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Supergirl as a guest star

25 Dec 2016 23:51 #51893 by five_red
Supergirl as a guest star was created by five_red


In 1958, in an attempt to boost flagging ratings, the producers of The Adventures of Superman tv show (sponsored by Kellogg!) starring George Reeves wrote an episodes in which the Man of Steel was joined by a female counterpart -- a 'Supergirl'. With Reeves wishing to leave the cape behind, the episode was perhaps intended to act as a back door pilot to launch a replacement super-show.

But what was her origin? Where did she come from? Was she stronger than Supes? Remember, America of the 1950s was very different to when Lynda Carter and Lindsay Wagner made it onto our tv screens.

Thought my pic might get a few creative juices flowing. Anyone up for a challenge? No harm in asking, I suppose..!

R5

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26 Dec 2016 09:54 - 26 Dec 2016 10:05 #51895 by Monty
Replied by Monty on topic Supergirl as a guest star
WOW! That's how I like to see SuperGirl - stacked and statuesque!
...ETA and a goddamn gorgeous blonde bombshell as weĺl...bring back the fifties!
Last edit: 26 Dec 2016 10:05 by Monty.

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26 Dec 2016 16:22 - 26 Dec 2016 16:23 #51901 by argonaut
Replied by argonaut on topic Supergirl as a guest star
There probably would have been a scene like this ...



And one like this ...

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27 Dec 2016 06:01 - 27 Dec 2016 06:07 #51912 by castor
Replied by castor on topic Supergirl as a guest star

Kathy Karsons Story


I Remember Supergirl very well. Its intresting though. back in 58-superheros, comicbooks- they where nothing-well almost nothing but will get into that, but basically nothing. Kiddie stuff for the 10 year old set. What i am trying to say is now a days like 3-4 times a year someone flies me out to comic conventions or sci fi shows, or wants to do interviews aboout it for this podcast or that book-and i do it-but i do it with the knowledge thats what they want to talk about, thats whats of intrest and i tell this story or that story-but its almost i remember telling the story more then the story it self sometimes. i spend more time this year being Skupergirl then i did in 1958- and its a thought. I don't mind it-i meet a lot of people intrested lot of nice kids, lots of families, people who cared about it back in 58 and remembered me. I met Mellisa Benoist and Helen Slater, and chris reeves and Henry Carvil(never ran into Brandon Routh though i hear hes back in the game).

But Supergirl. 58.

Actually go back-Well i was born in Boise Idaho. My mother is Basque of the kind that speaks basque and i speak a little of it-which gives me kinda of a werid accent at times, which i used for Supergirl-its hard to quite place. But i was the pretty girl of Boise idaho, which was and is a pretty small city for a state capitiol (we had A High school then). Around 54 i was 18, had done well i a school play- went out to hollywood to make it big-offically i was going to UCLA to study Theater but after about a year that ended- i wasn't a bad actor, but that kinda of basic stuff just felt so beyond me, so beyond me for what i wanted.

Well i got an agent- Sam Davis- he was pretty big. His agency represented Gary Cooper, Gene March and some of the other names back then. And he had big hopes and promises for me-which he didn't entirely faily to deliver. Lets get one thing straight, and i am not afraid to admit-back in 55 i had an E Cup Breasts, which all naturally is pretty darn rare. And this was the age of Lana Turner who had the same constution and was one of the biggest stars in the world, and had a certain pulcrasent appeal. And people noticed that-oh did that notice it. I had a pretty good face to boot and the rest of the figure wasn't to laugh at. I wasn't the greatest actors in the world, but i could put together two words and sound like i had an emotional response, and look concerned. I like to think i could do comedy-looking back at my couple of times doing it i may have over judged that.

Actually that was the story of my first couple of years of hollywood-i judged myself more then i could. my Photo Got my a lot of Auditions, but i didn't always seel the deal. I got parts-oh got them, but i figured i would be the next huge star, the next lana turner-well they had one, and she could act better then me. Plus i had the accent-i could turn it up, turn it down-but when i turned it down it sounded kinda of artifical-well an act. I was up for some movies most people have forgoten but i havent't and one that won an academy award-i don't like to talk like that.

