Punk Becomes Poet

Joanne Latham makes a BIG impact in the world of "reader's letters" digest publications, particularly for "Response," a periodical featuring b/w photographs and illustrations throughout rainbow pages (many pages a different color).

As fresh a face as Joanne's, who is now teaching yoga in India (as was as recently as mid 2000s), was just what the men's magazine market needed very late 1970s, thus changing the attitude of the industry forever. The look of a woman when she's pissed-off has a certain appeal to those looking for it, and pair that with a bust rivaling those on ancient Chinese fertility stones and the result is a powerful statement of womanhood, to start. 

It seems Joanne was pissed from the beginning, as an erratic full-figured punk model who probably irked the rest of them not getting near the airtime as she, never really taking a strong advocative stance on what she did as a model. Her attitude towards nude and semi-nude modeling was apparent from the start, but was blatant to her hungry, drooling fans only four years into her career as a cover and poster girl. By 1983, editors were featuring layouts of the English gal, arguably the most prolific after June Wilkinson, admitting that she'd already reached the peak of her career. Obviously her golden era was early in the 1980s, as evidenced by the digests represented here, but her impact is one that can no longer be held, lasting throughout anything that came in her wake. 

Each of her appearances have the heir of irony, begging the viewer to wonder on what side of the bed she awoke the day of the shoot. Some of her sessions bespeak a downright angry bitch. Some of her sessions bespeak only the sweetest of girls-next-door eager to show you her recently discovered feminine form. Joanne is the brightest aura and the darkest enigma of eroticism in print. In and out of the biz as quickly as any, she began a website devoted to her modeling career, but it isn't currently maintained, and took her love of spiritual oneness to a level paramount to her previous endeavors, becoming a Buddhist and traveling to the countries of origin, a poet of spiritual transformation. After this, or maybe because of this, she lost much of the weight so admired in the pages of Penthouse, Response, Mayfair, Partner, Game, and the like, and we can only presume the same weight came away from that rivaling rack.

    


What the shit are you doing now, Joanne? Do you teach the ways of Buddha, the ways of ancient yogi to eager respondents, in lands so far from your uprising? Only those closest know the difficulties of your plight in the often thankless land of nude posing, but those of us who take in your sight with something more than basic ball-grabbing, Cro-Magnon impulse hurt in our hearts for your justification.



If she ever poses again for any reason other than travelogue candids, I hope to be the man with the camera. She will be snapped with admiration. She will be photo'd in pure easiness and will not be misused. Posing anyway she wishes, no spreading, no arching of the back (save that of the Down Dog or the panca of Namaskara A/B), no delicious presentation of her tan ass (an uncommon pose for Joanne), no colliding of 40+ tits, just the angelic English visage of a woman so pissed she laughs and we finally get Joanne to smile with life's happiness that SHE birthed, her own happiness.

A stunning woman ready to punch someone. 

All images presented created solely by the author of this blog, not copied from other sources.

Not so Psychedelic Fur...

Even the most successful people have their good days and their bad days, and this rings especially true in the world of adult entertainment, be it in the toned, wiry dancers at a strip club, the exaggerated figures of the porn industry, or simply a pinup-turned-pornstar with a knack for "showing off."

Julia Parton was Joyce Patrick and somewhere in between was Nina Alexander (did photog Ed Alexander have interest in Julia beyond their photo sessions?), and her career is textbook, or so it would seem, rise-and-fall. But in light of her prolific output, and once prolific perkiness, does the climb to prime and descent to "Consenting Adults" even matter? She burst like the young cherry she was onto the men's magazine scene in the early 1980s, and held a high position in the list of models who found it easy to appear younger, sometimes significantly younger, than their true age. Unfortunately, and even though she was posing topless and bottomless from the start, her short transformation from covergirl to pornstar was not exactly beneficial. Her measurements were 38-24-36, but this is suspected to have been early in her career, probably when making a frequent appearance in Parliament magazines, and even in German publications devoted to large bosoms.
 

