From my collection: Mari Lynn, Laura Mason and the Bowery Boys

There isn't very far from The Three Stooges, whom we discussed in the previous posts, to The Bowery Boys. Except, of course, that the Stooges did their slapstick routine in around 15 minutes while the Bowery Boys stretched theirs out to sometimes an interminable feature length. But like the Stooges at Columbia, Monogram/Allied Artists' Slip, Sach, Bobby, Whitey, Chuck, etc. were surrounded by luscious chicks who, in real life, wouldn't have given the overgrown “teenagers” a second, or even fifth, look. But there they nevertheless were: a parade of Hollywood starlets that included (in the early 1940s) Ava Gardner and, later, the curvy Veola Vonn.

Marianna Lynn (top left), who turns up as Huntz Hall's daughter in Paris Playboys (1954), later simplified her name to Mari Lynn and appeared on such television programs Wells Fargo and Perry Mason. But let's briefly explain how she came to play Huntz Hall's daughter. Actually, Hall plays a dual role in Paris Playboys, his usually dumb-as-a-bag-of-hair Sach and Sach's doppelgänger, a Parisian rocket scientist. Comedic melee ensues. Marianna/Mari was Miss Belgium Universe of 1952.

More voluptuous even than Mari Lynn, Laura Mason was sometimes billed as “The Body” and was heavily promoted by Allied Artists in connection with her performance as a Vampira-style Vampire in The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954), a pre-Addams Family haunted house affair that plays just as you'd expect. Miss Mason, who also advertized “Hollywood Bread” (“only 42 calories per slice!”), later turned up as one of the handmaidens in the infamous Queen of Outer Space (1958) and then toured the burlesque circuit.

From my collection: More Stooges fun: Greta Thyssen, Diana Darrin & Arline Hunter

Greta Thyssen (nee Grethe Thygesen and Miss Denmark of 1951) became the very last of the starlets that would grace Columbia's short subject comedy factory, appearing opposite Moe, Larry and Joe in Quiz Whizz, Pies and Guys, and Sappy Bullfighters, all filmed in mere days right before the short subject department was closed in 1957 and released 1958-'59. Greta, of course, was Denmark's answer to Marilyn Monroe and did indeed double for the latter in Bus Stop (1956), in which she also had a one line bit in a Phoenix street scene with Don Murray. Thyssen's final feature film was the Florida-lensed Cotton Pickin' Chickenpickers (1967), a title, and indeed narrative, that pretty much tells the story of Greta's less than stellar screen career.

A bit higher up the food-chain screen-wise, but not too far up, Diana Darrin was also a singer and enjoyed a career that lasted until the early 1970s and included films with Jack Nicholson and James Caan. In the Stooges' Outer Space Jitters (1957) Darrin was one of the electrifying (literally) girls from Planet Sunev, which, a title helpfully explains was Venus spelled backwards.

Another of the Sunev beauties was Arline Hunter, a famous stripper and the August 1954 Playboy centerfold. Miss Hunter was often mistaken for Marilyn Monroe, notably in a little indiscretion suggestively entitled Apple Knockers and Coke (!), which was long credited to Marilyn herself. Hunter later appeared with the similar Mamie Van Doren in one of the era's great exploitation comedies, Sex Kittens Go to College (1960).

