A rather sublime and sweet image of a dark-haired Pamela Green taken by George Harrison Marks in the 1950s.

Pamela Green by George Harrison Marks.

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A little bit of topic but I’m sure regular readers will appreciate this post about Arthur Fox, Manchester’s King of Glamour. He’s been unfairly neglected as his standing has faded with time. As early as 1947 he was touring striptease shows the length and breadth of England and in March 1959 he opened his own Revue Bar in George Street, Manchester. It was one of the most luxurious clubs in the country, easily giving Paul Raymond’s Revue Bar in London a run for its money. The club became known for its star- studded talent. American burlesque acts such as April March, The First Lady of Burlesque, Ricki Covette, The World’s Tallest Glamazon, and Virginia “Ding Dong” Bell, all headlined. His autobiography came out in 1962. It was published, for some reason, under two different titles: Striptease with the Lid Off and Striptease Business. The latter with four extra images at the front. The publishing company Empso Ltd has the same business address as the Revue Bar, so I’m assuming they were self-published. I have a few more bits of related ephemera that I will be posting over the next few days.

Striptease Business and Striptease with the Lid Off by Arthur Fox. The truth about the fabulous queens of strip: what they’re like in private, the money they make and the hot temperaments!

This poster dates from 1958. It’s for one of Arthur Fox’s touring shows that would have played at venues like the Empire in Leeds. It was roughly a two-hour show for which there were two performances nightly. Pauline Penny was well known in her day. Often dubbed as The Queen of Strip her entertaining shows were apparently “easy on the eye”. Jimmy Edmundson became a resident comedian at the Windmill Theatre in the 1960s.

Arthur Fox’s Strip Tease Peep-show starring the naughtiest girl of all, Pauline Penny.

A diverting image of Pamela Green taken by Stephen Glass in the early 1950s. Scanned from the original negative with the default software that came with the scanner. I need to reinstall SilverFast. It’s the best software I have found for scanning. A bit slow, but gives the best results. I’m not aware this image has been previously published. And I have still not managed to discover that much about Stephen Glass except he died on 23 April 1990.

Pamela Green wearing gloves by Stephen Glass, brother of Zoltán Glass.

Time for another Arthur Fox post. The design of this small handbill, for the Royal Pavilion in Blackpool, was probably used for a poster as well. It is for Arthur Fox’s Summer Revue, The Folies Striptease, starring Sabra Samarr, Blondie Haigh, Mademoiselle Desiree and Jane Eyre. It is dated 1964.

Sabra Samarr began her career as the assistant to a mind reader. She eventually started peeling and performed in the Latin Quarter in 1959 for 6 months. She was known as the Turkish Kitten, for Belly Dancing was her thing.

The Mancunian, Blondie Haigh, was famed for her Godiva act. She apparently once rode through Piccadilly on a white horse dressed (or undressed) as Lady Godiva.

For more about Desiree see my Beauty and the Beast post.

Arthur Fox, The King of Glamour, presents his fabulous summer revue Folies Striptease.

Wonderful post on the Dambuster’s Blog about Doug.

The rest of the crew of AJ-O are also featured.
Pilot: Flt Sgt W C Townsend DFM
Flight engineer: Sgt D J D Powell
Navigator: Plt Off C L Howard
Bomb aimer: Sgt C E Franklin DFM
Wireless operator: Flt Sgt G A Chalmers
Rear Gunner: Raymond Wilkinson

Originally posted on Dambusters Blog:

Douglas Webb with his parents, Edward and Daisy Webb, and (left) his then fiancée, Anne Jones, photographed outside Buckingham Palace on 22 June 1943.

Sgt D E Webb: Front gunner

Lancaster serial number: ED886/G

Call sign: AJ-O

Third wave. The only aircraft to attack Ennepe Dam. Mine dropped successfully but failed to breach the dam.

Douglas Edward Webb was born in Leytonstone, London on 12 September 1922, one of the two children of Edward and Daisy Webb. After leaving school, he worked briefly for Ilford and then for the London News Agency in Fleet Street, as a photographic printer. He joined the RAF in 1940, as soon as he had turned 18, as he wanted to be an air gunner.

