Customer Reviews

Glamour Girls: The Illustrated Encyclopedia

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Someone mentioned Caroline and Janet Munro. The late actress Janet Munro is not actress Caroline Munro's mother. This bit of misinformation has been around for decades and Caroline Munro has been refuting it for years. They are not related. Just ask her.

I really was looking forward to this book. On the positive side, the author did do a lot of research into the pre-1950 glamour pin-ups of which most of us today are not familiar. On the negative side, the artwork is entirely disappointing - small black & white images do not capture glamour very well. In addition, he puts too many models in the book with insufficient detail to each. Rather than doing a sad overview of the top 1,000 - he should have done a nice portrayal of the top 500. As it was, he was getting pretty desperate to get to 1,000. Elvira (the horror film commedienne), Nichelle Nichols (Star Trek's Lt. Uhuru)and Lily Munster are all fine actresses/characters - but glamourous - not at all. Finally, amazingly, he left out some modern superstars like Emme. Save your money and avoid this one.

For those of you who like to skim, here's the short review: cheesy, self-promoting "nudie" stars mixed with actresses we've all heard too much about. "Glamour" has nothing to do with it, only a woman's breast size (every bio includes a woman's measurements).

And for those looking for, as cheese-ball Steve would put it, "mammarian satisfaction", look somewhere else: the pictures here are terrible, small and silly. Any other review that says otherwise was probably written by a friend of the publisher. Look for better information on many websites.

For those of you, like me, who picked up this book thinking you would actually learn something about glamour girls (maybe get some movie recommendations)--wow, no chance. Here's the world according to Steve: Audrey Hepburn gets this rating: 96. He comments: "[she substituted] a delicacy masking inner strength in place of sex appeal". What a wonderfully backhanded comment. Kitten Natividad, on the other hand, has a ranking higher-than-Audrey ranking of 62 (as does other classless, un-glamour girls like Heather Locklear and Pam Anderson(!)). His comments on Kitten: "The essential quality that endears [her] is not her seductive face or epic-scaled breasts; it is her utter joy in performing." Um, yeah, *that's* what you're selling.

The writing is hackneyed, and the constant references to his other books weigh the whole effort with the smell of despiration. I'm not even going to sell this book or give it away--it goes right in the trash.

While some of the negative reviews are too extreme, I agree that "Glamour Girls" is a deeply flawed effort. First, the "GGs" should have been listed alphabetically or chronologically. The arbitrary descending-order approach is SO wrong-headed. How can the fabulous Diana Rigg be as low as #69? And the delectable Diana Dors is #70! Absurd! Second, Steve Sullivan should have focused on those women who are genuine personifications of glamour. I have nothing against Nichelle Nichols, but glamorous she ain't. Also, how can Mr. Sullivan include Caroline Munro, while neglecting her truly bewitching mother, Janet Munro? And I share the dismay of a previous reviewer at the inclusion of Madonna: ugh! Mr. Sullivan's worst offense in this regard is including a seemingly endless (and tedious) supply of Playboy centerfolds and, worse, porn actresses. Talk about a total suspension of judgement! Third, there are NOT some 1,000 glamour girls -- a little discrimination, a little taste. Magnificent mammaries do not a glamour girl make. Sure, Jayne Mansfield had them (boy, did she have them!), but she had much else besides. Fourth, I'm disappointed in Mr. Sullivan's indifferent research. For example, he mentions that Inger Stevens (#258) "played Robert Morse's sexy wife in the hit 'A Guide for the Married Man' (1967)." No, she didn't -- she played Walter Matthau's wife.

Despite all my carping, this isn't a bad book. The problem is that it was such a damned good idea so abominably handled, and that makes it appear so much worse than it is.

Given its subject matter, there really should be a photo for every entry. Also the picture in the color section labeled "Heather Thomas" is clearly "Donna Dixon". Hopefully this is the only mislabeled photo in an otherwise very good book.