From my collection: More Stooges & Connie Cezon

Speaking of Stooges gals, we shall of course not forget the lustrous Miss Connie Cezon (often listed on credits as "Cezan," but she was born Consuelo Cezon), whose resemblance to Bette Davis led to her appearing as Davis' double in the identical twin melodrama Dead Ringer (1964). The Pasadena Playhouse alumni also did her fair share of b-girls, e.g. in Bruno Ve Sota's The Female Jungle (1956), and she enjoyed a recurring role as Perry Mason's switchboard operator, Gertie, in the original 1950s Tv series. But it was as a foil for the 3 Stooges that she will be remembered, notably dating all three, simultaneously, in Corny Casanovas (1952), for monetary gain of course. This is the short where she famously greet each Stooge with an insincere "I knew you were coming so I baked a cake." Does she end up wearing said cake? Have you ever seen a Stooge short? The entire gag was repeated in the "remake," Rusty Romeos (1957), where Cezon, a tiny bit heavier, re-filmed the scenes featuring the late Shemp Howard's replacement, Joe Besser, but the new footage was inserted nearly seamlessly and few were the wiser. Connie Cezon, who hailed from Oakland, CA (born 1925) died from complications of breast cancer in 2004. In her later years she ran a boarding house for cats, Kitty's Kastle. The photo top right is from the 1946 Academy Players guide and is perhaps the earliest professional portrait in existence.

From my collection: Vanda Dupre

We all know and love French-born starlet Vanda Dupre from the latter-day 3 Stooges comedy Fifi Blows Her Top (1958), where, in the title-role, she plays Joe Besser's wartime beloved. But that was actually about it for Vanda who the very same year that Columbia released the short married future character star Jack Warden, in Las Vegas and with comedian Red Buttons as best man. They had a son together, Christopher, and although the couple reportedly separated in the 1970s, Vanda was still legally Mrs. Warden when Jack died in 2006. Along with her Danish-born contemporary Greta Thyssen, Vanda Dupre (born 1931) remains one of the very few Stooge starlets still alive as of this writing.

Kathleen Hughes and The Golden Blade (1954)

It's funny – well, not funny as in funny, ha ha, but you know what I mean – how geographical place names such as Bagdad and Basra and Damascus have taken on a whole new meaning in the past decade or two. Bagdad, especially, used to denote Arabian Nights adventures, Rock Hudson and Piper Laurie on the Universal back lot cavorting in colorful garments and saying Allah this and Allah that. Now, these places only remind us of unnecessary, and unpaid for, wars with hundreds of thousands of deaths and a taxpayer bill than will run into the gazillions of dollars. But Hollywood in 1954, when The Golden Blade was released, was indeed a different time and place, a time where caliphs and vizirs and their henchmen chased the good guys over the hills and dales of North Hollywood in what really were “Eastern” Westerns. Where handmaidens were actually Miss Universe contestants, including Sweden's Anita Ekberg still years away from immortality in the Trevi Fountain; and where Rock Hudson believably made lovesick gestures towards the weaker sex. But even back then, a titian-tressed Piper Laurie stood out. Did Bagdad girls really look like that? Really? At least the usually so blonde Kathleen Hughes had the decency to wear a black wig for the occasion.

Nee Elizabeth Margaret von Gerkan, of all things, Kathleen Hughes (born 1928) was the niece of screenwriter F. Hugh Herbert, and following a short stint as a 20th Century-Fox starlet, she signed with Universal-International in 1952. She remained with the studio for two years before marrying one of Universal's top producers, Stanley Rubin, a union that still lasts, something of a record in itself, especially for a former glamour girl. Hughes failed to become a star but at least she is still remembered and occasionally turns up at such events as Cinecon and the Palm Springs Noir Festival. She is quite good as The Golden Blade's bad girl, whose love for the Vizier's villainous son (Gene Evans) leads her to betray her mistress, Princess Piper Laurie. It is not Shakespeare, of course, but good enough for the kind of colorful escapist melodrama that Universal churned out like so much sausage in those years

Variety Girl (Paramount, 1947)