After a substantial delay, he began training in 1942 and qualified as a gunner later that year. He was posted to 49 Squadron where he became one of…

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A couple of great pictures from Pamela’s private collection.

Pamela Green (center) and fellow showgirls from Robert Nesbitt’s Latin Quarter on the roof of the London Casino in 1951. Greek Street and Old Compton Street can be seen below them and the Palace Theatre can be seen in the background.

On the corner of Leicester Court and Lisle Street Pamela Green and the Hurricanes show off their acrobatic act. They were all performing in Bernard Delfont’s Folies Bergère ‘Paris to Piccadilly’ at the London Hippodrome in 1952

September Morn is a painting by the French artist Paul Émile Chabas (1869 – 1937). A popular and highly marketable image it has been referenced by numerous artist and photographers over the years, as in this photograph by Stephen Glass. The original painting was completed in 1911. It was first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1912. According to Wikipedia it inspired songs, stage shows and films. Some 7 million reproductions were sold. The image, however, caused controversy in the puritanical United States, where it was deemed lewd, which led to numerous debates on censorship. It went to Russia after the Salon of 1912 and was feared lost in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. It resurfaced in 1935 and was donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1957. As of 2014 it is not on display.

September Morn by Stephen Glass

September Morn by Paul Émile Chabas (1869 – 1937)

This unusual photograph of Pamela Green, on stage at the Players Theatre in Charing Cross, is by the well-known America photographer (and film-maker) George Pickow. He attached small pencil torches to Pamela’s hands and feet and using a strobe light and an open shutter he was able recorded trails of light as Pamela performed a number of dance movements. Not sure if this has ever been published before. It’s a bit of a treat. Excuse the bad scan. The print I had is rather small.

George Pickow became famous for chronicling folk and jazz music scenes on both sides of the Atlantic. He died at the age of 88 in 2010. You can read his obituary online at the Guadian.

Photograph of Pamela Green by the American photographer George Pickow (1922-2010)

Scanned from a 35mm slide, this photograph of a red haired Pamela Green is a somewhat more “arty” composition from George Harrison Marks than one expects. Maybe that’s why I like it.

Nude photo of Pamela Green by George Harrison Marks

Pamela Green (left) and Marie Deveraux (right) on the cover of the Danish magazine Nouvelle Série de Revue, No. 57, which was published by Nordisk Bladcentral, Copenhagen and distributed by Sangko-Nordern. As the models were shaved for the English market, the pubic hair was “touched in” for the Scandinavian market.

Nouvelle Série de Revue No. 57

Raise a glass to Pamela Green, pin-up icon, legend and dear friend who would have been 87 today.

The below picture is from the short film The Window Dresser (1961). Pamela Green was charged  with corrupting a schoolboy in Alloa, Scotland, through her performance in this short film. The youngster confessed to his father: “I cannot tell a lie. I am a ruined boy forever.” But after thrice viewing the film, the judge dismissed the case and asked for a copy of the film to take home to his son. In 1964 a clip of this film was shown on ITV’s This Week, to much uproar and controversy.

Pamela Green on the set of the Window Dresser, 1961, Running Time: 5.51m.

Six years ago my close friend Pamela Green died from leukaemia, aged 81, on the Isle of Wight. I would like to thank all her fans and admirers, especially those who subscribe to this site, for keeping her memory alive.

A calendar portrait of Pamela Green, taken by George Harrison Marks (1926-1997) in the mid-1950s.

Nice article in the News of the World from October 29, 1961, about Arthur Fox — The King of Strip. Check out my earlier posts for more about the long-forgotten Mr. Fox.

Fiesta Summer Special featuring Pamela Green as Rita Landre on the cover. The magazine features several models, such as Lyn Shaw, Rochelle Lofting and Norma Stevens, by such photographers as Eva Grant, Russell Gay and Harrison Marks. Only two of the eighty pages are dedicated to Rita Landre. There’s no date that I can see which is rather annoying.