I am so glad I was able to see a copy of this book before I ordered it because I would have hated to shell out good money for it. In this author's eyes, the legends of Hollywood be they Harlow or Hayworth are no more accomplished or important than last month's Playboy centerfold! I feel there are two very different markets the author is trying to combine, those who love Hollywood and those who love "retro raunch" as they call it or contemporary nudie models and this book is quite clumsy in its attempts to equate the two. Most audaciously, the author lists these 1,000 women in some sort of sexy importance order and somehow a number of women with no more accomplishment than being say Miss April in Playboy may rank above a Hollywood legend. Thus you have Clara Bow, THE sex symbol of silent films, and Mae West, whose sexy films truly changed the film industry barely making Sullivan's top 100! And you have Dorothy Lamour, one of the top four pinup girls of World War II barely making the top 350! And worse of all are these little small paragraph biographies of the women that anyone with the slighest knowledge of movies could have written (and written better because I noticed several factual errors even in this short space. Indeed the author seems to know little about general film history, despite claiming this is an "alltime" sex symbol list I spotted maybe only three women from the silent era) There are several topless photos of several completely obscure women that are totally meaningless to anyone unless you are really into porno. I'm not a prude and I don't mind at all that someone may be interested in more data on these nudie girls (if you can call tiny paragraph bios "data") but please have a little respect for the legitimate film stars and their legacies and don't be so sexist as if to suggest they have nothing more to offer than the visual appeal of a men's magazine model.

My first reaction when opening this book was a Groan. Few Color pictures, with most pictures small and in B&W. After the second and third time, however, I realized that this book was a bit of a gem. The women in this book range from 40's pinup girls to 90's supermodels. While the pictures are small, this just allows for more women! Also, I found it fascinating seeing women from the 60's and 70's that I had forgotten, as well as discussing with friends how they would have rated these women any different from the author! If you are looking for a book with glossy color photos, this is not for you. However if you are looking for a comprehensive guide to most of the beautiful women from the last sixty years, with pictures and bio's, pick this up. Let it grow on you. It can be fun!

This is a very, very fun book with which to while away a rainy Saturday afternoon. But 500 glamour girls, with a photo and bio each (photo larger and bio longer) would have made for a better book. And if you think this book has an ugly cover, check out the author's tome called BOMBSHELLS!

I loved this book! I've been collecting books on movies, popular entertainment, glamour and pin-ups for many years, and I'd always been a bit frustrated that none of these books really covered the full range of beautiful women who made contributions to our pop culture. That huge gap has at last been filled--with style and beauty--by "Glamour Girls: The Illustrated Encyclopedia."

All the obvious names--Monroe, Mansfield, Jean Harlow, Raquel Welch, Kim Basinger, Sharon Stone, Tyra Banks--are of course covered with brisk, informative biographies and striking photos. But perhaps half of the 1,700-plus women in this amazing book are exactly the kind of gorgeous, intriguing women who had NEVER been included in any previous movie or entertainment reference book. That fact alone makes this book a must-have for any serious fan.

For example, I'd vaguely recalled seeing photos in Life magazine in the '50s of a beautiful blonde starlet who drove all over Hollywood in a crazy convertible covered in pink rugging. That starlet was Sandra Giles, who (I learn in this book) appeared in films with Elvis and Raquel Welch and had an interesting, colorful career. There's also a terrific photo, and an address to write to her. A blonde bombshell of more recent vintage, Heather Elizabeth Parkhurst, co-starred in the sexy Showtime series "Sherman Oaks" a couple of years ago; here I learn about her other movie/TV credits and magazine appearances, along with her fan-mail address and a sizzling photo. Just about every page has something--either a piece of trivia, anecdote, or photo--that will "grab" just about any reader.

Author Steve Sullivan has really created something special here. This is the ultimate reference book for any fan of glamorous gals past and present.

Glamour girls, to me, are women who have been in the spotlight, admired by men, and have had their faces and bodies plastered all over the print media. This book, however, has far too many no-name Playboy centerfolds and far too few of today's REAL glamour girls like Cindy Margolis (way too far down the list for me), Brooke Burke (absent!) and Laeticia Casta.