I have in my collection this still from the 1947 all-star extravaganza Variety Girl featuring Mary Hatcher, of Broadway's "Oklahoma" (she had replaced Joan Roberts as "Laurie") and Mrs. Edmund O'Brien, Olga San Juan, plus the entire Paramount roster. Including quite a few starlets profiled in earlier blog posts. Which reminds me: I have again received a whole bunch of mails from relatives of people I have profiled here or in my previous job on allmovie.com, all requesting further info of their long departed loved ones. As much as I enjoy corresponding with folks from around the globe, I get a little tired of having to demure when it comes to these requests. No, I don't know anything else about your great-aunt. Had I known more, I would have printed it. Half the time I don't even recall writing about the person in question. Although I was paid an hourly rate, I worked as fast as I could and through the five or six years I did the work, I probably submitted more than 5000 essays. I didn't keep the files, though. Back then, a computer had very limited storage capacity, if you recall. And since I was paid a lump sum with no royalties accruing, well, there you have it. It is all on the allmovie.com site. And New York Times, and the late Blockbuster, and the soon-to-be-late Best Buy. And even Amazon Canada, if I'm not mistaken. Anyway, feel free to contact me, but be realistic folks.

More Tim Holt -- and Linda Douglas

According to an RKO press release in 1952,

“Linda Douglas, from Portland, Oregon, has earned a long contract with RKO Radio Pictures. The young beauty, from whom the company expects great things, makes her debut with a large role in Trail Guide.”

She did, indeed, but the “great things” failed to appear. In reality, Linda Douglas was Mary Jo Tarola, a former beauty queen, and she was always more famous for her off-screen assignations than anything she would do or say on. Following Trail Guide, she was in Target (1952), also with Tim Holt and, although par for course for the Holt series, par for the course was better than almost anything the competition could come up with, and that included the newfangled, and free, television Westerns. Linda was Mary Jo Tarola, though, in Affairs with a Stranger (1953), a turgid marital melodrama in which she was overshadowed by British import Jean Simmons and blonde sex-pot songstress Monica Lewis. And that was it for Mary Jo/Linda's screen career. But not of her name appearing in the headlines.

In December of 1952, after a whirlwind romance, Mary Jo married Pasquale “Pat” DiCicco, a notable man-about-Hollywood, whose former wives were the ill-fated Thelma Todd and Gloria Vanderbilt. DiCicco, who was always operating under a cloud of being “connected,” if you know what I mean, wink wink, nudge, nudge, had been on the periphery of the movie business for decades and, if nothing else, was noted for launching the film career of Cubby Broccoli. But with the much-married Dan Topping, of the much-married Topping brothers, as a guest of honor at the nuptials, the DiCicco-Tarola union was doomed to fail. In his 1960 divorce hearing, Pat explained their estrangement with his wishes to resettling permanently in the Bahamas and refusal to have children.

Then in 1962, Mary Jo met baseball legend Hank Greenberg and was reportedly all set up to embark on a double date with Marilyn Monroe and her ex-husband baseball legend Joe DiMaggio when Marilyn overdosed. Perhaps this tragedy cooled Greenberg's and/or Mary Jo's ardor, but Hank didn't marry Mary Jo for another four years. But then it was for good and Mary Jo Tarola Greenberg was widowed in September of 1986. As Mary J. Greenberg, the former RKO starlet at last report still resides on Miradero Rd. in Beverly Hills.

Joan Dixon, Howard Hughes, and Tim Holt

From the late silent era on, multi-millionaire playboy Howard Hughes would take time out from his various hobbies of flying planes into things and such to dabble in the film industry in general – Hell's Angels (1930), The Outlaw (1943), Vendetta (1950) – and beautiful Hollywood starlets in particular. With, it should be noted, an appetite and indeed taste ranging from beautiful silent star Billie Dove to mannish talkie newcomer Katharine Hepburn. And, as they say, anything and everything in between. Including, at least one writer suggests, the male of the species as well – notably the ill-fated Robert Francis (died in a plane crash in 1955) – although how Howard would have found the time is anybody's guess. Having gotten himself stuck attempting to create a star out of Jane Russell's brassiere – The Outlaw as a narrative clearly came second to the natural scenery that indeed was Jane's epic bust – Hughes threw caution to the wind and went into film-making full time, managing in the process to destroy one mini-major, RKO. Once again, Howard got mired in his zeal to foist a girl on the public, come what may. This time, the object of his feverish fantasies was one Faith Domergue, the film a Corsican melodrama entitled Vendetta (1950) and the result the slow and lingering demise of the company that had brought the world King Kong, Astaire & Rogers, and Citizen Kane. With all this destruction going on, Hughes had little time left for his other contract starlets, which at this particular moment in history, 1950-1952, also included Faith Domergue and Jane Russell lookalike Joan Dixon.