Fiesta Summer Special

Decca Records put out the album Girls Girls Girls by Stanely Black and his Orchestra in 1958. The headshots on the cover are by George Harrison Marks. Pamela Green is shown three times, next to the title tracks; Dolores, Who is Sylvia? and Margie. Not sure who the other models are but if you recognise them let me know.

Stanley Black was an English bandleader, composer, conductor, arranger and pianist. He is remembered for writing numerous scores for radio, television and cinema, including the theme-tune for The Goon Show. Other films he worked such as Too Many Crooks (1958), The Battle of the Sexes (1959) and The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) which featured Pamela Green in a bit part, are classic films of the era. If you like your bachelor pad music and exotica he’s definitely worth checking out.

Girls Girls Girls by Stanley Black and his Piano and Orchestra

The magazine on the left was published by R.S. Gary Publications of 42 Grays Inn Road, London. The one on the right by The S. and M. Trading Co., which was next door at 44 Grays Inn Road. Both feature classic images of Pamela Green by Zoltán Glass on the cover. Inside the images all seem to be by Zoltán Glass as well. I have another version of the one on the right with the number 3 on the cover instead of 2. It is published by Kapel Press of Watford, but with sales and distribution by The S. & M. Trading Co. The internal images are also by Zoltán Glass but different. All very confusing.

Nude Studies for the Art Student. Photography by Zoltán Glass.

I recently managed to get hold of a copy of The Naked Truth About Harrison Marks, the 1967 biography of everyone’s favourite alcoholic, cat lover, glamour photographer and reluctant pornographer. Rather like Mary Millington’s late 1970s biography, its a famous mixture of fact and fiction and best approached by having more credible sources at hand to divide the two, in the case of the Marks book I used Matthew Sweet’s Shepperton Babylon, the biographic piece at the Marks estate’s website and the pieces on Naked as Nature Intended and Kamera from Pamela Green’s website, all of which are well worth a read.

I’ve already been able to document Marks later career, but the book, at least when it’s being honest, does offer valuable insights into the background, music hall days and eventual success in the glamour industry, of the man who would be king of the camera.

I’ve worked my transcriptions of the book into the “Naked World of Harrison Marks” article, but for anyone who doesn’t want to go through all of that again (it is becoming a bit of an epic) the information I’ve extracted from the book appears below.

The Naked Truth About Harrison Marks, Colonna Press, 1967

Pamela Green’s invite to the press reception to launch the book The Naked World of Harrison Marks on Wednesday, 26th April at 12 noon.

Life:

A heavy drinker with a vivid imagination, Marks was not always the most reliable of source for information, especially about his own life, later admitting that his 1967 biography The Naked Truth About Harrison Marks was a hodge-podge of fact and fiction.

“George Harrison Marks collects women like other men collect porcelain, paintings, cigarette coupons or trading stamps” claimed the book’s blurb.

Marks came into this world at 4:30pm on Friday the 6th of August 1926, in Tottenham North London, his father Moss Marks, nicknamed “Mossy”, had seen action in WW1 suffering a horrific mustard gas attack, after the war Mossy tried to get into show business, eventually finding work as an actor’s agent. Marks’ family were a tight-knit Jewish community under the control of a domineering Aunt, a woman dubbed within the family circle “Sergeant Major”. Marks’ most happy childhood memories were the Sunday trips to the local variety club that his father was a member of, and where the young Marks could sit at the feet of passing music hall acts, memorizing their routines religiously to later re-enact them for family members. Marks liked to emphasize (and more than likely exaggerate) the fact that his family had a show business background, even claiming in later years to be distantly related to blackface comedian G.H. Elliott, who Marks had seen as a kid and much to his mother’s horror, later tried to emulate by daubing himself in indelible ink.

Tragedy would strike the family in 1930, when Mossy died prematurely as a result of the mustard gas inhalation (Marks rewrites his father’s death in The Naked Truth claiming he died from pneumonia). Marks was left devastated by his father’s death. School was a chore to be endured, but mostly just avoided, it was during his school days, however, that Marks would form a lifelong friendship with Stuart Samuels, who over the years would play a variety of roles in Mark’s life from music hall co-star, to general manager of Marks’ studio, to helping cover up Marks’ marital infidelities. Marks and Stuart also hung out with other local boys, including future double act Mike and Bernie Winters, although Bernie “became something of a hindrance, and we would contrive numerous ways to lose him if he tagged along with us”.