The first two years my agent got me small parts in Big studio movies-i got 2 lines in Rebel Without a cause, as a high school girl, i was a little bigger in the Tall Man as a friend, Was in Ain' Misbaving a fun musical as an airhead girl in a long scene -its probabbly the part i am most known for, though no one remembers the movie. Its funny there was a joke on the simpons about Rory Calhoun, and no ones heard of him. This was the big movie no one heard of him in.


Then late 56 my agent gets the bright idea to turn me into more of your B movies-though that term was kinda of going out of style-but cheep movies was better- the kinda of low budget low reward. People remember these kinda of movies but not the ones i was in, which i think is funny. I have been in Sci Fi Conventions with the cast of "them" or "invasions of the saucers"-people remember them. I kinda wish i did one of those now-i think i remember an agent offering an audition but i never took it. i was with once exception in Western. There was a ton, a ton of westerns made in the 50s, and while some of the big ones are remembered, the kinda of films are pretty much forgotten. I stared in the Movie purple cinnomon, which got some attention back in early 57, and honeslty played a scorned women who falls in love with a cowboy who fights to defend my honor. Then i did in close sucsession Rainbow Ridge, where i was the young wife of a miner in the golden age, Gorshim, and Land of my land-which was one of the kinda not so much a western but in present day, but a western-yeah. I also did a week on Gunshot at midnightt which is a low budget gangster movie.

But i would be lying to tell you if i was happy back them. These kinda of movies where mostly filmed around LA in the high desert, which meant they did put us up about half the time, half the time ment we had to drive for two hours to shoot-and given that i was the women in these movies half the time they didn't have much for me to do. Just sit around in an un airconditioned trailer. That or filmed on the backlot at universal where i got snickering looks back from the old days. I didn't make much money, other then Purple no one seemed to much care about them. I don't want to get into my personal life back then but let say it wasn't happy and things wheren't happy there.

But now where getting to Superman. Superman in 58 was in its last season, and i think pretty much everyone involved knew about it, or thought they knew about it. George Reeves i am not sure knew it, god rest his soul. God rest his soul. He was getting a little to old to play a boyious hero, a little to much drink in him. It was reaching its end rating wise, maybe not this year, but he was getting a little hard to work with and the story i heard was he wanted a big contract to keep going. So one idea the show pitched was to introduce a new Superhero- A Supergirl! to keep the show going.

Great.

in 58 Television actors did Television, Movie actors did movies-yeah of the smaller names switched back and forth. You hear a lot about the Blacklist in the 50s-writers mainly who never worked agian cause of communisom. But i am not sure if it ever really came about was the prection that theater owners wouldn't book a movie with a TV actor cause that was the threat to there sales. So it was some trepedation. I had done some straight modeling work, like Fashion and Orange juice-but TV?

But my agent was big on it, and i didn't want to go out to much more in the desert so i went to an audition i mentioned the Basque accent. I really played it up big, kinda of mimiching my grand father and some of my uncles who were sheepfarmers. Its kinda accent you would have a hard time placing as it doesn't sound like any language in the world-its unique. Kinda of made me wish how much the producers ate it up that i had done it earlier, played the kinda of mysterious bueaty instead of the blonde girl next door. Yeah maybe an alien.

But i found myself in Superman. And it was a kid show-now people talk and say -"oh Star Wars thats a kids movie"- no i don't think that. but Superman was from begining to end aimed for kids. No a days pretty much every show is aimed at adults-but in 58 you could put a show on in the 7 oclock on sunday hour and excpet no one over 14-and that was pushing it-would be watching. Certainly not the producers and writers. Certainly not me-i would be lying to say if i was anyway familiar with superman when it was started. I was a girl in the 40-50s i knew about Superman, maybe watched the cartoons when i was a kid maybe listened to an episode of the radio show-but i wasn't hip to the mythos.

But i was watched a couple of episode, and have watched plenty since( i watched the entire series recently for fun). They had a formula. Gangsters Steal something-ocasionally something intresting like a time machine or an A bomb, but usually just like money or jewels. A plot forms from the complications-a pretty basic plot. Often theres a kinda of moral message, like don't trust a book by its cover, or tell truth- and then Clark Kent with the help of Lois Lane Shows up-or the other way around-to investigate, and then in the last 10 or so minutes he would make a convient exit and superman would pop up to save the day! end of show.


