Death Laid an Egg

The final Screen Siren of the Sixties is Sweden's own Ewa Aulin.  Aulin, a teen beauty pageant winner, starred in a slate of European and American films.  She's perhaps best known for her lead role in...oh...I did it again, didn't I? More Terry Southern, I guess...she was the lead in the film adaptation of Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg's Candy (1967), which garnered her a nomination at the Golden Globes.  Personally, she first caught my eye in the surreal Italian thriller Death Laid an Egg (La Morte ha Fatto L'uovo, 1968) by Giulio Questi, director of the equally bizarre Spaghetti Western Django Kill...If You Live Shoot! (Se Sei Vivo Spara!, 1967).

A Very Grand Guy

Our Screen Siren of the Sixties series couldn't be complete without an appearance by Raquel Welch.  Welch, née Jo Raquel Tejada, had a string of bit parts before becoming a star with Fantastic Voyage in 1966, but she's probably best known for the endless reproductions as the cavewoman in the fur bikini from One Million Years B.C. (1966).  I'm partial to her (apart from the obvious reasons) for starring in two of my favorite comedies: Bedazzled (1967) and The Magic Christian (1969)...though I shouldn't say starred in The Magic Christian as she's one of a dozen hilarious cameos from the film from which I drew the above image.  My drawing of Terry Southern from a week or two back helped influence the choice.

"The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock - shock is a worn-out word - but astonish."

The final author of the week is literary wild man Terry Southern (1924-1995).  Born in Alvarado, Texas, Southern would serve in WWII, hit the Sorbonne on the G.I. Bill, become part of the both the Greenwich scene of the 50's as well as the Swinging Sixties in London before working as a prominent screenwriter in the 70's.  I first became aware of Terry as a screenwriter, particularly with Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964) (He also wrote the scripts for Easy Rider and Barbarella, among others.) The first book of Terry's that I tracked down was The Magic Christian (1959) due to my love of the uneven but wonderfully bizarre film of the same name, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr.  I've since read and seen the majority of this master satirist's work.