Bombshells: Glamour Girls of a Lifetime Read online

  On television, one of her favorite venues was the Gene Barry police mystery/adventure series Burke’s Law, on which she appeared at least three times in 1963-64. The Untouchables (1963), The Virginian (1965), The Big Valley (1966), The Fugitive (1967), and Mannix (1968) were among the many programs that she graced during this period.

  The Second Time Around

  Finally, Hollywood noticed all of Sheree’s hard work and welcomed her back. Destination Inner Space (1966), her first film in eight years, was a less-than-memorable vehicle for her return. But during the following years came a succession of first-rate motion pictures to which Sheree contributed greatly.

  The sassy, hip-swinging blonde bombshell of the fifties was no more. Sheree was now a still-beautiful but more seasoned character actress. Most often, she portrayed a gal from the wrong side of the tracks with a sensual presence but a heart of gold. The years out of the limelight had deepened her acting resources, and in this second phase of her career the range of roles she could play was considerably wider than the first time around.

  A 1969 film in which Sheree costarred with Elvis Presley — The Trouble with Girls (and How to Get into It) — proved an unforgettable experience, not because of the picture but because of the man. “He talked to me a lot about his unhappiness and deep depressions. Sometimes he would go home and his dad would put a tray outside his door and he wouldn’t come out of his room for weeks … . He was a good guy, you couldn’t help but like him. After I did one dramatic scene, he was so touched, he didn’t know what to do so he took me in his arms and gave me a huge kiss.”

  Sheree was impressed by Elvis’s openness and politeness. “He was one of the first leading men who sent me a big bouquet of flowers the first day on the set.” The two had something in common: “He knew that I had started as sort of a rock ‘n’ roll dancer, so he had a good identification with me.”

  She recalls wistfully that “I almost had him talked into taking acting lessons and seeing a shrink. By that time, I was comfortable with acting, but Elvis was still very uncomfortable. Elvis would have to say something deprecating about himself before every scene, every take, because he was embarrassed about acting. I thought acting lessons would give him comfort and ease, and therapy might help with his depressions. Maybe it would have turned his life around. But then he started going on the road, and I think that’s what did him in.”

  Even after returning to feature films, Sheree continued to work in the theater. In 1967 she gave an acclaimed performance in the play Muzeeka, portraying (as one account put it) “a gamy floozie wearily peddling her bizarre sexual specialty.” The following year she was featured in Enemy Enemy, written by her ex-husband Bud Freeman. Sheree starred in the national company of Your Own Thing in 1969. In 1970 came a demanding role in another well-reviewed drama, Rosebloom.

  Among Sheree’s many feature films following her return, a few were particularly noteworthy. In The Gypsy Moths (1969), a fine John Frankenheimer drama starring Burt Lancaster and Gene Hackman as professional skydivers who come to perform at a small town in Kansas, Sheree plays a stripper who takes up with Hackman. She was teamed again with Lancaster in Lawman (1971), a strong Western in which she played an ex-hooker and old flame of marshal Lancaster, and they wind up in bed together in Sheree’s first movie nude scene. The Shootist (1976), John Wayne’s final film, was a poignant, memorable Western drama with Wayne a legendary gunfighter dying of cancer. Sheree is a dance-hall girl whom Wayne once loved, and after their happy reunion he learns that she wants to marry him in order to write his authorized biography.

  As busy as Sheree’s feature-film schedule was during the 1970s and early 1980s, it was more than matched by her full agenda of about fifteen made-for-TV movies. She got a chance to show her nasty side in The Night They Took Miss Beautiful (1977), playing the leader of a terrorist group that abducts five beauty pageant finalists; Stella Stevens was also featured. One of her most fascinating projects was Legs (1983), with Gwen Verdon featured with Sheree in network TV’s first original musical in years, about the competition to become a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall.