This wasn't much like the comics. in the Comics he typically fights bad guys in costumes, or Lex Luthor who has giant robots, or monsters-or just sometimes malaise and uncaring(i have read more then a few good superman comics in the years tep). None of that. Well a bad guy looking like a 50s martian but not really even that. And his superpower was his mainly bullet proof-guns bullets would fly off him, then he would toss very convincngly off the bad guys using superstrength was really the crooks jumped. We got a lot of bending steel bars made of paper mache and a couple of other props-but not really. they didn't have the budget for props. they didn't have the budget for much of anything. I had worked some B westerns already but this...this was lower then that.

But you know i came in with good hope for the future. I watched the show, and not so much reeves-but Noel Nell. She was lois Lane-kinda of a total bitch, but a funny bitch-it wasn't a bad performance-but i realized something. It wasn't the effects that sold the show but her-her fear, her panic her beleif that this week they where goners, and her releif and wonder when superman shows up-and her iritation why he didn't show up a minute sooner. That was there-that and the guest stars who showed up and pretended the same thing(whichwasn't all of them). Pretended. Superman was pretend. That was all it was. pretend that your in life and death, and you-not the special effects or the props, cause they didn'thave shit sold it.

I had taken an acting class or two, and i got that. this was a job for supergirl!

So Supergirl. I had lunch one day with the writer of the episode Kirbin Mondal, a little italian guy who talked real fast and seemed real up on the show on the character. His idea was she was a girl from an alien planet whose space ship crashes on earth-and like superman she had powers from earth yellow sun(but she wasn't from krypton-just another planet like it enough that it worked the same way more or less). But her ship crashes in a mountion- and shes trapped(well it was a bunch of second unit stuff i wasn't present for and a bad soundstage of a mountion ). She watches earth TV and finds out about superman and deciding to look like him was a good idea dress like him to find parts for space craft-and she doesn't care if she steals them. She and superman get into a fight but she runs off, then realizing hes a good soul, and that she likes earth decides to stay here rather then fix her ship.

Kirbian didn't just want to make this a female superman in terms of his backstory of living as a kansas farm guy-and i picked up on that. She was a real alien. And i picked up on that. Other then an hour of Tv which she didn't understand she didn't know anything about earth-and wasn't particularly earthlike. Its a cliche of the alien ice queen who needs to learn about what you humans call Love- but i went more then that. She didn't understand things like fear, or jelliously, or really any emotion-the script has a joke out of her love of milkshakes she decides to stay on earth, but realizes that was her first real exposure to emotions of any kind, and i didn't want to play it as a kinda of binary on off-just that was the first, and it was gradual. She was afterall an alien.

But she wasn't a robot, which was a trick-i created a world for her in my mind-a planet of not so much all women, but who all looked like women They had emotions but so limited that they wouldn't really read-and several others beside that it was hard to express-and that was part of it. It wasn't so so much the emotions where new but the huge expression of them felt alien and strange to her-she was a stranger in a new land that every second was the death scene in a bad hamlet. Saw Raw. So Emotional. All of it was in every second she met. And that i liked. Kirbian in a script writen for the 8 set couldn't convey that totally-but i did my damm best to do that.

In 22 minutes where i showed up for maybe 12 of them. Another thing-in 58 i was probabbly in the best shape of my life. Easy. I didn't go like to the gym or a personal trainer, but a year before i started going to ajudo Class. A co star on one of the western recomended that i do it to help with stunt work- and i liked it-liked it a lot-also did some hoseback riding of the dressage variety, and thats good for keeping your tummy toned. as we say-i am not going to say i had a six pack, but if you looked uner that supergirl shirt i looked okay. But back to the judo-we didn't have stunt doubles in the 58 show-not that we really needed them-but judo tought me a bit about throwing people around, and making it look good-cause well judo involves a lot of pretending to throw people who are kinda of helping you around.

