognize the distinctive pixieish charm of either of those lovelies here; we may never know.
As for Jack Marshall’s whispering blonde, our nominee would be Yvette Mimieux, born January 1942, best known as the Eloi heroine Weema in George Pal’s 1960 film “The Time Machine” and as the lovely but “innocent” Clara in “Light in the Piazza” (1962.)
But we can’t prove a thing.
We do predict the cardboard may often prove as collectable as the vinyl, though. Even with less-than-perfect vinyl, we find we can’t keep “Fresh Cream” or Janis Joplin’s “Cheap Thrills” on the shelves.