Dixon, from Norfolk, VA, signed with RKO, and Hughes, in 1950, but since Domergue was still the reigning star in Howard's' constellation, she was pawned off to the B-units, noir and Western respectively. Her noirs are actually very good, notably Roadblock (1951), and her Westerns, five in total, even better. Dixon became Tim Holt's final leading lady of note and co-starred in what in my opinion remains one of Tim's best, Desert Passage (1952). As I wrote for the AMG database:


Always slightly more adult than the competition, RKO's Tim Holt fine B-western series went out with a bang rather than the accustomed whimper. Although cheaply made, Desert Passage remains an evocative and exciting pocket Western complete with shootouts, hard riding, and such mystery elements as a deserted hotel, howling dogs, and strange bumps in the night. Holt and Mexican-accented sidekick Richard Martin are their usual stalwart selves -- the former all uncompromising decency, the latter foolhardily romantic -- but the real treat here is the supporting cast, RKO B-movie regulars all but allowed to play the mystery angle for all it is worth and with no holds barred.


Although she was blithely compared to Hughes' biggest star, Jane Russell (Faith Domergue had badly flopped), Hughes, as we have already noted, paid scant attention and Desert Passage proved Dixon's final film appearance of any importance. Why? She was as attractive, if not more, than the average Hollywood starlet and, unlike Faith Domergue, could actually act. But she got caught up in an off-screen marital farce with Ted Briskin, the former husband of Paramount star Betty Hutton, that for all intent and purposes derailed her career. Joan became Mrs. Theodore S. Briskin in October of 1952 and in a purely conjugal manner seized to be Mrs. Briskin less than three weeks later, Mr. Briskin in the subsequent divorce hearings alleging that his wife had beat him up no less than three times. There was a second marriage, to a television writer, but that, too, proved shortlived, and apart from a couple of television appearances and a night club engagement or two, Joan Dixon disappeared from view. She died in Los Angeles on February 20, 1992.

Law of the Badlands (RKO, 1950) and Larry Johns

Today I watched the 1950 Tim Holt starrer Law of the Badlands, a customarily fine effort from director Lesley Selander and the Holt unit. I noticed a “new” name – to me, at least – in one Larry Johns, who plays the film's counterfeiter; or as Chico calls it, “fighter counter.” Actually, I've noticed the name Larry Johns on one previous occasion, ever so fleetingly depicted in a fairly new biography of Robert Mitchum. Plus, I have in my collection the portrait from the 1946 Academy Players Guide. But exactly who was this Larry Johns, who also turned up in quite a few TV oaters? Well, the following clipping goes into almost tedious detail. But here it is, and in its entire length. Enjoy!

