Venus in handcuffs: Jane Birkin

We recently found these splendid pictures of Jane Birkin handcuffed to a bed and felt that they were worth posting.  Jane Mallory Birkin was born in Marylebone, London on 14th December 1946 but she was educated on Triple P's favourite place in Britain, the Isle of Wight.

From 1965 until 1968 she was married to James Bond composer John Barry but in 1968, following small parts in the films Blow-Up (1965)  and Wonderwall (1968) she auditioned for a role in the French film Slogan (1968). She won the lead role even though she didn't speak French.

Her co-star in Slogan was Serge Gainsbourg with whom she started a relationship that ended in 1980, although, she never really got over him and her grief at his death in 1991, effectively ended her subsequent relationship with film director Jacques Doillon.

These days Jane Birkin is much better known in her adopted home of France than in Great Britain. It could be argued that, outside France, she has never really been famous for anything other than being famous. Who, these days, has actually seen let alone enjoyed, her breakthrough film Blow-Up (1966): a now very dated period piece?

She has made quite a few films, mostly forgettable and, as a singer has recorded over twenty equally forgettable albums. No, her fame, for most people, is largely based on her rather dreadful performance in Serge Gainsbourg's self-indulgent and pretentious record Je t'aime... moi non plus.

Originally this, so-called, erotic single had been written by Gainsbourg for his then girlfriend Brigitte Bardot but after Bardot married Gunther Sachs she asked Gainsbourg not to release the version they recorded together.

Instead he recorded it with new girlfriend Jane Birkin, who had just split from John Barry. In fact Bardot's version is better and sexier than Birkin's but it was the Birkin version that was released, got itself banned in many countries and, therefore, whose success was assured.

Some of these pictures first appeared in Lui magazine (for whom she posed several times) in December 1974 but have also appeared in Oui.

Some year's later Birkin and Bardot shared a bed in Roger Vadim's film Don Juan (1973), which was famous mainly for being Bardot's last film.  In fact, the stills from the film are more famous and more effective than the rather dull and faintly bewildering production they came from.

Still, this is not to deny Birkin's gorgeousness in her prime as these pictures show. The combination of the iron bed, the stockings and the handcuffs is quite potent. Agent Triple P had a bed just like this for his first year in college and soon discovered that at least one young lady enjoyed being tied to it with the knotted rope that served as a fire escape from our rooms!

This particular girl liked to be tied up and locked in Triple P's rooms whilst he was sent off in search of chocolate. The trick was to keep the girl guessing as to how long it would be before he returned. Somwhere between twenty minutes and half an hour usually ensured the right amount of simmering time.

By Pompeo Posar for Playboy 1970

Once, we had tied her to the foot of the bed so that she was on our red lino floor rather than on the matress. Unfortunately, after acquiring the requisite chocolate we ran into an old school friend and his parents. They invited Triple P to tea and we didn't feel able to tell them that we couldn't go because we had a girl tied to our bed. By the time Triple P returned to his room, quite some time later, said girl had made a puddle on the lino. We didn't bother to untie her.

These pictures, with the simple black background, are by Pompeo Posar and come from an earlier set which appeared in Playboy in November 1970.

Splendid!

American Venus: Helen Antonaccio

Helen in 1969 age 20

From forty years ago we bring you the superbly sculpted Helen Antonaccio, Playboy's Miss June 1969. Pocket sized Helen (5'3" and 35.5-24-34) was a Bunny girl in Playboy's New York club before being selected as Playmate of the Month.

Helen in 2006 age 56 (really!)

Amazingly, at the age of sixty, she is stil doing nude modelling and recently published a book entitled "What's Your Secret?" How one centerfold stayed alluring and fit past 50. Whatever the secret is, it clearly works!

Venus passing: Melodye Prentiss 1944-2009

Melodye Prentiss photographed by Pompeo Posar

Agent Triple P was sad to learn of the recent tragic death of Melodye Prentiss, Playboy Playmate of the Month for July 1968. She featured in one of our Pubic Wars postings as one of the first girls to flash their fur in the magazine's centrefold.