I told the producers about this and the four people i throw around- three scientists at a lab, and two crooks at the end-three of them where fellow students of mine who where willing to show up. None of them where great actors and only one of them was an actor-but well they do throw around pretty well. We never do a great establishing what her powers where-hey she is bullet proof-from one renta cop who shoots at her before running away, flying for one scene and yeah me throwing people around-oh i bust down a door to-but really the throwing people around over head my head and just up into the air-it was effective for selling what we got.

Reeves didn't think it. I worked about three weeks off and on. We shot for 4 days, but they had me do a costume fitting two weeks before, the week after i did some publicty stuff, then the week of filmed-and yeah the shoot. I would be lying to say the script and all that stuff i talked about happened from the first day or it wasn't the night before, but that was the 50s it was how you made TV and not all television. It was quick, so damm quick-and quite frankly part of me liked the quickness the sence that we where doing something now, and not tommorow but 30 minutes from now we would do something else. It was quite a joy, and i can honestly say i really enjoyed the shoot.

The costume wasn't bad either-it was a dress, 50s womens costumes where always dresses, even if this case it didn't make a whole lot of sence cause i was supose to be an alien-but well there you go. i supose the alien learned something of womens fashion. it was a nice dressed that had a bobysockers top emphasing my bobysockers bra-it was silly-bt you know cute. the costume designers did goodwork-what happened to it don't know. i didn't keep it. i heard one staff writer on an intereview pannel i was on say it may have ended up as a halloween costume but that was the last he heard of it .

The Director was one of those british directors named Wallace who couldn't have been nicer if he realized as much as anyone that this was kids tv and wasn't happy about it or carrying to much-but he was nice and friendly and did his best to give me a good time. Shyane and Hamilton where the two other regulars on the show-but i didn't have scenes with either of them so honestly i met them like 5 minutes to shake hands( i remember John Hamilton cigars more then him). Jack Larson was a nice guy from what i gathered but we didn't talk much-he was having trouble that week with a cold but Noel Neil! i had lunch with her like three times on set, and she told me stories about her life as a minor starlet 10 years ago, and her kinda bit parts which made me think. She however was pretty darn nice. This isn't the modern day and facebook ain't a thing-we met a couple of times on the comic circut and always kinda talked like where friends and acted-but beyone one dinner after a pannel in the 80s not so much. I would like to think of her a one.

However Reeve. I wish i knew him better. Looking back and knowing of his tragic death about two years latter-i wish i got to know him better and treat him better. He Knew what was going on and the idea of replacing him-and he didn't like it. I got the sence that he yelled at the producers about it and through a snit to them-but to me-he was cold. Cold and a little mean-and if i returned a little at that back at em, i feel bad about it. On any tv show you guest star on, your there a week-they where there 6 years-so i was just an outside stranger to the cast the crew-but in a way through the supergirl stuff, i have become through osmosis kinda of the story, kinda of part of it like i wasn't. I have gotten to learn a fair amount of the man whose career started promosingly but ended terribly, and the heart break that must have been the stress and tourment- and i feel a lot of sympathy for a guy in the couple of days i knew him i treated like an asshole. And maybe he was an ashole who called me untalented once and yelled when i flubed a line, who barely said 5 good words to me.

But maybe..and this is something that struck me once when a fan brought it up-maybe in every asshole theres a George Reeves waiting to getout. Waiting to revel a life time of heartbreak an backstory to realize why he was like that. Why it all happened like it did. What was the disapointment for for why it didn't work out.

The show ends with me and superman shaking hands and laughing when Jack Larson calls me a supergirl!. I didn't ever put on pair of glasses let alone normal clothing-just the supergirl suit. But Kirbian and the producers had an idea. I would settle in another city-they didn't have a name but go with it-settle there and meet a nice police investigator-they didn't want to do a reporter agian- where he would help me learn about the ways of the world, and help him out of jamsas Supergirl. Yes we would fall in love but you know platonically and more subtext then text-there would be a lot of gags about earth culture, and laws, and things that don't make sence-which i would misunderstand at ever turn. Silly.

If this sounds a fair amount like I Dream of Jeanie-well Kirbian Worked on that show. Sidney Sheldon is the guy who is on the bottle as the creator of the show, but this was Television in which a powerful guy can get his name higher then maybe it is. i read that its based on a movie called the Brass bottle-but i see a lot of the ideas done there.