From the Long Beach Independent Press Telegram, June 22, 1958

BACHELOR ABOUT TOWN
'Lean, Hungry Look' Asset
by IOLA MASTERSON
L i k e Shakespeare's Cassius, "Yond Larry Johns has a lean and hungry look." In Larry's case, it has been a valuable asset, giving him the distinctive appearance of a professional actor, which he is. Besides, our week's unattached man about town, director of Long Beach Community Players and freelance motion picture, television and radio actor, doesn't like to cook. Which could account, in part, for the hungry look. He's a man who has spent his entire life in show business and knows it backwards, forwards, onstage and from the wings.
* * * *
SCENE I, ACT I. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio [October 25, 1903]. The plot began to thicken early for Larry. One day, when he was absent from high school and couldn't defend himself, they elected him president of the drama class. A key character enters the scene and sets the pace: his dramatics teacher, s p o t t i n g Larry as a "n a t u r a 1" for theater work, encouraged him to make it his career. The best words of advice any stage aspirant ever had came from this coach (and Larry has passed it along to amateurs ever since) [including in the late 1930s, neophyte Robert Mitchum!]: "There is nothing sorrier in the world than a sorry actor. Don't confine your knowledge just to acting — be prepared for any phase of work in the theater and you can make it a success". He followed those valuable stage directions and, needless to say, he's never been "sorry" in either sense of the word!
* * * *
LARRY RECEIVED both his bachelor and master of arts degrees from the Busch Conservatory of Music and Dramatic Arts at the University of Chicago. A twist of fate as tricky as a second act curtain tied his future to Long Beach Community Playhouse at a time before there was a local little theater here. The late Elias Day [who discovered Laraine Johnson, a starlet who changed her name to Laraine Day in his honor], then one of the "Mr. Bigs" in theatrics and a director at the conservatory, assigned Larry to his first professional acting job, giving him the part of Daddy Long Legs in "Vauxhall" for the Chautauqua circuit. When Mr. Day — or "Daisy" as everyone called him — went into semi - retirement, he moved to Long Beach to become director of the local players and this was liaison between Larry and our town. After three years in Chautauqua, Johns felt he was ready for the big time — New York — and, sure enough, he was! Broadway welcomed him and for 17 years he played character roles in a long list of shows including such hits as "Town Boy,"
starring Ralph Bellamy; "Tide Rising," with Grant Mitchell; "The Story of Mary Suratt," with Dorothy Gish and Kent Smith; "Libel," with Colin Clive and Wilfred Lawson. Concurrently, between New York engagements, he acted with top stock companies, trading cues with such stars as Shirley Booth, Ed Gardener and Thelma Ritter;
* * *
WHEN THERE wasn't an acting assignment Larry, unlike so many other young actors, was rarely out of work because he was to the theater what a "switch hitter" is to baseball. He could join a company as stage manager, director or set designer, and,
over the years, he found himself preferring the production work to acting. Johns is six feet tall, when he b o t h e r s to stand up straight, which isn't often. He has a posture to match his easy-going personality. His voice, naturally soft, is husky, probably from projecting it to be heard clearly in the last rows of theaters in all 48 states, five Canadian provinces, Europe, South America and Mexico. By the time he was 26 his hair had turned completely gray. It intensifies his naturally tawny complexion and deep-set blue eyes. Other strictly personal .statistics: favorite color - blue; favorite
food - kidney saute (great Caesar's ghost!); he's a member of Long Beach Rotary; for an evening out likes nothing better than dinner in a sophisticated restaurant followed by attending the theater, (of course), and "live", (naturally!).
* * *
DOES HE LIKE the sack look? No! Finds women who are tall and blonde most appealing. If they're beautiful, so much the better. Then we asked the $64,000
question: "Does the thought of ending single blessedness appeal?" We got a $66,000 answer: quote — No man should live alone — unquote! Larry's most recent television work has included roles in "Cheyenne", "Sky King", "Cavalcade of America", "Rin Tin Tin" and "Wild Bill Hickok". Looks like Hollywood has him tabbed as a western hombre and that's fer shore, podner. Annually at Christmas time he goes on a Broadway binge, seeing every top new show in town, covering the theaters two a day. He thinks "Time Remembered" with Helen Hayes this year's best play. All-time favorites are "Death Takes a Holiday", "On Borrowed Time", "Our Town". He considers Julie Harris and Susan Strasburg [sic], in that order, the best young actresses in the country; Paul Muni the finest stage actor.
* * *
TINKERING WITH theatrical lighting effects is not only part of his regular worn but his favorite hobby. For active sports he likes tennis and bowling; spectator sports, baseball and football. If Larry could write the script for the balance of his life story he'd go right on directing plays for the Community Players and, when retirement age comes, his third act would be played half in New York each year and half in Long Beach right up to the final curtain.


Larry Johns, who was born Lawrence Giddings Johns, retired from films and television around 1961 and passed away in Los Angeles on January 12, 1987.