By Steve Biodrowski

Posted from www.cinefantastique.com

Another Queen has screamed her final scream. Hazel Court, who starred in two of the greatest horror films ever made, died yesterday at the age of 82. The cause of death was not mentioned in the initial announcement, which was made here on the Classic Horror Film Board. Court’s contribution to the horror genre was small but significant. Although most of her credits were in episodic television (including a TWILIGHT ZONE episode titled “The Fear”), she also appeared in over half a dozen horror films, including GHOST SHIP (1952), DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS (1954), and DR. BLOOD’S COFFIN (1961). Moving back and forth across the Atlantic, she appeared in two productions for England’s Hammer Films, CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) and THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH (1959), and in three for American International Pictures, THE PREMATURE BURIAL (1962), THE RAVEN (1963), and MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964).

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By Dan Scapperotti
When director James Ryan was casting Bachelor Party 2: The Last Temptation for Fox Home Entertainment he knew he would need beautiful women. Lots of beautiful women. One set piece called for a group of strippers to get into a brawl over the central character who is being set up by his scheming would be brother-in-law. Enter Arianna Coltellacci.
Born in Italy, the actress moved with her family to her mother’s native Venezuela when she was eight years old. After studying journalism and geography in school, Coltellacci got a job as a creator-writer with a marketing firm doing commercials and publicity. On one shoot, [Read more…]

By Dan Scapperotti

Well it wasn’t the face that launched a thousand ships exactly, but the face and body of this gorgeous blonde certainly had their effect on young males during the Fifties. In her short career, Mamie Van Doren left her mark on sex and rock and roll in such films as Untamed Youth, High School Confidential and Running Wild. She and fellow blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield were the first American mainstream actresses to appear nude on screen. Australian author Barry Lowe recounts Van Doren’s cinematic adventures in Atomic Blonde: The Films of Mamie Van Doren (McFarland & Company).
“A friend introduced me to Mamie’s movies in the early ’70s when [Read more…]

By Dan Scapperotti

After winning the Miss Germany International title in 2002, Eva Derrek picked up stakes and moved to Los Angeles where she easily found swimwear and lingerie modeling assignments for such firms as Wicked Weasel Bikinis. She can be found on websites like surfillustrated.com and in the pages of such magazines as FHM and Krown. Although she had taken acting classes in Germany as a teenager, Derrek wasn’t focused on a movie career, especially one where she would face off against wicked wizards, werewolves and vampires. But when she arrived in the City of the Angels she decided to continue her acting classes. With an aptitude for languages–she speaks several–Derrek was able to mask her Teutonic origins. [Read more…]

Here at Femme Fatales, we love all the exposure we can get. That’s why we want to thank Vanity Fair for continuing the “Fresh Faces” tradition we started, oh, four years ago. As dedicated Femme readers will remember, our latest winner was Russian import turned Deal or No Deal box gal Miss Anya Monzikova.

Heck, they even included Jessica Biel, our cover from December 03! At Femme, we’ve always prided ourselves in finding and exposing new faces that we feel the world should get to know, and it’s always nice to see that other magazines feel the smae way. So to Vanity Fair, we just wanted to say, “thanks for joining the freshest club in town!”

By Dan Scapperotti

Strippers, you gotta love ‘em. Ever since Salome did that little shimmy for the head of John the Baptist, women have learned that doing a little peeling can harvest some nice rewards. Bunny Yeager, glamour photographer extraordinaire, who introduced the luscious Betty Page to Playboy, has compiled a treasure trove of her photos of exotic dancers who tread the stages of nightclubs and burlesque houses in the Fifties in her 160 page book, Striptease Artists of the 1950s (Shiffer Books).
A gorgeous woman who could rival any of her subjects, Yeager freely admits that pictures of strippers didn’t sell well to the men’s magazines of the time. They were more interested in the girl next door type. Since this volume features only women she [Read more…]

Cassandra Hepburn may be on our cover, but if you take a look inside, you’ll find Femme favorite Shannyn Sossamon taking a moment from her busy schedule to chat with us. Why do we like her so much? Maybe it’s her dark side that she so embraces.

“Why do I go for dark material,” she wonders. “Is it because I have dark eyes and dark hair? I never really analyzed it, but I definitely like dark material. I would love to do everything, but I do seem to have a goth sensibility. I never called myself a goth girl, but I do seem to have an affinity for that.”

What’s next for our dark beauty? She is currently working on two movies, The Heavy and Life is Hot in Cracktown, as well as starring as the vampire “Coraline” in Moonlight.

Going to the movies this weekend? If you do, keep an eye out for Femme model Erin Cummings as “Sally” in Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins. And take a look at this picture. Your welcome.

When Femme photographer Isabelle Ruen shot Anais Collignon in Paris, we told her, “make sure people know you’re in Paris!” Boy did she deliver. Femme Fatales presents “Rooftop Serenade”, a six page spread featuring FHM’s “World Cup of Lingerie” winner Anais Collignon. As you probably guessed (you genius you!), it’s shot on a rooftop in Paris. What you didn’t guess is the elegant addition of poet Paul Verlaine’s “Art Poetique” to set just the right mood. Now available in our February issue!

By Dan Scapperotti

Hey, what could be better than a werewolf movie? Well, yeah a girls behind bars flick. How about both? Writer-director Jeff Leroy has combined genres in Werewolf in a Women’s Prison. Victoria de Mare stars as Sarah Ragdale, a young woman on vacation with her boyfriend Jack in the mythical South American country Canpuna. Suddenly they are attacked by a werewolf with blazing red eyes. Jack is killed and Sarah bitten by the beast. She wakes up in a prison for the criminally insane and learns that she has been accused of killing Jack. And then her problems really begin.
“She tries to survive her worst nightmare of torture and degradation while trying to convince them to let her out,” says de Mare who was a professional ballet dancer in New York before turning to acting. She relocated to Los Angeles when she auditioned for a role in a horror film. She didn’t get it, but decided to stay. She helped pay the bills with lingerie and swimsuit modeling assignments.
Sarah not only has to fend off the lecherous warden, his mistress and her cellmates but discovers that the bite cursed her with lycanthropy. In an homage to American Werewolf in London, Jack’s ghost appears to Sarah telling her of the curse and advising her to kill herself. [Read more…]