The teenage Marks and Stuart decided to go into business together, embarking on many farcical get rich quick schemes, the first and surely most unglamorous being stealing shit left behind by horses, and attempting to sell it to the locals as manure. When this failed Marks decided to use the cart that he and Stuart had used for shit shifting, to sell rides to their school friends, an idea that predictably resulted in a queue of angry parents knocking on the Marks family’s door to complain.

When WW2 came, a 13 year old Marks sought escape from the worry of German invasion, and school attendance officers, by working as a projectionist’s assistant at the Regal Cinema, Wembley. From there Marks went on to work as a tea boy at a local film studio, eventually graduating to even more menial jobs like a clapper boy. Marks claimed to have received tuition in filmmaking from George “Percy” Mumford, a near-blind cameraman “really, I shouldn’t have been doing half the things I did, but the war was on and staff was short.”

At 17 Marks discovered the opposite sex, and much to his family’s surprise married Diana Bugsgang, a woman several years his senior. It was around this time that Stuart Samuels came back into Marks life, Marks version of how he and Stuart Samuels became a double act has it that the pair were enjoying a night out in their local pub, where their joke telling, banjo playing and lively banter was overheard by an agent who suggested a career on the stage and gave them his card. On a whim, they took him up on the offer and soon made their stage debut at the bottom end of a variety bill at the Granville Theatre in Walham Green. Their hastily put together routine, which aside from a pinch of original material, was mostly stolen from other performers, was something they learned to perfect in the trial by fire experience of appearing in front of a demanding music hall audience “the difference between entertaining a gang of friends at a party and keeping a fee paying audience happy for eighty minutes is the difference between two worlds, and bridging the gap between the two can only be done with a lot of experience and heartache.”

In his biography Marks describes the music hall life in vivid, but unsentimental terms, as a life of crummy digs, constant traveling, and where younger acts like himself and Norman Wisdom attempted to establish themselves in the business, while sozzled old-timers like Frank Randall and Tod Slaughter appeared drunk on stage nightly, and those sober enough to realize it could see that TV and nudie revues were about to bring the curtain down on this ancient form of entertainment. Marks and Stuart finally called it a day in Hull in 1951, afterwards Marks went solo attempting to gain work as a theatrical photographer, but was soon skint again.

Marks finally got a job taking portrait shots of Norman Wisdom while Wisdom was appearing at the Prince of Wales theatre in Bernard Delfont’s Paris to Piccadilly, a British version of Folies Bergere, and a sort of predecessor to Paul Raymond’s saucy stage farces. At the time Wisdom was perfecting his so-called “Gump” persona, ultimately Paris to Piccadilly would lead him on the road to success after many years on the road as a struggling comedian, for Marks too the production would have life changing effects, when taking pin-up type shots of the Prince of Wales’ showgirls Marks met, and fell deeply in love with a showgirl girl named Pamela Green. At the time Green was separating from her violent, drunken first husband Guy Hillier, and although Marks could offer her little financially, she soon moved in with him, sharing his bed, at least until Marks fell behind with the payments and the bed shop repossessed it. Marks himself was a free agent, having drifted apart from Diana Bugsgang, and he and Green soon developed a deep bond, Marks described the pair of them as being almost “telepathic”. Bernard Delfont was impressed by Marks work, and soon more commissions came Marks way, allowing him to photograph some of the biggest names in show business including Jack Benny, Nat King Cole and Laurel and Hardy. There were a few oddballs as well like the crazy drag act who made Marks wait two hours while he got into costume, then emerged wearing gloves, a suspender belt, stockings and little else “he had the sagging breasts of a middle-aged woman and below the genitals of a well-developed man”. While Danny Kaye sniped at Marks “you sure must be a stinking lousy photographer” during a second sitting, after Kaye’s cranky demeanor had caused Marks to botch the first. Marks most proudest achievement as a theatrical photographer was taking pictures of Bela Lugosi during the actor’s British tour as Dracula in 1951. Marks admired Lugosi greatly, and sat through matinee and evening performances of Dracula in order to soak up the atmosphere he would later try and capture in photographs “it was an astonishing performance, when he made his entrance through the French windows upstage it was fantastic and dramatic… he really looked as if he had just flown down from his castle”. The Hungarian actor wasn’t without his eccentricities though, which included going into a trance like state before performances, while on another occasion Marks had been speaking to the star for around half an hour when Lugosi suddenly blurted out “vat is dis man sayinck? I don’t oonderstant von word of it”.