Even as a consenting adult, the mystery of her gaze remained. Her body morphed into a thin frame from a cherubic powder-puff, and to some of her fans the change was apparent, however unsettling. What the shit happened to Julia Parton? Once a top-rated model of the adult industry, with particular attention paid by fetishes like large busts or youthful looks. Julia made it more than fashionable to sport a serious garden, remaining honest in an era where Less Was More, and her infamous muff in pictures may have helped in her early days to avoid any legal situations. When she got into hardcore porn, she quickly adapted many of the practices of the 1980s and early 1990s pornstars, including looks more of a disheveled nature than before, maybe even drugs, and an ever-fluctuating body weight (which seems to happen even more these days....not much has changed). Julia was not a crazy recluse though, and managed to be social despite working incessantly and publishing (early years of) High Society magazine, perhaps the first of the forward-looking adult magazines of it's time.

Any observer of the once-rounded and full-figured Kentucky sweetheart will notice a pureness that waned with blatant speed and recourse. Motivation that arose in eagerness and, honestly, in earnestness, fell by pink satin like a still-burning cigarette. Parton is still one of the all-time greats, successful as both model and mogul, just as hard-working despite a clear distinction of oncoming maturity in a business where youth is the driven snow, and always pretty in pink.

From top to bottom:
a. Star Distributors paperback, 1988. Is Julia, with lolly, showing off or being a brat? Both, purposefully. Likely an image from her early days as a pinup used for the cover, to present a younger allure.
b. "Consenting Adults," by Tanya Springs, Beeline paperback, 1992. Was cocaine still around?
c. "Pretty in Pink," calendar top circa 1985-1989. Endless curves and instant appeal.

BUF O.G.

 

A) Mr. [Magazine] - v15n7, May, 1971. Frankie does a body good! Layout, with a great centerfold.
B) Gent - v10n2, Apr., 1969. Frankie cover-plus, including amazing centerfold. Also, Ann Austin. 

C) Gem - v10n5, Jan., 1968. Frankie cover-plus, Gem-of-the-Month centerfold.
D) layout from previous

E) Folies de Paris et de Hollywood - n435, c. 1967. Frankie cover. >>>

Frankie Hires is the perfect love-in participant and one you could tell a naughty joke while you smoke a joint on the wrought iron in Greenwich Village, or Los Angeles (she found work on both coasts, even across the pond). Early photo sessions of the bubbly girl-next-door seem to have made a statement overseas (Folies de Paris et de Hollywood), even top billing as a cover-girl. By 1968 she is in US newsstands, in New York (Gem), and a year later (Gent) she's a painter living in Massachusetts Hill and just as...bountifully. One of a handful of models who kept a single moniker over a career, Frankie would bring the boys to the yard as late as 1971 (Mr.), milking the cash cow of the smut-farming industry. Frankie Hires (sometimes Hines) burned into and out of her audience like a cattle brand, spun the Stones' "Their Satanic Majesties Request," and knew exactly how to wear hand-knit clothing. Frankie was the BUF O.G., striking visually with a gust of pride. Her image is lasting and to this day is a part of our consumer culture, sharing layout space with Bettie Page (oddly) and Roberta Pedon (less odd) in the ambitious contemporary comic, "Betty Page in Danger" (No. 8, 2013, Shh! Productions).

Well I realize that I've been hypnotized...

 

A                                       |                        B                         |         C

 

D                                        |                           E                     |          F 

 
 

G  |  H  |  I

  |   J   |

A) "Bed Me!" - Bee-Line Book 302S, 1968

B) Follies - v13n4, November, 1969

C) Layout from previous, as "Jana Keene"

D) Jaguar - v3n8, September, 1968

E) Leg Language - [v1]n3, Summer, 1971

F) Layout from previous, as "Gypsy Sheila"

G) Mr. [Magazine] - v15n6, April, 1971

H) Layout from previous, as "Dianna Curtis"

I) Rapture - v11n2, Dec-Feb, 1973-1974

J) reprint photo, but similar to "Bed Me!" so maybe the original session was c. 1968?

