After Dark May 1968

Here it is! The very first issue of After Dark magazine. Featured on the cover is a photo of Pzazz! '68, the Donn Arden show at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas. The photo by Zoran Veljkovic shows dance star Shirley Kirkes.

You can tell by this first issue that the publishers and editors were still trying to get their format down and it would be a few issues before they reached their stride, but this first issue did have some high points. In addition to the feature on Las Vegas, they also spotlighted the work of Spencer Tracy who passed away the year before and was awarded the Oscar for Best Actor posthumously a couple of months before this issue was released for his role in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.



His impressive body of work included:
Man's Castle with Marjorie Rambeau and Loretta Young;

Captains Courageous with Lionel Barrymore and Freddie Bartholomew;

Boy's Town with Bobs Watson;

Northwest Passage;

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo;

Cass Timberlane with Lana Turner;

State of the Union with Angela Lansbury and Adolphe Menjou;

Adam's Rib with Judy Holiday, Katharine Hepburn and Eve March;

Father's Little Dividend;

Pat and Mike with Katharine Hepburn;

Bad Day at Black Rock with Ernest Borgnine;

The Desk Set with Katharine Hepburn;

The Old Man and the Sea;

Inherit the Wind with Frederic March;

The Last Hurrah with Edward Brophy, Pat O'Brien, James Gleason and Ricardo Cortez;

and Judgment at Nuremburg.


This issue did have a small (and I mean small) fashion layout. Usually, at least one of the photos would be full page, but the whole fashion layout fit on one page with very small photos:





Artists Yayoi Kusama and Robert Indiana were also spotlighted with their work.


I had never heard of the musical version of Othello called Catch My Soul, until I was looking at the work done by Susan Tyrrell. The cast album featured her singing "Tickle His Fancy", but I've never seen photos from it until this issue arrived in my mailbox.


More on this issue later.

After Dark May 1978 (Next to the last part)

That's right, I'm almost finished with this issue. It's been a long road to get everything I wanted to feature from the issue. Stars from early Hollywood and new Hollywood, to people yet to become stars, and finally to those that should have been stars, but just never had the luck to be famous. I say luck, because recently I was watching some Dick Cavett interviews with Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis. Each talked about their discipline and the work they were able to accomplish, but each also mentioned "luck". It seems that even they realized that sometimes the most talented person could not be famous without a little luck on their side. Speaking of Miss Davis, there were some other recent (as of 1978) movies that were featured in this issue. Bette Davis and David Niven were two of the many stars in the film version of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile.

Also in the cast playing the unfortunate victim was the future Bond girl Lois Chiles.

The surfing movie Big Wednesday starred William Katt and Jan-Michael Vincent.

The film Looking for Mr. Goodbar featured Tom Berenger. In Praise of Older Women would pair him with Karen Black.

The film version of Broadway's A Little Night Music is one of my favorite films. Why? Well, it starred Diana Rigg and Elizabeth Taylor. Where else could you see Elizabeth Taylor sing "Send in the Clowns"? The other leading ladies were Hermione Gingold and Lesley Ann Down. Lesley had recently also gotten noticed for her role in The Betsy.

A Jackie playing a Jackie. The Greek Tycoon uses fictitious names, but the parallels between the lives Aristotle Onassis and Jacqueline Kennedy and the characters in the film are hard to ignore. In the Jackie-like role is the beautiful Jacqueline Bissett.

While hot pants are the rule of the day in 1978,

There was a time when a well-placed scarf was all you needed whether you were a woman...

...or a man.

Vegas showgirl Barbara Beverly knows a thing about well-placed articles of clothing. she was appearing at the Stardust Hotel in the 12th edition of Lido de Paris.

Out in New Jersey at the Paper Mill Playhouse you would find Rip Torn and Sandy Dennis in a production of Little Foxes, but playing the evil Regina Giddens was Geraldine Page.

While in London at the Globe Theatre, Jeremy Irons and Simon Ward were starring in Simon Gray's The Rear Column.

Before closing out this post, I wanted to show the way photos are often reused. Of course, only the best photos are reused, like this one of Randy Jones from the Village People. It was used in a previous issue for a fashion layout. The reused the photo for an ad to businesses to have them advertise in their magazine to reach a certain demographic. That demographic was the After Dark reader. I am surprised that 85.2% of the readers were single. I would have thought it would have been higher, like 99.44%.