  One of Sheree’s TV movies was particularly special: 1980’s Marilyn: The Untold Story. For all the many efforts to dramatize the troubled life of Marilyn Monroe, none has been as successful in capturing her special qualities as this remarkable production. Sheree is memorable in her brief time on-screen as Marilyn’s emotionally disturbed mother, and Catherine Hicks is poignant and touching in her portrayal of Marilyn. But Sheree’s key contribution to the success of this project was as acting coach to Catherine. The essential qualities of Marilyn may not have come across so powerfully without Sheree’s knowledgeable counsel.

  Making this film was an emotional and revealing experience for Sheree. “All sorts of things emerged during the filming. For example, a girl that I had worked with at a supper club in the Valley resurfaced during the film, and it turned out that as a child she had been in the same orphanage as Marilyn. So I was able to learn more about Marilyn’s childhood.”

  Some of the things Sheree learned during the production never appeared in the finished film. “I learned that there were needle marks in [Marilyn’s] armpit that were never explained. There was no trace in her stomach of the Seconal gelatin capsules she was supposedly taking. And the ladies next door, who played bridge and watched all the comings and goings, saw a car pull in that night and go around to the back with three men, and one was carrying a doctor’s bag. Something funny was going on.

  “Just look at what was going on in her life then. She’d never been trimmer, she looked fabulous, she was furnishing her home. She was doing everything that was positive and upbeat. This was just not someone who was going to take her own life. For the first time, she was taking charge of her life.”

  In addition to her telemovies, Sheree has done some of her most widely seen work during the last two decades on TV series. She was a regular on three short-lived programs. In Big Eddie (1975), she once again portrayed an ex-stripper, Honey Smith, the wife of former gangster Sheldon Leonard, who is trying to go straight. I’m a Big Girl Now in the 1980-81 season lasted a little bit longer, but the situation comedy starring Danny Thomas and Diana Canova was not renewed for a second season. Bay City Blues, a Steven Bochco creation that ran for several short weeks in the fall of 1983, deserved a better fate for its intriguing mix of characters surrounding a minor-league baseball team. Sheree was also offered the title role in the TV series Alice (which was taken by Linda Lavin) — a part for which she would have been perfect — but declined because she wanted to spend more time with her children.

  During the early seventies she was seen on the likes of Hawaii Five-O, Kojak, Cannon, and Barnaby Jones. Every fan of The Mary Tyler Moore Show will vividly recall Sheree’s portrayal of a steamy nightclub performer with a checkered past who entranced Lou Grant in a couple of episodes, beginning with 1974’s “Lou and That Woman.” Subsequently, Sheree turned up on Magnum, P.I., The Golden Girls (in two episodes), and Matlock, among other programs. And most recently, she made a surprise appearance as Cosmo Kramer’s mother in an episode of Seinfeld.

  Looking back over her career, it’s remarkable to see how far Sheree has come. The young dancer who shot to movie stardom with an utter lack of confidence in her acting has become a versatile, totally self-assured performer who adds a special dimension to virtually every part she plays. And her total body of work is an impressive one.

  But still more impressive is the woman herself. After all Sheree has lived through, she remains an open, friendly personality; the hard-edged cynicism seen in many of the characters she portrays is alien to her. In the last few years, acting has taken a backseat to her activities in helping to run a small theater group in the L.A. area.

  Sheree’s enduring beauty is a tribute to years of exercise and a dedicated health-food regimen; the strength of character she has demonstrated across a remarkable life speaks to the deeper resources she possesses.

  Sabrina
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  America gave birth to the popular stereotype of the bosomy dumb blonde through the likes of Marie Wilson and Dagmar. But it was a British bombshell known as Sabrina who carried the image to its ultimate extension, and indeed epitomized the absurd and wonderful sex symbols of the 1950s.

  Everything about Sabrina was manufactured — her heavy makeup, platinum hair, long eyelashes, and stop-at-nothing publicity. Everything, that is, except one of the most extraordinary figures (41-19-36) ever immortalized by pinup photographers. In the absence of any known ability other than a genius for self-promotion, she came to rely entirely upon these remarkable attributes for her fame and fortune. They proved sufficient to make her a phenomenon that could not have occurred in any other decade.

