It's been awhile since my last blog due to the fact that I had to submit the index to my publisher for Hollywood Surf and Beach Movies: The First Wave, 1959-1969. Let me tell you there is nothing more boring and mindless than composing an index. Ugh!

Took a peak at Marquise's Corner (see link below) and loved his two-part blog on "3 Girls 3 Cinema" that looks at Come Fly with Me, The Pleasure Seekers and Valley of the Dolls.

A few of the starlets spoke to me about Valley of the Dolls so here is some backstage starlet gossip from that pill-popping camp fest:

20th Century Fox was pushing their new It Girl Raquel Welch for the role of doomed starlet Jennifer, she of the big bosom and no talent. Welch auditioned and won the role but she stupidly turned it down! I guess she felt it wasn't up to the standards of One Million Years B.C.

The producers then offered it to another Fox contract player Fantasy Femme Jean Hale. This pretty blonde had just made an impression opposite James Coburn in the spy spoof In Like Flint (1967) and Fox head Richard Zanuck wanted her to down the blue pills but Hale too foolishly passed on it. Married to Dabney Coleman and now a new mother, she felt uncomfortable with the near nudity. This, coupled with the fact that she wouldn't do an European promotion for Flint due to her baby, left her on the outs with Zanuck and Fox. After playing George Segal's gun moll in the St. Valentine Day's Massacre, Hale's option was dropped. Worse than free-falling into the valley of the dolls Jean Hale (gasp!) settled for domesticity instead!

With the Fox roster of starlets exhausted, every gal in town vied for the role of Jennifer. Fantasy Femme Karen Jensen came real close to securing the role with either the producer, David Weisbart, or the director, Mark Robson, (Jensen couldn't remember which it was) championing her for the part. Alas she lost out to the ill-fated Sharon Tate. Prophetic casting, no?

As a consolation, Jensen got to play a starlet, of the grasping kind, on the TV series Bracken's World, which took the "3 Girls 3 Cinema" to the small screen. More on Bracken's World next blog.