I sawa lot of the idea ahow up. This was 58-but by the sixties was the golden age of fantasy on TV-with Bewitched, Munsters adamas, family and yeah like my mother the car and mr Ed. Plus stuff like Gilligans island and Green Acres which if they weren't acording to hoyle fantasy kinda. In a lot of ways Supergirl could have fit into that- a kind of silly comedy adventure about the strange alien who comes to learn about earth (like say My Favorite Martian)-but all those shows came like 5 years latter.

in 58 this was a kiddie show. They had done 6 seasons of the show and there wasn't clear there was much life in the premise-comicboks where for kids and kids could do other things . My episode early in the season with a little publicty did better then the average episode-but there wasn't clear that much better. There was talk and i agree to do 2 more episodes which may have setup the pilot more-but Reeves didn't want to do them so they didn't before they quietly canceld the show at the end of the season. How much further then my episode my pilot lasted i don't really know. I am not sure it was ever really formally prestented to the network.

In 1958 i did an episode of a show aimed for kids-i wondered what it would do for my career-but well since most producers are over 13 not much to help, but not much to hurt either. I did two more costaring roles in westerns and a couple of smaller roles. I did end up guest staring on a couple more TV shows as well in the late 50s.

However in 59 i started to date Howard Letner who was an accountant for MGM at the time-a boring average person with glasses-but well take em off as they say and he was a hunk. and a real nice guy, real sweet to me.by 60 We got married and month before he reveled his big secret he had waited for a year-he was a fan of the show-liked the kiddie ashetic and remembered superman from when he was a kid while he wasn't buy the comic guy liked it-and had saw me and really liked supergirl enough to track me down and try to get to know me. i had known fans, known people like that-but i loved him and well...it was sweet. so very very sweet. He

But when i married him i honestly i largely quit acting-yeah plenty of actresses keep working after they get married, and he wasn't opposed-but well i had security but realized that my career was never going to go exactly where i wanted it, and didn't want to settle then for anything less. Foolish dumb Howard worked at first for MGM but driffted out of there and into more straight accounting work doing tax returns for like 10 restraunt chains. And so i largely spent the 60s a homemaker, and latter a mother-however the acting bug-well it was there. in 67 got involved in some plays in my spare time in the 100 person theater kinda way that LA has a fair amount of-and well it got back into the nerve. I hadn't since the college i droped out of ever done theather but found i loved it. Loved every part of just doing an entire story in a night, of being a character there in that light-it was magic.by that time i lost a lot of my early looks, but i kept at it through the 60s. In 73 i managed to nag an agent agian a much smaller one and started doing TV this time intentionally. Guested stared on Barnaby Miller and the Rockfard Files and yes the brady Bunch, as well as doing a couple of small roles in movies-once agian movies you likely never heard of but i was in them. Typically now as the kind of bueatufl but sever shrew who yells at people.

I loved it. Really loved it.

I kept it up until around 1995 with some big dry spells-i was most excited yes when i was on Star Trek the next generation(a show whose original run i missed) playing unfeeling vulcan.

of course around the time Comicbooks and comic conventions became a thing -and in 82 the first convention snaged me. I was loosly aware of the Book Andru made of Supergirl, which guess was really loosley based on my epiosde-but like 5 years latter after the fact. My Character was now a real teenager, who cames to earth having teenage girl adventures and goes to school-some of them i have read are pretty wild-yes at one point she falls in love with a horse! I don't have a lot of conection to the book-it wasn't an idea when i played a female martian for a week in 58-but its kinda connected in that yeah well i first filled out the costume to help come up with the idea.

{though yeah Wonder Woman and a couple of other supehreroines where out there first}

I never worked for DC comic-in 58 never met one-and that show wasn't done for Warner Brothers or the producers. i was never approached about the 84 movie and i think there position was i didn't exist. And that was okay for me-but well that hasn't stoped a lot of intrest. There is this idea of the female superhero out there-and well thats me on the screen. And there certainly has been intrest in me becuse of it.

