EARLY PUBLICITY FOR BARBARA STEELE

 

Full disclosure: One of my collecting obsessions is old magazines, including the movie magazines that were all over the newsstands back in the days of my lost youth, meaning the 1950s and 1960s. They had names like Modern Screen, Motion Picture, Screen Stories, and TV Radio Mirror. They all seemed to disappear at some point in the 1970s, eventually to be replaced by new publications like People Magazine and Us. They were all gossip mags for the most part, but also existed to gain publicity for new studio films and the stars who played in them. I've also managed to accumulate quite a few issues of Life Magazine and its competitor, Look. Both of these periodicals featured quite a bit of movie news and often had major stars on their covers.

As her film career was getting started, British beauty Barbara Steele was occasionally given the same kind of publicity promotion that other new, hopeful actors and actresses were given in the print media. The photo on the left, which is one of the most beautiful photos ever taken of her, appeared in the December 1, 1958 issue of Life Magazine. She had just completed a small part in her first film, BACHELOR OF HEARTS, and was being promoted by her studio, the Rank Organization. There were two other photos:

The text reads as follows:

"When all stretched out, the girl above measures five feet six inches, weighs eight-and-a-half stone and is pretty proof that, as far as potential movie stars go, England has plenty to offer. Her name is Barbara Steele, a 20-year-old Liverpudlian under contract to the Rank Organization, which feels there is cinematic gold in this provocative miss. Barbara came to London from her native Liverpool to pursue a career in art and antiques. She was painting sets for a theater when the director decided that she would look much better on than backstage. She did repertory in Brighton, a play in Glasgos and now has completed her first film, Bachelor of Hearts. To advance her promising career, she went about London recently, posing her special beauty against the background of the city. But she is happiest on Portobello Road where there is an outdoor market for antiques and junk. There, every Saturday, she sells copper jewelry and old prints from her pushcart, as shrewd a dealer as any there." 

Barbara always believed that director Mario Bava cast her in his debut film, Black Sunday (1960), after seeing this article in Life. Who knows? Certainly, the photo at the top exudes the kind of mystery he was looking for.

Barbara wasn't the only young celebrity being promoted in this issue. A rising rock and roll singer named Ricky Nelson was featured on the cover.

In the July 4, 1961 issue of Look Magazine, Barbara was featured in a lengthy article entitled Beauty Parlay, where she was shown getting her hair sprayed:

Presumably, this took place when she was in America filming The Pit and the Pendulum for director Roger Corman. The cover of this issue was graced by the new and glamorous First Lady of the United States, Jaqueline Kennedy. Interesting that these two women would both be featured in the same issue of Look, considering that film critic, Pauline Kael, in her review of Black Sunday, said that Barbara looked like "Jaqueline Kennedy in a trance".

Next, in something called Hollywood Secrets Yearbook: All-New Giant Star Directory, Miss Steele is found in the article Tomorrow's Stars: Applause, Please!. There were quite a few names and faces that might be remembered, such as Larry Pennell, Joan Freeman and Ingrid Thulin. But there were also several young hopefuls that apparently had very brief careers.

The picture used in the article is from Barbara's "blonde" period when she was under contract to 20th Century-Fox. This magazine is copyrighted in 1962, and by this time, Barbara had left Fox and was living and working in Italy. But this publicity piece claims she is still a Fox starlet. Her career did much better than the other names on this page. Brian Kelly did fairly well as an actor, and was the executive producer of Blade Runner. But this is the first I've heard of Trax Colton. (Why didn't my parents give me the name Trax Colton??? Oh, what might have been...) One wonders if Barbara and Trax ever ran into each other in the hallways at Fox. If I ever get a chance to see her at another convention, I will definitely ask her. 

In the meantime, this ancient issue of Hollywood Secrets Yearbook promises not only the latest dramatic headlines, but reveals Hollywood's only REAL he-men.