Flexible Venus 4: Scarlett Strallen

There is no doubt about the most striking and erotic poster on the London Underground at present: it is this one of Scarlett Strallen promoting the new revival of A Chorus Line.  It's not just the impossible angle of those extraordinary legs.  It's not just the muscle tone in those silky thighs.  Its the insouciant look in her eyes which seem to say: "Look I can stretch my legs like this and it's no effort whatsoever.  Imagine what else I can do!"  Indeed!

Thirty year old Scarlett Aimee Vaigncourt-Strallen has been a fixture of the London musical stage since she took the lead in Mary Poppins in 2005.  Her three sisters Saskia, Summer and Zizi are all actresses as well.  More alarmingly she is the niece of former stage school moppet and, later, Dr Who companion Bonnie Langford.

Splendid!

Venus in Egypt: Lesley-Anne Down for Sphinx

Lesley-Anne Down was one of Triple P's favourite actresses of the seventies and early eighties.  In a previous post we admired her dressed in black stockings for the enjoyable film The First Great Train Robbery (1979) and in Upstairs, Downstairs.

Here, this time, we have her in a series of publicity photos taken in Egypt for the thriller Sphinx, for which she was the star at a time when female leads were still unusual in Hollywood.  It could have made her a major star but, unfortunately, despite being based on a popular novel by Robin Cook and good locations in Egypt it was a badly reviewed flop.  It essentially killed Lesley-Anne's film career dead and she had to concentrate on TV from then on.  There were a number of things wrong with it, not least a mis-cast Frank Langella and John Geilgud, and Down, who was so good in The First Great Train Robbery was terribly wooden in this.  She was also burdened with an unflattering haircut.  It's an OK film for a wet Sunday afternoon if you don't want to watch that other Egyptian archaeology film from that year, Raiders of the Lost Ark, again.

These publicity shots feature a costume, if you can call it that, which didn't, sadly, appear in the film.  They certainly were widely published in advance of the film's release, including in the December 1980 Playboy from the credits of which we can venture that they were shot by Michael Childers.

You have to give Down her due here as she looks sensational dressed, essentially, in two strips of very sheer fabric held together by a few bits of string.  She's not in a studio but actually out on location in Egypt where she would, no doubt, have been arrested if she had been caught dressed like this.  Full marks for nerve!

Venus in black stockings 2: Kelly Brook

There are, disappointingly, comparatively few pictures of Miss Brook in black stockings, an unusual situation for a young lady who spends much of her time posing about in lingerie.  Still, we have two fine examples here: one in hold ups and one in suspenders (or a garter belt if you are a North American).

The one above looks effectively slutty, probably because she is wearing a dress rather than just a boudoir concoction as in the one below (in which she looks very young).  The illicit flash of stockings in everyday wear is so much more potent than seeing them on an undressed girl.  Triple P remembers a meeting where he sat next to a girl from HM Treasury who not only flashed the tops of her stockings when seated but spent the whole meeting pinging her suspender straps against her leg.  Most distracting!

We note that poor Kelly broke up with her boyfriend this week, mainly, it seems, because she kept going to meet the previous one.  We imagine that she won't be on the market for very long.

Venus in a Vest 3: Anna Noble

Here are some splendid photographs of Anna Noble in a vest taken as a part of a shoot that appeared in Mayfair magazine in 1975.

Close observation shows that her garment is actually a very pale shade of pink rather than the more classic white but that does in no way detract from its pleasing visual effect.

The remarkable thing about these pictures is that they show Anna with a totally untrimmed bush which, even for 1975, was somewhat unusual.  Obviously not shot at a bikini time of year her pubic hair runs right up to her belly button in an enticing trail.

Triple P prefers his women in vests to just wear a vest but in this case we really cannot object to a pair of black hold-up stockings as well.

We can't find any information on the lovely Miss Noble other than she started modelling for the Daily Mirror's equivalent of Page 3 in 1976.  She never appeared in The Sun and disappeared from he modelling scene at the end of the seventies.  

Anna in The Spy Who Loved Me title sequence

Mayfair ran a second pictorial of her in 1977 to tie in with her very brief appearance in the title sequence of the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.

Looking at this picture she has a fine coating of hairs down her thighs as well but as they are blonde they hardly show.  What delightfully furry girl she is!

Anna's bust is such, of course, that if you push her vest up to reveal it the garment has enough to rest on so it doesn't fall straight down again.

Clubland Venus: Paula Yates at the Reform Club

Agent Triple P had dinner at the Reform Club on Pall Mall last week.  We go there reasonably often as we know a couple of members.  Given its exclusive nature we were rather surprised, when we recently picked up a copy of UK Penthouse on eBay (to fill a gap in Triple P's collection), to discover a pictorial shot in the club featuring a young Paula Yates.  Paula was a rock and pop journalist in the early eighties.