Perhaps Elmer Batters' most dynamic model (after Caruska), Diane Curtis was undeniable for a few years, attaining high-allure status as both session model and cover girl. Sullivan overlooks the bouffant babe in his "Glamour Girls" encyclopedia, but through not fault of his own. She is not well documented in the first place: rarely appearing with the same name throughout her career, few current websites with information beyond a black-and-white photograph (guilty, guilty), and her professional career as a nude model seems to have lasted maybe 6 years (tops). This was typical haven chosen figure modeling for a career. However long the magic lasted, Diane's appearances are unforgettable, oozing charm and grace inside a healthy skin, purposeful tanlines, and an upstairs to lounge around in. She MAY have become a teacher once she left the photog scene, but dont waste your time hunting. Diane was adaptable and cute if anything, and the type of hardworking, cooperative model that photographers so often waste away looking for. 

Best seen: Diane as captured by Elmer Batters in color in "Leg Language," as a desert gypsy in heels, hose, and garters. She also did an interesting color layout in "Mr." with an unstoppable centerfold.

Caruska-bunga Dude!

 

Before Karen Brown in the mid 1970s, the literally "Golden" girl with the 70+ inch chest who epitomized the meaning of plumper in erotic photography; before Kristen Andersen aka Darla Hood aka Susan Burton aka Smiley in the early 1970s, with eyes to die for and a superb belly (see my other post), a fantastically cute Polish model named Caruska broke the glamour and pinup mold. Essentially, she couldn't squeeze into it.

She is Matron Saint of full-figured models of Generation X. Fans of both Brown and Hood-Andersen need to dig a little deeper and soak up the jus at the roots. Dip that mental hoagie in a little Caruska! This cover from Climax [v17 n 10, Oct 1971] has proved to be one of her earliest mass-market photo shoots. Featured inside is a Keith Bernard black-white-color layout, and nude to boot! Her turtle is on-site, and likely the company is what drove Michelangelo to be such a party dude.

Even in horizontal pose her fullness is apparent, abundant you might imagine, to the point where two masses meet an opposing force and create a rift; dimples in surplus.

One notes the tiny feet. These tiny feet, couple with her well-formed thighs and calves, grabbed the attention of a fetish photographer named Elmer Batters, a gentleman looking for work and finding it at the ready in California. All the models went to California, notably Hollywood, to find work in film and inevitably wound around the fingertips of eager and hungry photographers as a means of breaking into the scene. Caruska was immediate eye candy to Batters, who found her at Pretty Girl International in Hollywood, the photog too exhausted from "call girls" who'd rather be screwed than shot. He'd hole-up at a motel, and indeed it was a capital M-Motel, where he could seed out his seediness, where his concierge would ring the local flesh (often the easiest of subjects to acquire), and he could grab his thing and shoot away. Batts paid them fifty bucks a day, so for the time and for a model hungry not only for exposure but for her next meal, it was fair.  Caruska was however hungry only for the exposure, and with such precious stores in tow, your author would gladly take shelter with Caruska and her healthy supply in any fallout. 

One can appreciate the fact that she was not shy, and relish in the product. With a seemingly perfect Rubenesque carving, hips and tan-lines purporting the tagline,"To Acknowledge the Divine is Relative, But Allow Me to Relate My Divination," Ruski subtly explodes in the development as we do, not so subtly.

Where the Shit are you, Caruschka? Does your turtle wade in Heaven's Pool with you, or are you raking in the pension plan benefits? Write me a letter baby, we can be pen pals. Wrap my birthday present in a stocking from the 70s, a bra from the 80s, submit your spectacles from the 90s, remit a flat-heeled slipper from ten years passed, and yours truly opines when we meet we'll be splashing with Michelangelo.