So thats how i became supergirl or supergirl became me. i have had a happy life. Howard is still alive,though not in great health-but we have 3 children and 5 grand children and any day now probabbly a great grand child. Ever since the new show came out there has been a lot more intrest in the character, and having me out. The first season of Supergirl they thought about finding me a role but never got one-now that there filming in Vancouver i am not sure its worth the trouble to legally film there-but i am game. Its a good show, and its doing something i barely had an idea of-its inspiring girls, girls like i was to go out and fight for good, be heros, live there dreams. And me. i am so tickled for that.
Last edit: 27 Dec 2016 06:07 by castor.
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27 Dec 2016 14:29 #51919 by five_red
Replied by five_red on topic Supergirl as a guest star

castor wrote:
Kathy Karsons Story


I Remember Supergirl very well. ...


I really like the way you approached that Castor. Very clever and imaginative. And a super fun read too. Well done!


R5

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27 Dec 2016 15:36 - 27 Dec 2016 15:47 #51923 by Monty
Replied by Monty on topic Supergirl as a guest star
That has to be the longest post I've read on SWM...EVER! Thanks Castor, for the insight into Kathy's life as Supergirl. Does anyone know of any YT clips of her in action? Off for a Google...
Last edit: 27 Dec 2016 15:47 by Monty.

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27 Dec 2016 19:55 - 27 Dec 2016 19:59 #51928 by Helstar
Replied by Helstar on topic Supergirl as a guest star
I think you've kinda missed the point of this thread, Monty...

Milla Bishop photos www.google.it/search?q=milla+bishop&clie...CgB&biw=1472&bih=671
Last edit: 27 Dec 2016 19:59 by Helstar.

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27 Dec 2016 23:41 #51929 by castor
Replied by castor on topic Supergirl as a guest star
The fact that someone was confused by this kinda of this make it out of my ass and half a minute of wikipedia story i consider a pretty big compliment indeed!

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27 Dec 2016 23:58 - 27 Dec 2016 23:58 #51930 by argonaut
Replied by argonaut on topic Supergirl as a guest star
I have to admit, five_red's post had me fooled until I did a search for Milla Bishop.

Well played, 5R!

Are you the genius responsible for this? --

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28 Dec 2016 10:17 - 28 Dec 2016 11:09 #51933 by Monty
Replied by Monty on topic Supergirl as a guest star
Yup...I was well and truly duped! (Maybe too much vino over the festive period) Good work Five_Red and Castor!
Last edit: 28 Dec 2016 11:09 by Monty.

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28 Dec 2016 13:50 - 28 Dec 2016 13:52 #51936 by ace191
Replied by ace191 on topic Supergirl as a guest star
Just two things. I recognized her from all her cosplay shots and America was way too sexist at that time to let a woman have super powers on TV. I will say that the manip was well done and clearly Castor has an intimate understanding of the Hollywood entertainment business.
Last edit: 28 Dec 2016 13:52 by ace191. Reason: Correction

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28 Dec 2016 14:46 #51939 by castor
Replied by castor on topic Supergirl as a guest star

ace191 wrote: Just two things. I recognized her from all her cosplay shots and America was way too sexist at that time to let a woman have super powers on TV. I will say that the manip was well done and clearly Castor has an intimate understanding of the Hollywood entertainment business.


I donno. One of the points i wanted to make was that shows like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeenie-they came out like 7 years after 58 which are diffrent kinda superpowers but superpowers. Bell, Book and Candle the movie that inspired Bewitched came out in 58( which i don't think is a particulary great movie). There are also a couple of Moon Women style movies.

I think they could have done something in 58-but didn't. the "Alien girl comes to earth and has to learn about our culture and our thing called love"-thats something i could belive happening. Didn't of course, but its to me belivable

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28 Dec 2016 15:03 #51940 by ace191
Replied by ace191 on topic Supergirl as a guest star
Being alive at the time this was all going on gives me a little different perspective. If you look at the few DC super female stories in the comics in the 50's, women with super powers like superman just screwed things up. It was not until the early sixties that women could handle them without screwing up, but of course no where near as good as a man. In the fifties, working women had about three career choices. Nurse, teacher or secretary. My mom was a teacher, and was the only working mom on my block. Things changed in the sixties and by the early seventies, the government required that medical schools admit at least 25 % women in their first year classes ( if they took any federal money which they all did).