By this time Marks and Green had moved into a studio located on Gerrard Street. It was a move that would put Marks and Green right at the heart of 1950s Soho, a pre-Wolfenden Act era where prostitutes walked the streets, and where some of the most vicious gangland fighting London had ever seen would be played out. It was not uncommon for Marks to spot a bloody corpse lying in the gutter on his way to the studio, corpses that would mysterious disappear by the time a policeman came along. Adding to the carnage was the fact that Marks’ studio was located above a drinking haunt that had been taken over by the mob, and where bottle and fist fights were the order of the day, wisely Marks invested in a steel reinforced door and a sword for his protection.

One of Marks’ most dangerous and out of control acquaintances was a former bouncer Marks only refers to in his biography as “My Slasher Friend”, more than likely My Slasher Friend was a member of Jack Spot’s gang and was a man who lived for violence. Marks’ nickname for him was no exaggeration, “I’ve seen some of the people he had cut up, he really mutilated them in a matter of seconds”. My Slasher Friend was fond of Marks, and would regularly question whether anyone had annoyed or crossed Marks that week, quickly followed by matter of fact offers to murder them. The majority of their conversations would end in goodbyes followed by My Slasher Friend asking “sure there’s no one you need fixing, Mr. George.?” Once Marks and Stuart Samuels were enjoying a drink in a pub when My Slasher Friend turned up with his usual routine, Marks joked that Stuart was starting to annoy him, at which point My Slasher Friend lunged at Stuart without realizing Marks was having a joke, Stuart probably didn’t find it too funny either.

It was in this seedy, violent environment that Marks and Green would effectively birth the glamour industry in Britain. As well as her stint as a showgirl, Green had been modeling nude, for both life classes and photographers, since she was sixteen (at the time needing her father’s written permission for such work), and suggested Marks try his hand at shooting some tasteful nude shots of her, this eventually led to Kamera, a modest pocket-sized magazine of nudes, being published in 1957.

Kamera was an overnight sensation selling its print run of 15,000 copies in a matter of days, followed by reprint after reprint “until the arms all but fell off the printing press”. Though history gives much of the credit for Kamera to Marks, a peek into the workings of the magazine suggests Green was its driving force, lending her face and body to the magazine, as well as designing the sets and costumes, retouching the photos, and selecting the other models, some of whom had been sent by Paul Raymond. “Pam set me up, she started it all, in many ways I owe much to her” acknowledged Marks in his biography, in which he also refers to her as his “anchor rock”.

Having previously led a bohemian lifestyle, it was around this time that Marks’ playboy persona started to emerge, he spent the money that was rolling in from Kamera like crazy buying clothes, fast cars and yachts, while lavishing Pam with expensive jewelry and furs. Pam was soon on her way to being recognized as Britain’s most famous nude model, and naturally the sight of the glamorous blonde being driven around in a Cadillac by a goateed, cigar chomping Svengali looking type who took pictures of nude women for a living, turned heads and generated tabloid interest.

Perhaps inevitably Marks’ private became the source of much press and public speculation, amusingly off the mark rumours began circulating that he was in fact a “pansie and a raving queer”, something that forced Marks into admitting to having had affairs with several of his models, though he was quick to equally downplay a seedy casting couch image, claiming that these were “deep emotional affairs” and that “I work with them so closely, its only natural. The conditions we work under are probably ripe for an affair”.