1996, Taschen Amuse-Guele, tiny book
with two gatefolds = awesome

Joy(ce) Superest Ut Gianna: Vintage Big Boob Revival Beta

Joyce Spaeth relives under the subtle guise of a contemporary starlet Gianna Michaels, who shares some space in the wiki world that, oddly, sadly, Joyce (re Gabrielle Schubert) does not. Joyce maintains a rather welcome place in the world of proto-porn big boob fetish models; fetish only so much that the majority of her images are found in "jugg" type periodicals, often featured in her own one-shot (pun?) magazines, and this is a perfect example. "Jugs of Joy: Volume One, Number One" was the first (apparently) of a quarterly big boob magazine, published in 1976, right in the middle of the four or five truly boob-tastic years for the adult periodical industry. One-shot magazines such as this featured a model all on her own, and the rating of said magazine generally stayed below X.... to some people. To your author, she hasn't appeared in any images that might be considered lewd, however, her modern doppelganger, Gianna, may have appeared in a film or two thought to be pornographic. For the record, if you start to involve ingestion in your act, or mastication of any kind, bingo! you're a pornstar. Thanks Gianna for bringing the curvaceous appeal that Joyce once held to the front of today's adult industry. Like the luckiest farmers, our cocks are superbly peckish; the luckiest chipmunks, our nuts overflow our layout.

Our lovelies spread like the rarest birds. Both pout eagerly, leaving a come hither without the aid of eye-to-eye contact. Gianna gets the apple here.

Undies can be difficult to remove, but gravity has given them what we need. This is one of the better reincarnations of the Joyce, for what once hung in white and black now hangs in full color.  Gianna gets the gold star.

Gianna has a habit of looking directly into the camera, something they obviously forgot to tell her during auditions. The method works here though, to her advantage, much the same way the exact opposite works to Joyce's. Joyce wins this time.

The nail bite is something born out of the "Did I do that?" look of pinup and glamour models of the late 1940s and into the 1950s. The pose will endure for as long as there are things, and stuff. Joyce wins again, thanks to good costuming and backdrops. 

Here again an upside down view of our girls. Joyce is working those boobs and that endless smile like a QVC rep works a Sham-Wow. Both hands baby! Joyce earned it.

The classic over-the-shoulder pose; it never fails. Coupled with perfect ass, mix two large cups, a dash of charm, and you have your pose in elegant production. Gianna, take the cake, lady.

Joy (Joyce) is featured in some outdoor poses at this point in the magazine. Some excellent photos, and some others of her hugging a pool cue. Believe it or not, Gianna shoots pool too! But she doesn't get as friendly with the equipment like the monochrome matron on the left. They both earn their keep with this one, thanks to some sweet abdomen exposure, and facial expressions composed to kill. 

Much like the first spread-eagle composition, the vagina and its various colors and shapes have become more of a visual amphetamine than a mental one. On the left Joyce slightly obscures her bush, but we are okay with that, because everything else going for her photo, up to and including the shade of her nail polish, supports an otherwise vacant notion. That notion is left wide awake on the right, as Gianna lets us all know what her momma gave her, but not too crudely. Less and less hair is now the theme, and not always appropriately, as it seemed during the time of the photo on the left, hair was always appropriate. Joyce wins this time, thanks to a perfect set of stretch-mark bedazzled bosoms and cute tan lines. Don't worry Gianna, we'd all still take you fishing. 

All images represented on the left (above) are from the magazine, Jugs of Joy (1976), featuring Joyce Spaeth/Gabrielle Schubert. All images on the right (above) are culled from various websites, featuring Gianna Michaels/Rossi. The author claims ownership only of the stated magazine.

What the Shit Happened to Susan, and Joyce Re-Visited

She's been Suzie, Happy, Susan, Darla, Jennifer and Kristen. I first met Darla on the cover of Jaguar magazine, August, 1974, and have been hooked since. A simple hunt for "Darla Hood" will naturally end in unrequited surplus of the "Our Gang" dame, cute handful for Alfalfa and the rest of the boys. This here dame has been written up under a bevy of different names, as was wont of most nude models,  and the trend still continues. Big Breast Archive is a well done website about...that's right, boobs. They list this luscious doll first as Darla Hood, and supply an ample dose of images, including one of the author's favorites, so make your way over to that site and take a guess which one.