  From Invalid to Blonde Bombshell

  Norma Ann Sykes was born in approximately 1936 in the northern industrial town of Blackpool. A junior swimming champion at the age of twelve, young Norma was subsequently struck by polio and was hospitalized for two years in Manchester. A leg operation nearly proved serious enough to require amputation; doctors feared she would be crippled for life. But she gritted her teeth and embarked on a stringent regimen of exercise.

  Once back on her feet, the newly blossomed sixteen-year-old set out for London. After working for a time as a waitress, Norma decided to give cheesecake modeling a try. Initially rejected by Britain’s foremost glamour photographers for being too voluptuous, her fortunes changed after a diet that resulted in a wasplike waist. Very quickly, the teenager’s curves, classically British peaches-and-cream complexion, and natural beauty made her a popular model for the pocket-sized men’s magazines widely distributed in England during this period such as Spick and Span.

  It was in January 1955 that the famous British comedian Arthur Askey opened the door to stardom for Norma. He needed a stunning girl to appear on his TV show Before Your Very Eyes, and later related the dream he had of an unbelievably voluptuous blonde who was destined to fulfill this role. When his press agent brought Norma to his attention on the cover of the magazine Picture Post, he quickly realized that she was the dream come to life. She was hired before even meeting the comedian. Askey dubbed her Sabrina — no last name — after a seventeenth-century poem by Milton and the Audrey Hepburn movie character of the same name.

  Askey’s gimmick for his new blonde was an old-time burlesque routine: Every time she would open her mouth to speak, the band would begin playing, the stagehands would start to loudly shift the scenery props, etc. The night before her debut, the press coverage of the new celebrity brought interest to a fever pitch. Never before had a girl been allowed to show cleavage on British television. It was a taboo that was now shattered with a vengeance.

  One magazine described her initial appearance: “The cameras explored her development from neck to navel. What wasn’t fully exposed was wrapped so tightly that every luscious line was displayed to best advantage.” The BBC was flooded with phone calls and letters in the next few days, and officials quickly “began measuring her for even more revealing gowns.”

  During a sixteen-week stint that proved to be a popular sensation, Sabrina never uttered a word on the television show; as she pouted innocently, the camera would zoom in on her mighty bosom, while Askey made subtle jokes about her none-too-subtle frame. For the British public, the name “Sabrina” would soon become synonymous with the word bosom.

  Almost overnight, Sabrina was receiving a thousand fan letters a week. When she showed up to ceremonially open a Sheffield hardware store in February 1956, four thousand people turned out to see her, resulting in a massive traffic jam. It turned into a near-riot when her dress strap broke. Throughout 1955 and 1956, rarely did more than a few days go by in which Sabrina went unmentioned in the London press.

  One of the subjects of media attention was the forty-thousand-pound insurance policy she took out with Lloyd’s of London on her forty-one-inch bust. Specifically, the policy promised payment of roughly seven thousand dollars for every inch lost from her bosom — but stipulated that she could not claim for inches lost due to “civil war, invasion or nationalization.” “But I’ll never collect,” she confided to a newspaper columnist. Why not? She leaned forward and whispered: “I’m growing bigger and bigger. You can tell the world I’m 42 inches now!” Sabrina told another interviewer that “I’m using my bosom to move on to bigger and better things.” As one wag commented, all of this served to prove that “inches are a girl’s best friend!”

  “inches are a girl’s best friend”

  A little scandal is always helpful in the making of a sex symbol, and Sabrina’s came not long after her explosion on the national scene. It came to light that during her early struggling period, she had posed for a few nude stills that turned up on a set of sexy playing cards. The squatting nude profile that graced the five of spades in this series soon became a collector’s item when Sabrina personally destroyed as many copies as she could find in London shops. “I was only a kid of 16 when those photos were taken,” she explained to a Scotland Yard investigator after her rampage. “I was not going to admit defeat to my parents and ask them for train fare home.”