After Dark January 1973

Bette Midler graces the cover of her second issue of After Dark. According to the issue, 1973 may witness the emergence of a new superstar in the person of Miss Bette Midler. Her New Year's Eve concert at Philharmonic Hall sold out immediately and Atlantic Records' "The Divine Miss M" was a top seller. Her appearance in this issue was in a fashion layout featuring her in a variety of furs.

She may have been raised in Hawaii, but she looks right at home in this Blackgama floor-length ranch mink.

Here's Bette in a flared black beaver short coat with silver fox trim.

Joining Bette in the fashion layout were friends Wayne Clark, who was the producer of the off-off-Broadway musical Twanger, and model-about-town, Tom Moulton. Wayne is dressed in a black and white Rolls Royce sweater with flared flannel cuffed trousers and Tom is in a black and orange short-sleeved wool pullover worn over a black knit shirt with patterned trousers.

Glamorous Bette is in a white shadow fox fur from Norway.

Here is Bette in a natural blue fox and leather circular design coat, while Tom is in a wool navy blue and white check walking suit and Wayne is in a brown suede cloth coat.

Here are the boys in body-hugging wool knit pullovers.

Tom is wearing a bold-checked amber and navy suit with navy cashmere turtleneck while Bette is in a Summer Ermine with lynx collar and border.


Henry Edwards did an article on the softer side of Alice Cooper.

Glenn Loney's article recognized up and coming star Jason Miller who won rave reviews for his stage presence in That Championship Season.

Interestingly, his co-star in That Championship Season was Paul Sorvino. Paul, who is also a sculptor, was commissioned by the city of Scranton to create a bust of Jason. The bronze statue was unveiled in December 2008. The article mentioned that he was about to appear in a new horror film called The Exorcist. He would eventually be nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in that.

Susan Hayward, star of I'll Cry Tomorrow, got a spotlight in an article from Don Lee Keith.

Susan appeared in many films with some of the top leading men, including Clark Gable in Soldier of Fortune...

...and John Wayne in The Conqueror.

Susan tried the stage in a Las Vegas production of Mame. She grew tired of the same old lines, the same old songs every night that she eventually left the production and was replaced by Celeste Holm.

Susan found she loved TV movies, because she worked like a slave for the thirteen weeks of filming and then could take some time off. One of those TV movies was Heat of Anger in which she played a lawyer. It was supposed to be a pilot for a series, but it wasn't picked up.

Up and coming stars making names for themselves in 1973 were Robin Lane, who was appearing in The Chronicle of Nine at the Mercer Arts Center,

Mark Lambert, who Hal Prince signed for a leading role in his new musical A Little Night Music,

and David Huffman who recently appeared in the Philadelphia Drama Guild's production of Moliere's Tartuffe.

Regular After Dark writer and editor Norma McLain Stoop featured two young men in her article. The first was Donn Whyte who was appearing in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest at New York's Mercer Arts Center.

Donn also played the dead father of a ten-year old boy in the semi-horror film Killers of the Dream.

The other young man was Kurt Dawson who found his first New York play after studying at England's Royal Academy was the controversial off-Broadway play Futz!.

He then got a job as Keith Baxter's understudy in Sleuth and began appearing on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns.

Some other highlights this issue were the debut of Irene starring Debbie Reynolds and Monte Markham,

Deborah Kerr in The Day after the Fair with Julia Foster,

and a dramatic reading of Don Juan in Hell with Edward Mulhare, Ricardo Montalban, Agnes Moorehead and Paul Henried.

William Como's semi-regular feature "Editor's Out-Takes" featured dancer/model Wesley Kone,

swimmer George Krasowski,

and dancer Brian Destazio.

Another photo featured was one by Curtis Brown that appeared in an exhibit called "Four Phases Plus One".

Only a couple of ads to feature from this issue. The first is for the film Travels with My Aunt starring Maggie Smith. I have been wanting to see this film, but have not been able to find it on DVD. I just love this drawing of Maggie Smith. Interesting tattoo possiblility.

The next is for Leather 'N' Things. It seems that in order to order them, taking the measurements are quite complicated so you have to write for details. At least you get to choose which side you want your key loop on.

Last, but not least for this issue, is a photo by Kenn Duncan to spotlight four jewelers. Actor Douglas Reynolds on the left is wearing bracelets from Whitt Goldsmith's on his left arm and from Frank's Jewelers on his right. Actor/model James Hand on the right is wearing a selection from Uptight Ltd. on his right arm and Boutique St. Tropez on his left.

Only one more Bette Midler issue to go. Stay tuned.