Tura Said

I'm not going to get into a big 'in memoriam' - there's plenty of those going around now. Tura was a real kick (to put it mildly), so here's an interview I did with her in 2009 for my blog. I had readers send in questions. She was having a ball! We did this at my house and sat side-by-side.


MJ:Tell her we LOVE her!

A: Thank you!

No.6 said...

Ask TURA : "Just do it!" is her motto, what was the first thing she's done with that in mind?

A: Let's see. I got married. I married a cop (laughs.) Basically just about anything I do is what I want to do. Who can tell me no?


Mavis Martini said...

I'd like to know who HER idols are! Who does she look to for guidance?

A. My father and as far as a female idol, I don't have one. I made my own (laughs.)


6 said...
My second "ask Tura" is, to match more the DL Trade Mark : when she was a lil' girl, what was the first woman artifact she remember using to play a woman?

A. Being a Jehovah's Witness, my mother wouldn't let me wear makeup. So it was a cigarette.

My Third "Ask Tura"is, what is her first personal physical LA/Hollywood male souvenir?

A. He wants to know who was the first star I ever screwed? Tony Bennett.

Muscato said ... Ask her for some good Ted "Astrozombies" Mikels dish!

A. It depends on how high my heels were when I stepped on him.
Me: do you want to want put that on there? Tura: yes.


The Stewardess asks: What do you wear to bed?

A pair of lace panties. Even on cold nights.

Anonymous: What was the first club you worked at?

A. The first club I worked at was the Club Rendezvous, in Calumet, Illinois. The first club I ever danced in, not as a stripper, was the Tropicana, on Sunset Boulevard, in Hollywood.


DL: What was it like working with Dean Martin?

A. Great. He was a fun person to work with, and he was very easily surprised, especially when I did a backbend and was twirling my tassels without a bra on (laughs.) He got the biggest kick out of that. I told if I could rev 'em up fast enough I could fly! That day on the set - we had a closed set where supposedly nobody was supposed to come on because I was doing my strip routine - well, we had a huge audience of everyone from all the different offices! They found out when I was going to do it, and they were there!

What lot was that on?

A. That was on the main lot at Paramount Studios, Stage 3 or Stage ... not sure, but it was a huge stage. They had the Tijuana nightclub set in there. And I really would like to know who told all those people! For a closed set, we had Robert Mitchum, of course Billy Wilder (laughs) and (director) William Wyler and a lot of the different stars that were working at Paramount then. Everybody was there. I told the director Danny Mann I should have collected a fee for this and he said, "No, I oughtta!"

You were in "Our Man Flint," too, right?

A. I actually played both the dancers in the nightclub. I played the first and second one in the Marseilles nightclub. James Coburn was very funny - he was a hilarious person. He's the one who went around 20th Century Fox telling everyone that I was going to be doing the routine. Daniel Mann was also the director on that film! It seemed like every place I ever worked Danny Mann was around. He was a sweetheart. He was afraid to make love to me. We used to sleep together. But we didn't ever make love. There's a lot of weird people in Hollywood!

Ladies! Face your household duties with a smile!

Patsy Kelly in "There Goes My Heart".

Uploaded by mrdantefontana666

"Lady, you ain't no Farrah."

A song is worth a thousand pictures

Pulp International presents a nice collection of record covers from femme fatales, bad girls and sexploitation stars:
"The other day we realized that nearly all of our femmes fatales released records at some point, so we have a megapost of sleeves below representing a fraction of these multi-talented women’s musical output. We’ve heard most of the music, believe it or not, and while its quality varies, we do suggest you check out both Marilyn Chambers and Reiko Ike—their simulated orgasms are quite pleasing to the, er, ears. "
A song is worth a thousand pictures.

Soledad Miranda sings

The Crime In Your Coffee brings as top schlagers as executed by the lovely Soledad Miranda.
La música de Soledad Miranda! 2 "EP's from 1964 and 1965.
Thanks Soilworker!