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28 Dec 2016 15:04 - 28 Dec 2016 15:06 #51941 by Monty
Replied by Monty on topic Supergirl as a guest star

castor wrote:

ace191 wrote: Just two things. I recognized her from all her cosplay shots and America was way too sexist at that time to let a woman have super powers on TV. I will say that the manip was well done and clearly Castor has an intimate understanding of the Hollywood entertainment business.


I donno. One of the points i wanted to make was that shows like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeenie-they came out like 7 years after 58 which are diffrent kinda superpowers but superpowers. Bell, Book and Candle the movie that inspired Bewitched came out in 58( which i don't think is a particulary great movie). There are also a couple of Moon Women style movies.

I think they could have done something in 58-but didn't. the "Alien girl comes to earth and has to learn about our culture and our thing called love"-thats something i could belive happening. Didn't of course, but its to me belivable


Warching re-runs of Bewitched in my teens was what 'caught' me in the whole Superwoman genre. Ok, Samantha didn't have superpowers per se, but she had the 'Magic Touch' and watching Elizabeth Montgomery was certainly Magical. A step up from I Dream of Jeannie, I'd say
Last edit: 28 Dec 2016 15:06 by Monty.

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28 Dec 2016 15:12 #51942 by ace191
Replied by ace191 on topic Supergirl as a guest star
Nowadays, I think the admin rates for Medical School is more like 56/44 F/M ratio so things have really changed. It was probably more like 5/95 in the fifties.

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28 Dec 2016 15:20 #51943 by ace191
Replied by ace191 on topic Supergirl as a guest star
I think in one particular episode, Uncle Arthur game himself super powers and flew around like Superman. I think he was trying to tempt Daren into using magic and ended up giving him a wishing locket or something. I will have to look that up.

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28 Dec 2016 15:56 #51947 by ace191
Replied by ace191 on topic Supergirl as a guest star
Two different episodes both from season six 1970. Sam's father gives Daren the magic locket so that he can see what it would be like to be a warlock. Dr. Bombay gives uncle Arthur a pill to pep up his magic and then he turns himself into superman.

Going through junior high and high school in the late sixties there were three difficult questions that were very tough to answer.
Betty or Wilma?
Ginger or MAry Ann?
Jeanie or Sam?

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28 Dec 2016 18:36 #51950 by Markiehoe
Replied by Markiehoe on topic Supergirl as a guest star

ace191 wrote: In the fifties, working women had about three career choices. Nurse, teacher or secretary.


Lois Lane was a reporter.

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28 Dec 2016 21:14 #51954 by Woodclaw
Replied by Woodclaw on topic Supergirl as a guest star

Markiehoe wrote:

ace191 wrote: In the fifties, working women had about three career choices. Nurse, teacher or secretary.


Lois Lane was a reporter.


Lois Lane always was very much unconventional character.

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28 Dec 2016 21:34 #51955 by Markiehoe
Replied by Markiehoe on topic Supergirl as a guest star
Well you can thank Dr Wertraum and the Mom's of America for what happened to women in comics in the 1950s.

They used to be
Pilots: Miss Victory, Gale Allen
Movie Stars: Rio Rita, Black Cat
Space Heroes: Mysta of the Moon, Futura
Jungle Girls: Sheena, Rulah

All taking care of themselves and usually rescuing men.

Moms did not like this so when the Comics Code was voluntarily enacted women became housewives, girlfriends, secretaries and nurses.
All subservient to men.

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28 Dec 2016 23:31 #51956 by ace191
Replied by ace191 on topic Supergirl as a guest star
So much changed so fast in America from 1963 to 1969 that it was really hard to believe. Race relations with riots and assassinations, women's lib, putting guys in orbit vs to the moon and back, nuclear confrontation and the arms race
And a generational gap that developed over drugs and the Vietnam war. Tune in, turn on, drop out and don't trust anyone over 30 ( like say Nixon or Kissinger).

