Celebrate the sexy sirens and distressed damsels of a cinematic institution, in the lavish new coffee table tome from Titan, HAMMER GLAMOUR [25 September 2009, £24.99]!
Over fifty years ago, with the release of The Curse of Frankenstein and Christopher Lee’s iconic performance in Dracula, Hammer ushered in a whole new era of horror, with blood and barely-restrained cleavage in glorious colour. Mixing sex and horror with a style and panache that made the small British company world famous and inspired a generation of Hollywood filmmakers including George Lucas, Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton, Hammer’s cast of gorgeous women were the crowning glory to any release.
Authorised by Hammer and written by expert Hammer historian Marcus Hearn (The Hammer Story), this sumptuous hardback is bursting at the seams with rare and previously unpublished photographs, meticulously gathered from Hammer’s archive and private collections all around the globe. Also featuring many new interviews, this is a lavish, full-colour, all-encompassing celebration of Hammer’s female stars, including Ingrid Pitt, Martine Beswick, Caroline Munro, Barbara Shelley, Joanna Lumley, Nastassja Kinski, and of course Raquel Welch (who can forget her fur bikini in One Million Years B. C.?).
“A fabulous read… could well be the bible of British horror.”
– Empire on Marcus Hearn’s The Hammer Story
Marcus Hearn has worked with Hammer Film Productions since 1994, initially as the editor of its official magazine and latterly as a rights and archive consultant. With Alan Barnes, he wrote The Hammer Story, the authorised history of the company.
Formerly an editor at Marvel Comics, EMAP and Titan, Marcus has written for The Guardian, The Independent and SFX, as well as contributing to more than 50 DVDs. His other books include authorized biographies of filmmakers George Lucas and Gerry Anderson, the Sunday Times bestseller Star Wars: Attack of the Clones – The Illustrated Companion and Eight Days a Week, the story of The Beatles’ final world tour.
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HAMMER GLAMOUR
Marcus Hearn
25 September 2009
Hardback • £24.99 • 160pp • ISBN: 9781848562295
TITAN BOOKS
www.titanbooks.com
TITAN BOOKS IS A DIVISION OF TITAN PUBLISHING GROUP LTD.
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HAMMER GLAMOUR FACTS
Hammer promoted Ursula Andress as ‘The World’s Most Beautiful Woman’.
Before she was the very first Bond girl in Dr. No, Eunice Gayson starred in the Hammer horror The Revenge of Frankenstein . Goldfinger’s Bond Girl, Shirley Eaton, had also appeared for Hammer, in the comedies Further Up the Creek and A Weekend With Lulu.
Jenny Hanley, the star of Scars of Dracula , later went on to present the children’s series Magpie and is now a DJ.
Girls were often paid extra, in cash, to take their clothes off for certain scenes which only appeared in alternative versions of films distributed in Europe and the Far East.
Barbara Ewing, who starred in Dracula Has Risen From the Grave , is now a bestselling novelist.
Several Hammer Glamour starlets had difficulty coping when their careers declined: Susan Denberg (Frankenstein Created Woman) was committed to an asylum, Barbara Payton (Four Sided Triangle) became a prostitute and died of alcohol addiction, Carol White (Slave Girls) similarly died tragically young and Eunice Gayson was arrested for shoplifting.
Joanna Lumley received one of her first breaks in The Satanic Rites of Dracula , during which she began a lifelong friendship with its star Peter Cushing.
One of Hammer’s top pin up girls was Janette Scott – the daughter of Thora Hird. Janette recently made a film comeback in the Simon Pegg comedy How To Lose Friends and Alienate People .
Stephanie Beacham, who starred in Dracula A.D.1972 , subsequently joined the cast of Dynasty and is now in Coronation Street.
Hammer often cast their films from the pages of Playboy magazine. Mary and Madeleine Collinson were cast in Twins of Evil because they had been Playboy’s first twin centrefolds.
Jacqueline Pearce, who starred in The Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile, later played the villainous Servalan in cult sci-fi show Blake’s 7 . She now lives and works in a monkey sanctuary in Africa.
