Customer Reviews

Bombshells: Glamour Girls of a Lifetime

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It all begins with the cover. It is classically, quintessentially 1950s: a gorgeous, nearly-nude blonde pin-up, sun-kissed, radiant, wanting nothing more in the world than to please me. This delightful photo by Bunny Yeager sets the perfect tone for "Bombshells," a wonderfully entertaining book that takes us back in time to a more innocent age and the glamorous gals of the '50s and '60s.

Steve Sullivan's full-length chapters on 10 pin-up favorites of that era includes some of my personal all-time favorites. Cynthia Myers, Playboy's Miss December 1968, was one of the most astonishingly beautiful women ever immortalized in a centerfold, and co-starred in the best movie Russ Meyer ever made, "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." Her chapter gives us more insight into this compelling lady than we've ever been granted before, and the photos--including three of her classic Playboy images--make the book worthwhile in themselves.

Yvette Vickers--so fondly recalled by "camp" movie lovers for "Attack of the 50-Foot Woman" and "Attack of the Giant Leeches"--has had a truly remarkable life both in Hollywood and in her many celebrity love affairs (Cary Grant among them). It's a story worthy of an entire book, but until that happens her chapter in "Bombshells" will be definitive. The photos are absolutely irresistible, too.

I thought no one else would remember Sabrina, the bodacious, outrageous "Jayne Mansfield of Britain," but thankfully Steve Sullivan does, and tells me things I never knew about this explosive blonde dynamo. And Joy Harmon! How could anyone who's ever seen the classic chain-gang scene in "Cool Hand Luke" forget that tormenting blonde played by Joy? I was unaware of the wide range of other parts she played as well, and about how she grappled with the "Bosom Mania" culture of her time, until reading her chapter.

"Bombshells" is a book that brings back a flood of fond memories, gives us rich anecdotes we'd never heard before, and dazzles the eye with its sizzling photo images. Anyone who loves the pop culture of the '50s and '60s, and glamour girls in general, will love this book.

Thanks to this book I could finally put a face on some names. Some were totally unknown to me.My favorite? Jennie Lee! I `ve read articles about her before but this book helped me to find out more about her.She`s plump BUT so sexy. All the ladies are not especially charming for me.If you are a fan of the 50`s glamour girls this book is for you.

I thoroughly enjoyed Steve Sullivan's book on some forgotten glamour gals of the 50's and 60's.I particularly enjoyed reading about Joy Harmon and Cynthia Myers.Joy Harmon was an adolescent fantasy of mine ever since she popped out of her clothes in "Village of the Giants."Myers may have been beautiful,but she proves she's no brain surgeon when she states that she went to the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968 and met Adlai Stevenson.He'd been dead 3 years by then!Oh,well.All in all,an excellent book!

Though I bought a copy of this tantalizing book sometime ago, I still relish it as a tremendous job by Sullivan, whose Glamour Girls Then and Now is also proof of the man's excellent work in the field of covering glamour goddesses.

I share Steve Sullivan's fascination for glamour girls, but was rather disappointed in the women he selected for this book. Virginia Bell was singularly unattractive and has been justifiably forgotten; Cynthia Myers was an overrated and depraved doxy, ideal for the usually vulgar Hugh Hefner and the always vulgar Russ Meyers; Sabrina was, at best, a third-tier entertainer; and I've never understood why Sheree North was considered even remotely attractive. The book is saved, at least to some degree, by the chapters on more interesting women -- e.g., Yvette Vickers.

Sullivan's criteria for his selection is a mystery. To be sure, there are glamorous women other than Monroe and Mansfield worth writing about, and they can be from the second tier, such as Sue Ane Langdon. But why focus on what amounts to the bottom of the barrel? A pity.