The fatal instincts of Gloria Grahame

" ... Once, when I was drunk in an attic in New Jersey, I flipped on the television, and there was Gloria Grahame in something called Naked Alibi (1954), lip-synching to a song and gyrating obscenely in a sleazy club, a taunting, creepy image that kept me from sleep and kept me watching as she played out another brutal film noir plot, raising her eyebrows and goading the men around her to violence, rough sex, and ruin. Most of Grahame's films have lurid titles: Blonde Fever (1944), Roughshod (1949), The Bad and the Beautiful, Sudden Fear (both 1952), The Good Die Young (1954), Blood and Lace (1970), and, my personal favorite, Mama's Dirty Girls (1974). Say her name out loud, and it even sounds like her: Gloria Grahame, fancy and earthy at once, tart, ungraspable. She generally makes her entrance on-screen accompanied by a wail of hot jazz, eating candy, applying lipstick to that puffy mouth, flipping her dirty hair and cheap hoop earrings, extending her toned legs so we can see her shapely feet tied up in ankle-strap high heels. Her perversity knows no limits on-screen; in life, she was capable of sleeping with the 13-year-old son of her second husband, Nicholas Ray (she later married this stepson and bore him sons). She could never deny her impulses, and her wantonness made and then destroyed an exciting career in movies. ...

... Gloria Grahame lived on the sidelines of her films because it was there that she could cause the most trouble; she might appear in any movie, young and sullen, aged and insistent, under a pound of make-up or plain-faced, fucking the pain away, putting out a cigarette in someone's eye, giggling for no reason. She's inescapable, a disruptive force, and when I hear her in my head, she seems to say, "C'mon, you know you want to . . ."
Dan Callahan tells us about the fatal instincts of Gloria Grahame for Bright Lights Film Journal.

A great clip with Gloria from Fritz Lang's The Big Heat:

Video clip added by Indigo1045

Wo oh oh what Ann-Margret does to men

Ann-Margret - Ann-Margret (the 1980 5 track disco album), available thanks to Check the Cool Wax.

boomp3.com

celebrità

Claudia Cardinale & Charlton Heston

A great set at flickr of celebrites from back in the days:

Josephine Baker, Laurence Olivier & Merle Oberon (still from 'Wuthering Heights'), Gina Lollobrigida, Britt Ekland (eh ...), Rita Conde (O'la la!) and Yul Brynner (or is it Vladimir Putin?). (via Senses Working Overtime)

And now ... Katyna Ranieri

And Now ... Katyna Ranieri (IMDb), available thanks to Singin' and Swingin'.
boomp3.com

When legends gather

Jayne Mansfiel + Roberto Rosselini / Mick Jagger + Divine / Carole Lombard + Sabu
All images found on this excellent blog:
if charlie parker was a gunslinger, there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats.
An ongoing series of cultural and personal observations by Tom Sutpen, Stephen Cooke, Richard Gibson and Kimberly Lindbergs.

via label: when legends gather

other labels:
They were collaborators
Musical Indulgences
Sex education
... there's too many!

Doctor X

John McElwee, and his Greenbriar Picture Shows has a highly interesting post up about Pre-Code Horror movie Doctor X:
" ... Doctor X and Mystery Of The Wax Museum are unique for being the only horror films shot in any kind of Technicolor during the thirties. The two-color process was never satisfactory for cartoons, and musicals suffered from pallid representations of costumes and décor, but horror films stood to reap enormous benefits from not of this earth color seemingly shot through lens smeared with formaldehyde. I don’t know how that Doctor X crew stood workdays that ran to twenty hours under the martinet direction of Michael "Skip Lunch" Curtiz (shown here with star Lee Tracy) [Edit by mrdantefontana: shown in the full post over at Greenbriar Picture Shows. Not in this post] . Unions in 1932 were proposed, if at all, in secret meetings among participants who knew not the meaning of days off. On Sabbaths while most rested, the Doctor X team had worked straight through Saturday night and into early morning hours, so that when they did finally arrive home, sheer exhaustion negated Sunday recreation other than blessed sleep. For those in the camera’s glare, lights needed to enable Technicolor were intense beyond endurance and some players sustained damage to eyes they’d keep for life. ..."

Enjoy the full post here.