This came from UK Penthouse Volume 14 no 5 (August 1979) and the pictorial didn't appear in the US edition, of course, due to Paula only being well known in the UK.

Paula Yates was born in Wales in 1959, the daughter of an actress, former showgirl and erotic novelist.  Yate's mother's husband was Jess Yates a well known TV personality who presented the religious Sunday show Stars on Sunday.  Jess Yates career and his popular show ended in 1974 when it was revealed that the  fifty-six year old had been having an affair with Anita Kay, an actress thirty years his junior, although he was separated at the time.

The Reform Club library contains over 75,000 books

The journalist who broke the story about Jess Yate's affair was called Noel Botham, who was a friend of another TV presenter Hughie Green.  Jess Yates had been Green's producer on one of his shows but Green couldn't stand him and wanted him removed.  Green told Botham about Yate's affair with Kay who sold the story to the News of the World (recently closed down by Rupert Murdoch following revelations of systematic phone hacking).

When Hughie Green died in 1997 Botham a wrote another story for the News of the World revealing that it was Hughie Green who was Paula's biological father and not Jess Yates.  Green had revealed this to Botham  twenty years earlier.  Paula only learned of this through reading the tabloid headlines.  Her mother denied it but Paula then took a DNA test which revealed, following samples from two of Green's children, that she was, indeed, Green's daughter.

The upper corridor of the saloon

As a teenager Paula became a fan of new wave band The Boomtown Rats and its lead singer Bob Geldof, later famous for co-organising Live Aid.  She pursued Geldof and started having a relationship with him when she was sixteen or seventeen.  By the time this pictorial appeared her fame was almost entirely based on her relationship with Geldof.

Very soon, however, she began a column in the Record Mirror and in the early eighties started co-hosting the TV music show The Tube which increased her profile enormously.

The floor of the main saloon

In 1986, after ten years with Geldof and having had a daughter, Fifi Trixibelle, with him they got married in Las Vegas in 1986.  However, the previous year she had met Michael Hutchence, lead singer of Australian rock band INXS, whilst interviewing him for The Tube.  They kept in touch and by the time she interviewed him again on The Big Breakfast TV show in 1994 it was apparent from the sexually charged atmosphere that something was going on between them and, in fact, it had been for some time.  Strangely, this series of rock star interviews, which were always conducted on a bed and had Yates flirting with most of her guests, were actually produced by her husband.

This window is between the library and the Upper Corridor of the saloon

In 1995 she left Geldof and, under Hutchence's influence started to take drugs and indulge in S&M activities.  Hutchence abandoned his then girlfriend, supermodel Helena Christensen, for Yates.  In 1996 Paula  had another daughter, Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily, with Hutchence. In November 1997 Hutchence was found hanged in a hotel room in Sydney.  Paula, increasingly distraught and then learning the truth about her father shortly afterwards, sought psychiatric help but lost custody of her daughters.  She was found dead of an overdose of heroin in September 2000 at the age of 41.

In some of these pictures Yates can be seen sporting a tattoo on her right arm which was most unusual in those days but may explain her daughter Peaches', addiction to them.

The Reform Club was founded in 1836 by Edward Elice MP, a former fur trader in Canada who had made his fortune as a director of the Hudson's Bay Company.  The idea of the club was that it should be a centre for the sort of radical politics that had led to The Reform Act of 1832, which Elice was a strong supporter of. This act reformed the electoral system of the UK taking the first significant steps towards the system we have today by increasing the number of eligible voters and establishing parliamentary seats in large industrial cities for the first time.

The club's building was designed by Sir Charles Barry (whose most famous building is the Palace of Westminster and its distinctive "Big Ben" tower) and was modelled on the Palazzo Farnese in Rome (currently the French Embassy - Triple P went to a reception there once with his aristocratic lady friend I).

The balconied main saloon, where many of these pictures were taken is very much the most splendid room in any of the London clubs.  The upper level of the saloon leads, on it's southern side to the library which holds over 75,000 books.

The Upper Corridor of the saloon in 1841 Compare with the picture six from the top

There have been many famous members including Arthur Conan Doyle, HG Wells and Winston Churchill, who resigned however when one of his friends was blackballed. In Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days Phileas Fogg was a member of the club so his journey started and finished there.  It has appeared in numerous films most notably in the scenes at the fencing club in Die Another Day (2002) and, more recently, Sherlock Holmes (2009).

 The main staircase which leads from the Lower to the Upper Saloon

You are certainly not allowed to take pictures inside the club or use a mobile phone in the public areas.  We can't think that the club would allow a photo shoot like this today and wonder if there were any appalled letters to the club secretary at the time.