These images come from a couple of different publications. Jaguar, obviously, was a great magazine with erotic comic strips, tons of nudity, and represented the 1970s in rather astute fashion. Susan was probably the "healthiest" model, but there has not been enough research on my end to solidify the fact. Enough hip bones and one starts to wonder, so I clutch to my breast the August issue, and cherish it a bit more than other issues of the almost-monthly (9 issues/year).
My attention is first drawn to her hips, and to my pleasure, the bones within are hidden most efficiently by just the right amount of hours spent on the sofa (or in the tub!) with a pint of pumpkin ice cream. Then the rest is taken in, beginning with her eyes. Those eyes, a soft brown behind a curtain of big black lashes, likely pasties, set her apart; quite the inspiration for any eager photographer, and had I been I would never have strayed the course, like Russ and Eve in the 1960s. The 70s was a good decade because it introduced to the world the magic of chubby women...cellulite in celluloid, baby! Susan/Darla helped usher in the first part of the ten years that would define modern pornography, with help from her other plump pretties, like Karen Brown (more on her later), and made it possible for modern starlets now, such as Samantha Anderson, Dors Feline, Carmella Bing (later Bing), even Terri Jane.

Darla's far-out booty (I believe you mean, "Apple Bottom"), sturdy limbs, and long black hair culminate into a sweet package, one FedEx can deliver to my door any day.....sure I'll sign for her, do I need to tip you for the extra weight? Her breasts must measure somewhere in the E-F range, and I'd wager she tipped the scales at around 200. Her smile was something at which one could attempt to shake a stick, but fail hopelessly. The slight misalignment of some of the large front teeth, two full incredibly pout lips, and a little ditch in her chin, not unlike those others her frame displays, give her a soft demeanor, and hell, playing with all those bubbles helps out too. She may have been dealt a kiddie card here and there, but it's subtle enough to not be blatant and crude. Not a bad deal for such an addition to the up-and-coming interest in large[r] women. Even with all this going on below the neck, I think the meat of my captivity, like a spotted cat in a cage, has to do with her eyes. Yeah, they all have fun, but Darla wants you to know it's okay if you watch her have fun on her own. I do not get the "come hither" at all from this lady, sorry Darla if you were sending me those signals, but your peepers speak in different ways. Candy Samples did it, tons of Burlesque dancers did it, and few do it now, but those pasties seem to make a world of difference. I yearn for an image of Darla without them.

My second brush with this bush came in Hanging Melons, volume 3 number 3, copyright 1988, but I believe the pictures are from the 1970s, as that was her prime decade. Another lovely color photo, and she works the garters so well, with that gleeful smile and pretty full muff, and a bellyful of pudge to die for. Ambiguous titles like Hanging Melons makes is hard to find exactly who is who, as many of these types of adult quarterlies were composed solely of nameless gams and hams. Darla is featured only once in this magazine, and it's a shame. Her melons are even hanging! Mary Waters, not technically a chubby woman, makes an appearance or two here as well, her melons well on the line to dry.

The most recent encounter with Susan Burton came just the other week, an issue of Night and Day from 1974, October. Night and Day has always helped the horny male, but after their large scale format of 20 years prior, stuck to more nude photography and cheesy stories. Still, the mag managed to produce some choice models, and Susan Burton is no fly-by-Night floosie, never spreading her pussy or holding her ass cheeks apart, and was content on honest erotic photography; no hardcore stuff. She pushed her tits together on occasion, but that's as far as she went, and I admire that. The black-and-whites here are from that N&D issue.

JOYCE RE-VISITED...
she's so sneaky.
Featured on cover only.

What the Shit Happened to Joyce?

