Teen idol fever! Do you have it? Did you ever? Curious, I roamed around and asked some of my female coworkers this very question, and also asked if they had ever subscribed to
16 or
Tiger Beat. The results were predictable: some just were never into it, while several claimed, disingenuously, that "Well, I didn't have any teen mags, but my sister/cousin/friend had lots of them." C'mon, ladies, fess up! My favorite response was from our curator of French paintings, who enthusiastically gushed, "Oh, yes! I looooooved Leif Garrett!" Others expressed their preferences: David Cassidy (obv), the Dave Clark Five (older staff member!), the Monkees, etc. One even thrilled me by saying she had a crush on Jack Wild! When she said, "I wonder whatever happened to him?" I quickly changed the subject, hoping she wouldn't Google him later. Depressing! Anyway, let's continue with this fab ish of 16. First up, OMG, Osmond's Funtime Clubhouse! Thrill at the wonder of it all as the Osmonds criss-cross the globe with their terrible, dreary, Vegasy cabaret act:
Click any page for dreamy biggerness IF you can handle it.
Jackson time! What do they carry in their pockets? Wouldn't you like to know? Now you can:
Hmmm... are you dissatisfied yet? Yeah, me too. Jermaine has a
rock collection? Sorry, I'm not buying it. I kept hoping that one of them would claim to have a whole roll of quarters in their pocket, but no luck. Below, right, Michael coquettishly asks, "Want to know all of my bad, black and beautiful secrets – and find out what my brothers are hiding too?" YES MICHAEL, VERY MUCH:
This issue's microgossip column features Susan Dey and a whole bunch of people you've never heard of. The movie Susan's in is the ultra-campy
Skyjacked, which I definitely recommend for fans of bad Charlton Heston movies. Mark Gruner never amounted to much in the entertainment industry, but
Kris Tabori (Invasion of the Body Snatchers director Don Siegel's son) ended up as a busy character actor and TV director. Once again, Wes Stern makes an appearance, mortifyingly described as acting in McDonald's commercials:
Up next is just about the saddest thing I've ever seen in one of these teen mags, an article about the death by suicide of heartthrob Pete Duel. If you're not familiar with him, rest assured that
plenty of people still carry a torch for the tragic actor:
I'm surprised by the relative lack of Brady Bunch stuff in this magazine. I suspect it was a studio thing, in that
16 seemed to have a relationship with Columbia Pictures, but perhaps not with Paramount. They were all over
Tiger Beat, so maybe that's why Gloria Stavers shunned them. In any event, the light Brady coverage is more than made up for below, with the lyrics to their most awesome song,
Time to Change:
OK, look, the spread below is where the exciting Osmonds/Jacksons poster is stapled in. I considered posting it here, but the effort in scanning it piecemeal and laboriously stitching it together just isn't worth it. So enjoy the cartoon below where the girl doesn't realize that the boy likes her not because she loves dogs, but because she's tied up:
I bet you got excited about the whole "Osmond wedding" thing teased on the cover, didn't you? Sadly, it's one of the dud Osmonds, Tommy. The only somewhat funny thing is when Lyn Osmond talks about how marriage is forever to Mormons... one spouse for life! Later, of course, they divorced:
The boring wedding saga continues. She talks about how she wants to have "ten little Osmonds," but she only ended up having five (underachiever). On the right, I love the utterly psychotic drawing of Donny:
Susan Dey! With advice for you! Basically, Susan would like you to stop constantly picking and scratching and biting yourself:
TV and movie gossip about flop shows that nobody over 14 watched are up next. OK, let's hit IMDB and find out if any of these people made good.
Brandon Cruz was the kid on The Courtship of Eddie's Father and was later a member of the Dead Kennedys (!!) Sam Austin is a total mystery; he doesn't seem to be any of the Sam Austins on IMDB. Barry Evans seemed to have a decent career on UK television. Elsewhere we've got young Jan-Michael Vincent and Vincent Van Patten, both constantly busy as ever. Adorable Philip Frame's acting activities, however, seem to have stopped the moment this column was published:
Whew! This teen idolizing is exhausting! Coming up next in part three, the rest of the magazine, includin, would you believe, more David Cassidy, a special focus piece on Marlon Osmond (what's he REALLY like?), and Bonanza's annoying orphan, Mitch Vogel, on the Dating Game. Dreamy!
Part one is
here.
9 comments:
Jeez, I had adolescent homo crushes on both Kris Tabori AND Peter Duel. Why did you have to bring back the pain?
I swear to Dog, I had both the Osmond and J5 posters on my wall back then. Tanks for the mammaries!
Bobby Sherman was my heart throb. He's in a photo on one of the pages you show. I never subscribed to Tiger Beat, but would buy it when I saw it in a store and had enough money. I recall, embarassingly enough, having written a letter to the magazine, as well.
The photo of Michael Jackson makes me sad. He was such a cute kid and had a great voice.
I followed the plan to become Leif Garrett's girlfriend by writing a fan letter to him. But I would stand out- I scribbled IMPORTANT! and drew red hearts all over the envelope. How could he resist? I secretly dropped it in the neighborhood mailbox and waited for his response. That day finally came when my mother(trying not to smirk) told me I had mail. I found my letter on the hallway table stamped Return to Sender and Addressee not Found angrily all over it. I was mortified and your teen mag posts are giving me flashbacks. At least now I know the name of the awful woman who ruined my chance by providing the wrong address.
Yeah, I just googled Jack Wild, and depressing is right! Both vocal cords!
They are the legends.
That illustration of Donny just needs the grin wiped off and a single, poignant tear shedding at the corner of his eye, and it has the makings of another PSP topic of interest.
I'd forgotten who Jan-Michael Vincent was (I totally confused him with Paul Michael Glaser, which is pretty messed up). I think I'd forgotten about him because every 60's/70's picture I see of him makes it look like he just walked off the set of a Matt Sterling film (hint: do not google Matt Sterling at work). And that was totally my type when I was a closeted 13 year old.
His more recent pictures (he's 66) look like he'd been doing mezcal shots with Mickey Rourke (which he possibly might have been doing, according to his bio). They should make a movie together called Puffy Old Lechers. I predict this would totally be a hit, and ideally eradicate the fly-in-amber memory my female peers have of Rourke in 91/2 Weeks.
Wow thanks for the guided tour down memory lane.
I ran into this old video of the Osmonds a few months ago and was spellbound on many different levels.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiNnDpIW918
Was Stern--I've spent many restless nights wondering whatever happened to him. I checked Wikipedia and there was NOTHING! FAIL
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