Naked as Nature Intended and Beyond

Naked as Nature Intended was the brainchild of Tony Tenser and Michael Klinger a pair of canny Jewish businessmen from the East End. A master of publicity Tenser had honed his showmanship skills working as head of publicity for Miracle films, a popular distributor, before hooking up with Klinger, a former strip club manager with an ambition on becoming a movie mogul. Between them they had discovered a loophole in the law that allowed them to show uncensored European and American sex films under club conditions, and thus had opened up the Compton Cinema Club, one of the first membership only cinema clubs in Britain.

Tenser and Klinger were keen to get into film production, and the exploitation savvy Tenser had his eye on the burgeoning nudist film genre, which had already spawned Traveling Light, directed by authentic nudist Michael Keating, and other less credible productions like Charles Saunders’ Nudist Paradise and Michael Winner’s Some Like It Cool. Klinger had first met Marks several years earlier when Marks had been hired to photograph several of Klinger’s strippers, and Tenser and Klinger correctly thought that having London’s most notorious photographer and his pin-up girlfriend as director and star would give their production the edge in a crowded nudist market. Marks was initially unsure about directing a feature film until Tenser and Klinger took him to their cinema club and showed him a typical example of the sort of tacky sex film they were playing, after which Marks vowed “if I couldn’t make better (films) than those then I would give the whole racket up”.

For Marks’ core audience Naked as Nature Intended’s big appeal lay in seeing their favourite A5 sized fantasy figures projected as giant sized living, breathing nudes on the silver screen, a famous shot on a beach opens the film with Pamela Green taking a slow walk towards the camera with a towel to protect her modesty. Pam looks every bit the blonde goddess who has just emerged from the sea, an effect undiminished by the obviously breezy British weather. Equally memorable is Marks’ directing credit, which plays over a shot of the debuting feature film director puffing away on a cigarette on the same windy beach. Shot under the title “Cornish Holiday”, the bulk of the film offers up just that, with Pam cast as a Windmill girl, who along with Marks models Petrina Forsyth and Jackie Salt, travel around Cornwall in Petrina’s American Buick. The film gives the impression the crew just filmed whatever attractions they came across as the girls venture around the Minack Open Air Theatre in Porthcurno, Stonehenge, and various seaside towns, with narration that sounds suspiciously like its been quickly transcribed from tourist brochures with a few corny lines from Marks’ music hall days thrown in for good measure “that reminds me of that definition, even a girl who can’t add up can certainly distract”.

To liven things up Stuart Samuels appears in a variety of wigs and funny mustache guises throughout the film playing a series of bumbling authority figures the girls encounter. After around 40 minutes of travelogue and Stuart Samuels falling over, the audience’s patience is finally rewarded when the girls innocently trespass onto a nudist beach and are converted to the cause, soon deciding that “there is nothing shocking about enjoying the feeling of complete physical freedom that nudity brings”, a philosophy they put to the test by sunbathing, gardening and playing table tennis in the nude. To give the film some censor appeasing credibility Marks shot this section of the film in a genuine nudist camp, Spielplatz Sun Club owned by a bearded old codger named Charles Macaskie. Macaskie and his wife even have bit parts in the film, welcoming Pam and the girls into the nudist camp fold. Macaskie and his wife were elderly and out of shape, but then the difference between those who are the genuine nudists in the film, and those who are especially brought in nude models sticks out as obvious as a hard-on in Spielplatz.

Naked as Nature Intended was as badly reviewed as any other nudist film, but was still a massive hit when it opened in November 1961 at the Cameo Moulin cinema in Windmill Street “there were queues along both pavements, one stretching down to Shaftsbury Avenue”. In a curiously mainstream nod the Cameo Moulin’s marquee for the film can be spotted in the opening credits of The Small World of Sammy Lee (1963), a reference explained by the fact that that film’s star Anthony Newley was a friend of Marks, while its director Kenneth Hughes had been photographed by Marks, back when Marks was making his living as a theatrical photographer, and Hughes was a budding actor.