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29 Dec 2016 06:50 #51960 by shadar
Replied by shadar on topic Supergirl as a guest star

ace191 wrote: So much changed so fast in America from 1963 to 1969 that it was really hard to believe. Race relations with riots and assassinations, women's lib, putting guys in orbit vs to the moon and back, nuclear confrontation and the arms race
And a generational gap that developed over drugs and the Vietnam war. Tune in, turn on, drop out and don't trust anyone over 30 ( like say Nixon or Kissinger).


It's very hard to actually understand what that period was like from the perspectives of the 1980's and beyond. I've seen or read so many perspectives on the time, but none of them really get it right (at least from my perspective). I turned 20 in 1968, so I pretty much got the full deal. People who are significantly older (born in mid-1940's or earlier) often think it was a crazy, nutty, scary time with all the institutions and culture being questioned and upended. Anarchy in their minds. Young women suddenly owned their own bodies thanks to the pill, and they could become extremely sexual without being looked down upon or worrying about pregnancy. Free love. Anything you could catch during sex could be easily cured. This was before AIDS, before Herpes, etc. The sexual revolution only affected a narrow age group, but it was badly misunderstood by those who were older. None of that made it to the comics of the time.

It was like a tightly wound spring had been released and everything moved forward in a big jump, and in all directions. But it was also a violent period, both in civil society and thanks to a bloody war with 50+ thousand dead and many times that badly wounded, most of them conscripts who were drafted against their will. Everyone had dead friends thanks to the war, or they escaped to Canada or whatever.

The comics of the time didn't really mirror any of that. They were far too establishment-oriented. That changed a little in the 70's as comic writers tried to get hip, but it still wasn't done well. Off key and understated and fake. Written by people over 30 who obviously didn't get it.
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29 Dec 2016 15:29 #51967 by five_red
Replied by five_red on topic Supergirl as a guest star

shadar wrote: The comics of the time didn't really mirror any of that. They were far too establishment-oriented. That changed a little in the 70's as comic writers tried to get hip, but it still wasn't done well. Off key and understated and fake. Written by people over 30 who obviously didn't get it.


Comics of the 1960s suffered under the domineering hand of the Comics Code Authority, a body set up to placate the 50s moral panic that pulp magazines were corrupting the minds of innocent kids. In the 60s superheroes were not selling as well as other comicbook genres, and (famously) Marvel almost abandoned the field entirely. Fortunately they didn't, and instead they accidentally hit upon a formula that reinvigorated the genre -- aligning heroes firmly with teenage culture. Yet while Marvel gained a cult following on college campuses, DC still saw its main source of superhero revenue as coming from licensing deals with television, breakfast cereals, etc. Such deals with blue-chip brands required a squeaky-clean image, and this is why DC's output at the time is very conservative and 'square'.

The simple fact is that Stan Lee could get away with making his characters more counter-culture, because Marvel's characters weren't expected to appear in prime time slots on national tv networks, or in promotional offers with big brands.

The final straw came when DC's biggest licensing success of the mid-Sixties was not a straight adaptation of a DC superhero, but a parody of their ultra-square house style (the Adam West Batman show, in case you hadn't guessed, that boosted sales of DC's superhero titles across the board.) By the mid-1960s a new generation of writers and artists were entering comicbooks, ones that had grown up with superheroes. As old fashioned editors like Mort Weisinger (who didn't even agree with stories spanning more than one issue) stepped aside, slowly from 1967 onward DC started to change its house style, largely thanks to president/publisher Carmine Infantino. But comics were still dominated by men, and the people at the very top (like Lee and Infantino) were still from the old Golden Age era. So we got a lot of very worthy, but misguided, attempts to "do feminism". We all recall The Cat, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Woman, etc.

It is ironic that the period with the strongest female heroines is probably not the Silver or Bronze Age (the period when second wave feminism actually started to bite), but the war years of the Golden Age. Blonde Phantom, Invisible Scarlett O'Neill, Purple Tigress, Lady Luck, Scorpion, Phantom Lady, Miss America, Liberty Belle, Ms. Victory... the list is nearly endless. But by the Silver Age only Wonder Woman survived from that period.


R5

ps. Shocked that so many people didn't recognise Milla. She surely has to be one of the most famous cosplayers out there.

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