We never really liked Paula Yates and she subsequently had a nasty breast enlargement but here, as a nineteen year old, she looks rather splendid..  

Acting Venus: Gabrielle Drake

We just found this tremendous study of lovely actress Gabrielle Drake (most famous for her purple be-wigged part in Gerry Anderson's UFO) from her 1972 film Au Pair Girls.  We did a piece on Miss Drake over on our Adventures of Triple P blog some four years ago and have added this picture to that post as well but felt it deserved to be specially highlighted here too (as we didn't have this blog back then).   

Engaged Venus: The Betrothed by John William Godward

The Betrothed (1892)

As it's Valentine's Day today we thought we would go for a nice, romantic image.  Agent Triple P attended an event at the Guidhall Art Gallery last night where they have a small but significant collection of Pre-Raphaelite and classicist paintings.  Latterly most of these have been buried in the basement but we were pleased to see that they have now been restored to the main floor once more.

Of these, Triple P's favourite is The Betrothed by John William Godward which was painted in 1892 whilst he was living in Chelsea; one of sixteen paintings he produced that year.

A typically langorous Godward girl contemplates her engagement ring in an equally typical marble-ous Mediterranean setting.  This painting marks the first appearance in one of Godward's paintings, of the spotted stola around her hips.  It would appear in many more of his pictures, which makes you wonder whether it was an actual piece of costume from his studio.

Sir Harry Vanderpant

 

This was also the first of Godward's paintings that ended up in a major gallery. It was bought by Sir Harry Sheil Elster Vanderpant (1866-1955), later the Lord Mayor of Westminster, who gave it to the Guildhall Art Gallery in 1916.

It's quite a small painting, just 24 inches across, but confers the idea that she is thinking about her man extremely well.  Godward has rendered the leopard skin superbly in this.

Teenage Nudist Venus

Well, not really.  Zakkers has pointed out a TV documentary on Channel 4 which Triple P missed last week.  Now Channel 4, which is currently celebrating its 30th anniversary, was supposed to be a high-brow channel catering to minority interests.  Lately, critics have been saying it has fallen a long way from its original, lofty, educational values. The title of last week's documentary, My Daughter the Teenage Nudist, exemplifies this exactly. 

Broadly, the programme made the assertion that more teenagers (of both sexes, but concentrating on the female makes a much more appealing title, of course) were espousing going around with no clothes on.  Meanwhile, others in the programme were trying to recruit more younger people into the naturist movement (a particularly delicate task, we would think). 

Anyway, there were perilously few teenage female nudists in the programme but one rather fetching twenty-five year old, Alex, (pictured above).  Triple P, of course, thinks attitudes to nudity are bizarre in many countries but we don't particularly think that the naturist movement helps in delivering a better public attitude to nudity as they exist in a self imposed ghetto which, almost by definition, is keeping bodies hidden; unless you are a member of the club.  The real issue for Triple P with naturists is that they do everything without clothes; a wholly fake existence.  A properly adjusted society would, of course, expect appropriate clothes for different activities but not have a problem with, for example, nudity at the beach or in saunas (Agent DVD had an interesting experience of the different attitudes of continental women to the latter when working in Switzerland).

Attitudes to public nudity vary from country to country, of course, with Britain being somewhere in the middle.  Although there are nudist beaches in the UK they never seem very popular (partly because of our weather) but there is certainly a fair amount of topless female sunbathing in those few sunny days we do get in the summer.  But is this a trend that's increasing? British girls are happier to strip off when abroad and this is certainly more likely than thirty years ago, for example.  We are not yet, however, relaxed enough about our bodies to not blink at the sort of public nudity (especially male) seen on the beaches of Northern Europe.   The key thing here is that naked and dressed people mix freely and are not seperated into ghettos.

In America, things are more restrictive than here.  Triple P's German friend B was given a warning by a policeman on Santa Monica beach for being briefly topless whilst she changed into her swimsuit; something that would have not caused any reaction on a Baltic (or even British) beach.  In the UK, of course, being naked as a man in public used to be a criminal offence whereas a woman being naked wasn't.  The Sexual Offences Act of 2003 now makes it clear that naked swimming or sunbathing is no longer an offence, whichever sex you are.  Now it's only a problem if the intent is to shock.

So, it doesn't look like we are going to be inundated with teenage nudists any time soon, despite Channel 4's assertions.  Triple P has only two stories about teenage, naked girls.