True to his reputation Tenser devised a fantastic campaign for Naked as Nature Intended billing it as “the greatest nudist film ever”, while capitalizing on the fame of its director and star by billing Green as the “Queen of the Pin-Ups and Marks the “King of the Camera”. The publicity seems to have gone to Marks’ head a bit “they came because my name is so well established in this field- and for no other reason.” he claimed.

By the time of Naked as Nature Intended’s release Green and Marks’ romance had come to an end. In his biography Marks sites a plethora of reasons for the break-up, was it Pam’s jealousy of the other models?, was it the money that came between them? was it that Pam didn’t want children?, or was it his difficulties with having the same woman in both his private and professional life?, Marks doesn’t seem so sure himself. Other sources suggest she left because of his drinking, either way their telepathic link had been broken, although as a business partner in Kamera, Green continued to model and supervise the magazine as well as appearing in Marks films, and Marks resisted My Slasher Friend’s offers to have her killed.

1963’s The Chimney Sweeps which Marks produced and starred in, was devised as a comedy vehicle for himself and Stuart Samuels as well as a chance to put their old routine on screen. Several other characters from Marks’ musical hall past were also cast in the film, which sees two chimney sweeps (Marks and Samuels under heavy theatrical make-up) foil the plans of two comic gangsters, even Pamela Green did a cameo in the film, which required her to be buried under around eight sacks of soot, and blown up along with a piano. The lack of any nudity, however, meant The Chimney Sweeps was hardly going to equal the success of Naked as Nature Intended, and it remains one of the least seen of Marks films, though recently unearthed evidence suggests the film played as far afield as Turkey where it popped up as the bottom half of a double bill with an old Laurel and Hardy film, a pairing Marks would no doubt have approved of. One rumour has it that the film was specially shot as a second feature to con money out of the Eady tax fund of the time, which gave a percentage of the box office takings back to the filmmakers if one-half of a cinema programme was British.

George Harrison Marks and Pamela Green on the set of The Chimney Sweeps (1963).

Free of Green’s influence, Marks drank, womanized and partied hard during this period. A private joke between himself and Stuart Samuels was that the more Marks partied the older Stuart, who in contrast led a sober existence, appeared to get. Stuart suggested that like the picture in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, he was aging on Marks behalf, indeed captured on film during this period Samuels looks more like a reanimated cadaver than a one-time music hall comic.

The second Mrs. Harrison Marks blew into his life sometime in 1964, Vivienne Warren remains perhaps the most complex, fascinating character in Marks’ story, even if she only puts in the briefest of appearances. She’d been recommended to him by a model agent friend, and insisted on being paid to come to his studio, whether he wanted to use her or not. Things got off to a shaky start when she arrived on one of Marks’ so-called “Hangover Days”, when he’d arrive in his office still recovering from the night before and ask his secretary not to forward on any visitors or phone calls. Still Vivienne demanded to be seen, intrigued by her attitude, Marks finally stumbled bleary-eyed out of his office and was immediately taken by her beauty. Sobering up on the spot, soon he’d be snapping nude shots of her in his office, completely enraptured by her.

Vivienne was cool, analytical, and had an other-worldly quality about her, to the degree that one of Marks’ friends compared her to a Midwich Cuckoo, a reference to John Wyndham’s novel about “children of a village who were created by beings from outer space”, later adapted for the screen as Village of the Damned. They married in November of that year, in an age twist on Marks’ first marriage to an older woman, she was 17 at the time and he 35. Despite her tender age Vivienne did her best to play the domestic housewife, insisting on Marks investing in a virtual library of cook books. For all her best efforts, Vivienne, who had been raised in an orphanage, remained a fiercely independent spirit, an attitude that clashed with Marks who’d grown use to getting his own way. Theirs was, as he described it, “a devastating, traumatic and searing love”, only a few months into the marriage both parties were heading for a nervous breakdown. After a brief reconciliation Vivienne could take no more and coolly and calmly walked away from the marriage. Later Marks admitted his dictatorial streak had been a major problem in the marriage, a lesson he’d learn from, but too late to save that relationship.