Pompeo and Melodye review her pictures

Born Melodye Panchesin in Chicago on December 14th, 1944 she studied fine art and painting at the University of Chicago and the Chicago Academy of fine arts. She was working as a part time researcher in the Playboy editorial library whilst at art school when she was asked to pose by photographer Pompeo Posar who ran into her in the lift of the Playboy building. A handy 5'5" tall and a trim 34-23-34 there weren't many Playmates when asked to list someone they admire who would have named Frank Lloyd Wright.

More recently she had a knee injury that required medication and latterly she was also prescribed more medication for a seperate chronic illness. The medicines reacted badly with each other and she was rushed to hospital with breathing problems. Unfortunately the idiots in the hospital connected her to an empty oxygen tank and she asphyxiated. A sad end for a lovely girl. Here she is in all her glory.

Melodye a couple of years ago

Centrefold Venus of the Month: Joelle Corio, Penthouse October/November 1966

Due to a request from a reader (we're frankly amazed that there are any at all!) we present all of the  pictures of Mlle Joelle Dorio from Penthouse from 1966.

This was the fourteenth issue of Penthouse and was labelled October/November.  As the magazine was launched in march 1965 this should have been the twentieth issue but Guccione was struggling to get an issue out a a month at this point.

They had been having  problems with printing enough copies, due to the high demand for the new magazine. Penthouse wouldn't manage 12 issues in a year until 1968.

These pictures were taken in Corsica by Philip O Stearns, the magazine's art director. Although this was the fourteenth issue Joelle was only the thirteenth Penthouse Pet as the first Pet of the Year, Amber Smith, had also been Pet in September 1966 as well as her original pictorial in October 1965. In the first year the Pet of the Year replaced the Pet of the Month and wasn't in addition to her as in later years.

This was the first time Penthouse had shot a pictorial abroad. The magazine must have been making money! This picture is also  the first time a Penthouse Pet had been photographed in water!

Joelle was from Brittany and was nineteen when these pictures were taken. Rather depressing to think that she would be over sixty now!

There was lots of nonsense about this being her horse and it being called l'Aiglon (eaglet) which was a nickname of Napoleon's son.  All too much Corsican coincidence, we feel.  Never mind, there's nothing like a naked French girl astride a stallion.

Here is Joelle displaying the sort of extreme tan lines that Agent DVD likes so much.

This is a nice painterly photograph!

It's really nice to see a Penthouse Pet outside somewhere obviously warm instead of the waterfall at Virginia Water or Richmond Park as they had inflicted on the poor girls previously!

A nice smile to finish!

We never expected to find any more pictures of Joelle as most of Penthouse's early Pets were amateurs and never posed again.  In fact, early on, they could only be Pet of the Month if they hadn't posed for another men's magazine.  But here, in Men Only from July 1967 we have another centrefold pictorial featuring the lovely Joelle.

Now the Penthouse pictorial was shot in Corsica and claimed Joelle was of Breton stock.  The Men Only pictorial says she is from Corsica but now lives in Paris where she works as a model and actress.  Both could be correct, of course.  

Anyway, here she is skipping about in fishnet tights and a mini dress and acting as a distraction to artists.

Here she is looking pensively Gallic inside.  These pictures were taken by the great French photographer Serge Jacques of Paris-Hollywood magazine fame.  He also took some famous shots of a young Brigitte Bardot at the Cannes film festival.

Amazingly Jacques is still taking pictures of beautiful, naked women having worked for just about every major men's magazine and having been working for six decades.

Jacques manages to get some lovely smiles out of Joelle and here she is just the sort of fantasy French woman you would want to see having a cup of coffee in your apartment in the morning.

Men Only's centrefold girls were all shown in black and white, apart from the centrefold shot itself at this time.  Penthouse had gone full colour a year before and, indeed, Joelle's Pet of the Month pictorial was only the third all-colour one.

So here she is in her lovely colour centrefold shot displaying her 38-25-36 figure to splendid effect.