A few years ago Triple P was down in Chichester Harbour, one hot (we do get them sometimes) summer day, with a large group of friends and relations and we met up with another family and their equally extended group. Anyway there was much swimming off the beach and, afterwards, one young (fifteen we subsequently discovered) lady from the other group engaged us in an interesting (to Triple P, anyway) story about Roman ship's anchors being found off the beach.  As she did this she stripped off her one piece swimsuit , towelled herself down and then got dressed.  She was naked on the beach for maybe thirty seconds and all the time telling me about this Roman ship landing point.  It could have been a sexual tease, of course (she had a fine, mature, body for a late teenager, with those perfect, hemispherical breasts that pre-gravity girls of that age have), and she exuded physical self-confidence.  However we don't think so.  She was just relaxed about being naked in a context where that would be perfectly natural (changing on the beach).

The reason we think this is because of our other story, which relates to a male friend who came home early from work one day to find his sixteen year old daughter and half a dozen of her friends naked in his kitchen, as they had been skinny dipping in his pool.  None of them made any attempt to cover themselves up because, due to the age difference (he was in his mid forties at the time) they didn't regard him as a man, just an old person!

Jenny floats

So, as the law here now recognises, the difference between acceptable nudity and unacceptable is the presence of some sort of sexual intent or situation.  In films, the British Board of Film Classification is quite happy to let non-sexual nudity appear in a "PG" or even a "U" film which, forty years ago, would have required an "AA" or an "X" certificate. The 1971 film Walkabout contains several full frontal shots of Jenny Agutter and was originally classified as an "AA" (equivalent to "15") but the DVD is now classified as a "12". 

In America there are some who seem to equate all nudity with sexuality. This, to most Europeans, is a very bizarre attitude but as long as people have this link in their minds we are not going to be seeing many more naked teenagers on the streets!

Centrefold Venus of the Month 30: Suzanne (Linda Lusardi), November 1977

For a very long time Miss Lusardi has been the most popular search on Venus Observations.  We first posted her February 1977 pictorial from Mayfair in February of last year and, since then, she has regularly topped the list of most viewed post.  Last month, for example, she accounted for no less than 20% of all the search results for this blog but then when we Googled her today our Venus Observations entry was the third one on the list.

 Fiesta November 1977

What better way of celebrating our thirtieth Centrefold of the Month than revisiting her and presenting her notorious Fiesta set from November 1977.

Fiesta, October 1977

Oddly, Linda didn't appear on the cover of the November issue but had, in a picture taken in the session that would feature in November, on the October cover.

Not unusually, Linda appeared under another name, Suzanne, which, perhaps was what led her to try and deny she had ever posed for such an explicit set in the future. 

There are quite a few pictures from this set on the web but most of them are of poor quality.  We have  done our own scans, as usual, to ensure we have nice crisp pictures (given the limits of the far from quality printing in the magazine itself).

The pictures were shot by Allan Johns which is obviously a pseudonym for the photographer who discovered her, John Allum.

Eschewing the clothed shots that were still being used in Penthouse, for example, at the time Johns really only uses Lusardi's red dress to add a flash of colour to what is, in fact, a pictorial with a very limited colour palette.

What she does keep on, in every shot, are her stockings, which have an enticing lace top.

The pictorial only utilises one setting which features a large round chair which is dressed up in several ways.

A little more colour is introduced through the use of a green feather boa and some apricot covered, rather slimy-looking, seventies sheets.

The overall colour of the pictorial is predominantly black and tan, however, the overall lack of fussiness focussing us very clearly on Miss Lusardi's teenage form.

It was only really in 1976 that UK mens' magazines stopped retouching their pictures to avoid the models' labia showing.   By 1977, when this pictorial was shot, not only were genitals not hidden but had become the focus of the pictorials and this is certainly the case with Linda's pictorial here.

There is no Penthouse style soft-focus or dreamily romantic portraits or clothed shots here, just Linda displaying her (rather splendid) pussy.  This is the last of the pictures from the November 1977 pictorial and she never did such explicit shots again.

This picture is very similar (but flipped) to her Fiesta October 1977 cover.

Other pictures from this shoot popped up in a number of places afterwards.  We did not scan these pictures so the quality is variable but we are nothing if not a completist so include them here, starting with a set featuring the red dress and the white chair.

The rest feature the dreaded apricot sheet, starting with these ones of Linda from the rear.

Since we posted the original Mayfair set of her back in February last year we actually met her briefly at an event in London; she seemed rather charming, we thought, and still looked very good.

Someone left a comnent to the effect, on our earlier post, that they felt she had rather demeaned herself with these pictures, given that they appeared after she had made her first appearance as a Page 3 girl. That is a much larger debate, outside the remit of this post, to do with questions of taste and the artistic aesthetic. Triple P tends to be of the opinion, as someone once wrote in Men Only at about this time, that "why can't a pretty girl have a pretty cunt?"  Something Miss Lusardi certainly displays rather well.

Our only negative thought on this pictorial is that Linda has a particularly dazzling smile (which we are sure is the main reason - after the obvious two - for her overwhelming popularity as a Page 3 girl) so it is a pity to see her looking so glum in this set.