She's known, or was, as Gabrielle and Joyce and Joyce Spaeth and Cherie Pinegar and Joyce Grable (trying to evoke another glamor girl?) and the list probably goes on. Pre-XXX and XX and X publications (mags, books, film), the models used their real names or perhaps a stage name, and the names generally varied by way of adjusted spellings - see Betty Page, Bettie Page, Betty Paige, and even as Gaby. But then the "artist's handbook of models" become "Busty Babe" with not even a wink to the photographer or the possibility that the customer might actually be an artist for art's sake. So a few years after the blowup of pinup and fetish models, straightforward soft- and hardcore glossy-cover magazines saw light. Magazines the size of magazines! The digest day ended. Black-and-white was still in, and today virtually only in fashion magazines, but the use of color photography to really illustrate all the contours, shadows, freckles, moles, stretch marks and hair follicles to the prospective artist began to take hold, and this issue of Parliament's "Busty Babe," volume one number two, is a perfect example. But who is, who was Joyce? For the money, five bucks for nearly 130 sets of breasts and almost half as much cooch, Joyce, a Denver-ite, was one of the shapeliest of the 1970s solo pinups. Maybe she was a pinup on the pegboard toolbox walls of auto shops. Maybe not. I pin her up here. We don't know a lot of the career of this well-endowed half-Native American woman, nor much of what came before and after said career. I have only seen a handful of publications that might possibly have an image or two of Joyce/Gabrielle/Cherie, but this particular Parliament issue has to be her single best contribution to the world of nude photography. Suddenly I ponder the statistic of nude photography preference when presented with professional, well lit but mood-lighting lit studio photography of elegant nude models, and professional, daylight-lit comfort of your own house kind of studio photography of exaggerated porn-star prototypes. A head nod goes to Candy Barr for the legit prototype, though. Fun fact.

Digressing, most of the photographs in this issue are black and white, and many of them show the pocahontas with headband and long dark hair. Thankfully, the producers left out the bow and arrow bit. This is one of the more accessible shots taken of the hot, slender squaw. 

Tan-lines were in, obviously, and the contrast really motivated the soul of the black/white still, and really punched with color photos. Joyce's negative spaces hold true, but somehow stir her aura of Native American mother-type into So-Cal beachcomber. It's the thought that really counts. Joyce knew what she was doing, and she knew what the trends were of the affluent tit and ass models who stop short of hetero-homo coupled photo shoots. She was solosexual. The best ones were. Another Joyce who came a short while later began solo, and gradually went over the fence, and is a good example of the evolution of the solosexual. But why mess with perfection? Make some flatbread, jewelry and shawls, don yer headgear and strip down to the stockings and make a few dollars. Surprising is the method of appearing and disappearing with such haste nude models of the 70s and 80s employ. 

So what happened to you, Joyce? It seems you packed your envoy, your tipi, your clay pots, your pelts, and skipped settlement. You picked some flowers along the way to remember your territory as it was yours to own, and promptly laid to rest any further development of your career, maintained your throne's host and kept your jewels straight. You left the place cozy, and blessed the couch and the foot of the fireplace with your ass and the sky with your boobs, and set a bar for successors to reach, other pocahonti, other Joyces. How could you leave without saying, well...you said enough. More than, perhaps. With a full pair, a bellybutton sometimes AWOL, and perhaps the best legs of your era, cowboys have been spurring their steeds numb. 

The magazine purports to have interviewed the buxom Chippewa, with selected quotes, stating her preferences in the opposite sex, the usual semi-autobiographical "I like men to play with my..." type of responses. Near the tail end of the journey, and indeed the flipping pages became like hunting for the three rings, Joyce says she likes to take care of her man, pamper and even mother them. There's some esoteric fetishism I will not be blogging about. Perhaps her strong Native upbringing on Roosevelt's grass-hewn buffalo prairies instilled within her the Mother of the earth. If Roosevelt had seen Joyce sitting she-style, wrapping a child's braids in agate, horse hair and pipestone, he would have left a few bulls alive. 

What the shit happened to you, Joyce of the Mother Earth? You flew the planet and left your own globes behind. And now too, like buried artifacts from so long ago, specific tools for specific purposes, we find you on our solosexual archaeological dig. Honey, we dig.

*all photos courtesy of my android and a (now) rainy weekend afternoon. If you or someone you know has any information or material regarding the model represented, feel free to contact me.