  A bit exasperated by the overwhelming attention being attracted by the apparently talentless blonde, Askey gave Sabrina her release. “It looks as though I’m stuck with a Frankenstein monster,” he commented. Undaunted, she made the first in a series of motion picture appearances, most relatively brief and forgettable, and “performed” in London music halls. Her first stage appearances came in a sixteen-week variety tour right after the TV series ended, and despite the fact that Sabrina was topbilled she had little to do other than stand around decoratively while comedians hurled out jokes built around her. However, she soon had the opportunity to show off what she had learned in singing lessons. While her voice was nothing to write home about, she offered up mildly suggestive numbers like “Ready, Willing and Able” and “After You Get What You Want, You Don’t Want It” in whispery Monroe fashion. When she was the guest of honor at the Savoy Luncheon at the Variety Club of Great Britain, it was announced: “GREAT NEWS OF 1956 — SABRINA SPEAKS!”

  Her motion picture debut, Stock Car, was a bitter disappointment. “I was furious,” she told one publication. “It was my first chance in British pictures and they dubbed a harsh Cockney voice in for my own. I really tried to get a part in this film and it just fell flat.” Sabrina’s next film, Rashbottom Rides Again, reunited her with Arthur Askey, as did the 1957 movie comedy Make Mine a Million. The roles were small, and the pictures were not successful.

  As “Britain’s answer to Jayne Mansfield,” Sabrina never passed up an opportunity for publicity, and rarely turned away a photographer looking for cheesecake poses. Her automobile license plate — “S 41” — called attention to her most renowned attribute. After those teenaged nude poses, Sabrina was no longer willing to reveal all, but she was more than happy to pose in negligees with plunging necklines (”She always suggests that she bend down,” noted a photographer) and tight sweaters.

  Russ Meyer was one of the photographers to capture her form for posterity on more than one occasion, and he says today he was never particularly impressed by her. Sabrina “wasn’t really a big girl,” he recalls. “She was concerned about Eve’s [Russ’s buxom blonde wife] bustline. She was a rather dull girl, very taken with her own importance.”

  This is consistent with the recollection of pinup legend June Wilkinson, who was a friend of Sabrina’s during those early days. “I liked Sabrina, she was always nice to me,” says June. “I remember that she had a favorite trick of using a special tape measure. She had a tiny waist anyway, but this tape measure exaggerated her bust measurement and gave her a smaller waist because it had longer inches on one side and shorter on the other. Very clever!”

  Sabrina’s feelings of frustration with her career in England were symbolized by her self-generated rivalry with Diana Dors. Sabrina made a point of driving a converted Cadillac that was a foot longer than Diana’s, making i
t “the longest vehicle on British roads.” Since Sabrina’s bosom was allegedly some six inches larger than Diana’s thirty-five-inch bust, she also took it upon herself to personally mail out eight-by-ten photos of her torso as compared to her rival’s to prove the point to the press. One publication declared an appropriate epitaph for her campaign: “Di Dors has more talent in her little finger than Sabrina does in her bra cups!”

  In 1958, Sabrina starred in the London revue Pleasures of Paris. It proved to be an excellent vehicle for her particular talents, and she went on to tour with the show for a year in Australia. By this time, Sabrina decided she had gone about as far as she could go in British show business. So she packed her bags and set out to conquer the world at large.

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  America and the World

  Believing she had been discarded by the British press and show business as a cheap novelty, Sabrina made her way to America in late 1958, preceded by a number of girlie-mag appearances. The forty-minute cabaret show she performed in Manhattan’s Latin Quarter drew a promising early response. She sang sexy ballads, joked about her famous anatomic assets, and took part in skits with stand-up comedians. Her cabaret show went on to tour in over thirty states. “The people here respect me as a performer,” she declared. “I’m not just known as, you know — a bosom.”

  Her most significant motion picture appearance came in 1958 with the British comedy hit Blue Murder at St. Trinian’s, starring Terry Thomas and Alastair Sim. As one of the sexy madcap girls at St. Trinian’s who wins a trip to Europe, she and her pals embark upon a fast-paced slapstick adventure involving a diamond heist. Her first American film, the memorably titled Satan in High Heels, featuring voluptuous U.S. star Meg Myles, was heavily publicized but failed commercially, although it has earned a cult audience in subsequent years. As usual, Sabrina appeared as herself, performing a song in a nightclub.