Broadway photographs 1900-1930

Jerome Kern & Ona Munson

Broadway photographs - Art Photography & the American Stage 1900-1930 (thanks to KD over at Pop Culture Links)

Jeanne Carmen - a true glamourous pin-up queen

Jeanne Carmen: My Wild, Wild Life As A New York Pin Up Queen, Trick Shot Golfer, and Hollywood Actress.
Jeanne started in show business aged 17, she became soon a burlesque dancer, a cheesecake model, a b-movie actress, a trick shot golfer . She hanged out with The Rat Pack and was a close friend of Marilyn Monroe (she said!). Lately she was acting in 2002 for Rob Zombie's horror movie : House of 1000 corpses (though it was filmed, the scene was later cut). But i won't tell you more, she was a true glamourous pin-up queen, go check his thrilling story there: Diary Of A Man Out Of Time

R.I.P. Spicy Jeanne.(1930-2007)(1930-2007)
A lot of videos from YouTube user nymodel777

Who's Chucky?

How about some German pop music by German actress Uschi Glas? The English-spoken Wikipedia article about her doesn't even mention her singing career. But here's a proof of it:
I probably got it from Dans Mon Café and with Spiked Candy you'll have some more.

Carmen sings

Carmen Miranda - A Pequena Notavel available thanks to Loronix.

Nancy Sit

"... Nancy covered some great songs in the 1960s and her records are a lot of fun. Her backing bands seem pretty competent for this type of music as well. On her Hala Hala A’ Go Go EP on Squirrel Records she sings Wooly Bully, Hang On Sloopy (with a great little scream near the end), Love Potion No. 9 and Shakin’ All Over. The same songs appear on a Silver Horse EP, but with a different cover. The Squirrel record is from Singapore, and I am not certain, but think the other one is from Hong Kong. On her I’m A Believer EP Nancy tackles the title track, and Hanky Panky, Hippy Hippy Shake and Pretty Flamingo. All good stuff. ..."

Garage Hangover spotlights Nancy Sit.

That makes it!

Since we recently had Bombshell Mamie over doing her take on Rock'n'Roll, we don't want to insult Jayne on that fluffy platinum blonde cloud in heaven checking us out with a real bitchy glance.
C'mon Jayne! Oooh, Baby! We still love you too. You're still soooo hip.

Jayne Mansfield sings "That Makes It!" in the 1966 Las Vegas Hillbillies (which also starred Miss Van Doren. It is said that they didn't get along at all and refused to act in the same scenes when shot. The crew was then forced to use doubles. Lovely!)

Added by kraftwerk2012

Hey Mamie!

Hey, Mamie! You know what happens to bad girls in the shower, don't you?
You don't want to know what happens to really bad girls trying to imitate Wanda Jackson in the shower!!
Well... I must say you got off pretty easy. Life is swinging and you are a Bush bashing blogger. Sometimes bad girls can go right after all.
But, please, stick with the uke from now on will you?

Mamie Van Doren - Hey Mama
Uploaded by mrdantefontana

(the clip is an out-take from the 1959 movie 'Girls Town'. Apparently this scene was a little bit too risque back then.)

An Interview with Dyanne Thorne

"Dyanne Thorne made famous the role she played in four Ilsa movies, that sexy soldier of fortune with the tough attitude and incredible figure that everyone loves to hate. What you didn't know is she's been a fine actress of stage and screen for over 30 years with many varied interests ranging from sketch comedy to philosophy. Recently, Dyanne took some time to speak with us."

"... -With the Ilsa movie I’ve read people stopped being your friends after you made it?
-I got a lot of flack from that. You have to realize I came out of a very serious acting group. Part of that philosophy is not only to be the best you can be, but help support & promote properties and projects that are going to make the world a better place. Respectable colleagues thought I had totally sold out by taking some of the projects that I’d taken. The truth is I hadn’t been offered the other kind.

-In your Ilsa movies your role is so powerful and forceful. Especially during the time in the 1970’s most women were being saved, exploited, or raped. You were the one kicking ass and making the rules. At the time that was so mind shattering. Today, everybody is trying to be that. Today you would have had a huge career.
-We can’t all be Rocky Stallone...."

Steve Graf and Randy Waage interviews Dyanne Thorne for retroCRUSH.

Dyanne Thorne - A retroCRUSH Interview With The Star of The "Ilsa" Movies.

A little bonus - The Chainsaw Arm Wrestling scene from 'Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia'.
You've got to hand it to me - that's a real bloodsport...

Another Bonus is this bunch of screeen caps from 'Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS' posted over at Nostalgia Party No. 2.

Who is it behind those shades?