After his split with Vivienne, Marks drowned his sorrows drinking heavily while holidaying on the continent before returning to London and devoting all his energy in to making his next film The Naked World of Harrison Marks.

After making The Naked World of Harrison Marks, Marks hooked up with Robert Hartford-Davies, the director of exploitation wonders like Corruption and The Yellow Teddybears. Between them, they came up with a plan to move to Hollywood where Hartford-Davies would direct films and Marks would star in and produce them. Their first Hollywood film was going to be a Mondo Cane variant entitled A Climate of Lunacy, but while Hartford-Davies would finally end up directing films in Hollywood in the early Seventies, A Climate of Lunacy never materialized and Marks imagined future as the toast of Hollywood couldn’t have been more wrong.

Article © Gavin Whitaker 2008
Images © Yahya El-Droubie 2016

I’m not sure how many people would have been familiar with America’s Queen of Glamour, Betty Page in the UK in the 1960s. She certainly wasn’t the household name she is today. Her popularity stateside, however, was enough for Harrison Marks to dedicate U.S. Glamour No. 5 and Kamera Cine Films No. 5 to her, both of which can go for silly money on eBay. He also published a one of special called, Intimate Studies of the Fabulous Betty Page. Both magazines were published under the imprint Kamera Publications. The Vintage Magazine Company reprinted U.S. Glamour No. 5 in the 1990s – eBay buyers beware!

Intimate Studies of the Fabulous Betty Page and U.S. Glamour No. 5: The Betty Page Collection

After Naked as Nature Intended in 1961, George Harrison Marks’s next feature film was The Naked World of Harrison Marks (1965). This time, he would not only be the director and producer but as the title implied the star. The film is a pseudo-documentary look at his daily life, spliced with dream sequences. George plays numerous parts and even though the whole project is a bit of farce, it gives a fascinating glimpse into his world. The film was mainly shot at the studios at Lily Place, with the occasional location such as Ewhurst Manor. Even with George playing several of the parts, the film had quite a cast; one even gets to see Pamela Green’s mother helping out at the studio shop.

Join the “Dream-In” and take a “Trip” through The Naked World of Harrison Marks, US poster, 1965.

In the one scene with Pamela Green, George, wearing a beret and a monocle, is hamming it up as a movie director. It’s an interesting scene as it’s one of the few with live sound. Pamela Green is playing alongside Stuart Samuels (Sir Aubrey Sludge), and the film George is supposedly directing is Casanova Strikes Again.

The Naked World also features some great scenes with June Palmer (1940-2004), including one showing the filming of Kamera Cine Film No.60, Dream Goddess. Another notable scene is when George gains Jayne Tracey confidence by taking her dinner at the unique Roman Rooms in Knightsbridge. In the final fantasy scene, set in a medieval dungeon, George, surrounded by plenty of nakedness, grapples with his conscience. It’s all a bit Faustian.

George Harrison Marks as the Director in the film The Naked World of Harrison Marks (1965).

The film is partly narrated by Valentine Dyall (1908-1985), a British actor who was known for many years as “The Man in Black”, the narrator of the BBC Radio series Appointment with Fear.

Julie Jordan (21) from Hammersmith, who starred in the documentary The Naked World of Harrison Marks (1965)

It was during the auditions for The Naked World that George met his future wife, Toni Burnett.

The film was a big commitment and something of a gamble, especially as it was refused a certificated by the BBFC. Undeterred, George submitted the film to the London County Council and various other local authorities. It was unanimously passed and, much to the fury of the BBFC, it played to packed houses around the country. The gamble had paid off. The film played at Cameo Moulin, where it had opened in February 1966, for over a year.

The original title of the film was The World of Harrison Marks. The word Naked was added for marketing reasons. When the film was released in the United States, however, it was apparently re-titled The Dream World of Harrison Marks, but I have yet to see a film poster or ad confirming this. In fact, all the American posters I have seen say The Naked World of Harrison Marks.

When George Harrison Marks went bankrupt a few years later, the master reels of the film were apparently lost, but some tins marked The Naked World of Harrison Marks are in the BFI archive.