#kitsch icon

[bitter69uk]

I want to see the world through Jayne Mansfield’s eyes! Pictured: the quintessential sex kitten-gone-berserk touring the Colosseum in Rome in 1962. I love her awe-struck expression even behind those shades. You just know Mansfield is cooing and squealing in ecstasy at the sites.

[bitter69uk]

Let’s all pause to celebrate the birthday of Maria Rosario Pilar Martinez Molina Baeza – better known as Spanish American flamenco guitarist, actress, singer, comedian, Las Vegas headliner, perennial “special guest star” on 1970s TV shows like The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, Donny & Marie, Love Boat and Fantasy Island, beloved kitsch icon and “Cuchi Cuchi Girl” Charo! Bear in mind the actual birth date of the birthday girl is shrouded in mystery. Charo’s Wikipedia page devotes an entire section to “Birth year controversy.” (Her Spanish birth certificate and passport state 13 March 1941, but weirdly her preferred “show biz birthday” is 15 January 1951 – so in theory we can celebrate Charo’s birthday twice a year!). Anyway, if you don’t follow her on Instagram already do yourself a favour - the woman is a joyous ray of sunshine! “Cuchi cuchi!” Pictured: pinup of Charo by Steve Schapiro, 1976.

[bitter69uk]

“Jayne seemed happy being completely out of her mind, as this sort of extreme glamour person.”

The People’s Pervert John Waters encapsulating the appeal of his all-time favourite movie star, sex kitten-gone-berserk Queen Jayne Mansfield. Judging by her bouffant coiffure and the presence of her last boyfriend Sam Brody, this paparazzi shot dates from the end of Mansfield’s life.

[bitter69uk]

Born on this day ninety years ago: glamorous and tempestuous Mexican diva and kitsch icon Irma Serrano (née Irma Consuelo Cielo Serrano Castro, 9 December 1933 - 1 March 2023). Nicknamed La Tigresa, the showgirl turned impassioned ranchera singer, actress (she starred opposite Mexican wrestler Santo in Santo contra los Zombies (aka Santo versus the Zombies) in 1961), mistress of (married) Mexican president Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, businesswoman, extreme plastic surgery enthusiast, TV personality and left-wing politician was a scandalous fixture in Mexican tabloids for over five decades. In fact, Serrano continued freaking out the squares into old age (she married a 29-year-old man aged 71 – get it, girl!). See Serrano in full cry here.

[bitter69uk]

In Memoriam: the truly great and berserk operatic Polska singer, actress and all-purpose diva Violetta Villas (née Czesława Maria Cieślak, 10 June 1938 - 5 December 2011) died on this day aged 73. For anyone not au fait with the wild, wild world of the tempestuous Villas, think of her as an ultra-campy, kitsch outsider artist; a wild low-budget Eastern European hybrid of Yma Sumac, Jayne Mansfield, Anita Ekberg in La Dolce Vita, Brigitte Bardot and Charo; a punk (her image and un-hinged performances can suggest Nina Hagen or Jayne County); and the self-parodic possessor of a drag queen sensibility (is it deliberate or naive? Certainly, her persona evokes the films of the Kuchar brothers and John Waters). Dubbed "the voice of the atomic age”, Villas was a celebrated Las Vegas headliner in the 1960s and even appeared in some Hollywood films, but her promising international career was cut short by Communism (she bounced back in the 1980s and never stopped being venerated in Europe). I revere this woman and wish she was more embraced as a queer icon in the non-Polish speaking world. I highly recommend investigating old clips of Villas on YouTube – prepare to have your mind blown!

[bitter69uk]

“Urchin hair, big gypsy eyes, good legs, lovely expressive hands and a voice that can purr, whisper, snarl and roar … She has a monumental show‐business personality, but a certain gamine quality that suggests the soul and the heart of Piaf.” 

/ Clive Barnes of The New York Times / 

Happy 76th birthday to show biz institution, resilient diva, sequin enthusiast and Betty Ford Clinic survivor Liza “Jazz Hands” Minnelli (born 12 March 1946). Pictured: Polaroid portrait of Minnelli by Andy Warhol, 1978.

[bitter69uk]

"Undoubtedly the woman who had come to epitomize what we recognize today as "celebrity", Zsa Zsa Gabor, is better known for her many marriages, personal appearances, her "dahlink" catchphrase, her actions, life gossip, and quotations on men, rather than her film career."

/ From Zsa Zsa Gabor’s IMDb biography /

Happy birthday to fabulously ridiculous Hungarian socialite, elite courtesan, surgically-enhanced glamour puss, Hollywood diva and kitsch icon Zsa Zsa Gabor (born Sári Gabor on 6 February 1917 – although the year should be taken with a whopping pinch of salt). Gabor died on 18 December 2016.

[bitter69uk]

“Like [Mario] Lanza, Maria Montez had a reputation for being impossible to handle. After a number of years in Haji-Baba type adventures, she was dropped by Universal and forced to seek work in European cheapies. While in Europe, she attempted to counter her advanced state of avoirdupois with hot saline baths. She died in one of a heart attack at the age of thirty-one.”

/ From the book Flesh and Fantasy (1978) by Penny Stallings /

Died on this day: nostril-flaring and tempestuous Queen of Technicolour Exotica and star of films like Cobra Woman (1944) and White Savage (1943), Maria Montez (6 June 1912 – 7 September 1951). Note: Stallings gets Montez’s age wrong in the quote above – she was 39 when she died. (Like any self-respecting diva, Montez had a “show biz age” as well as an actual one). Montez is entombed in the Cimetière du Montparnasse. I’ll have to make a religious pilgrimage to her grave next time I’m in Paris. Here she is in Siren of Atlantis (1949).