At a time when beach party flicks were all the rage, teenage boys at drive-in theatres across North America eyed Gail Gerber, a Vancouver-raised B-movie starlet with blond hair and complementary curves, grace the silver screen in films like The Girls on the Beach and Beach Ball.
And in the mid-1960s, when Elvis Presley movies were coming out at a pace of three a year, teenage girls cringed with jealousy as they spotted her alongside “the King” in Girl Happy and Harum Scarum.
But it was shortly after those films when Gerber, who died Saturday at age 76 from lung cancer, left the movie business for author Terry Southern, known for writing Easy Rider and Dr. Strangelove, and entered one of the strangest chapters of her life.
Gerber, who sometimes went with the name Gilmore in her films, was born in Edmonton in 1937 and moved to Vancouver during the Second World War, according to Trippin’ with Terry Southern: What I Think I Remember, a memoir she wrote with author Tom Lisanti.
Cafe society and nightclubs were flourishing at the time, she recalled, and talented Vancouver dancers and actors were finding success in London and New York. So Gerber enrolled in ballet lessons at age seven. At age 15, she joined Les Grands ballets canadiens and moved to Montreal.
By the 1950s, Gerber was working as an actor, appearing on CBC programs, the Wayne and Schuster Show and The Ed Sullivan Show. A decade later she found her way to Hollywood, where gigs on shows including My Three Sons, Perry Mason, and Wagon Train led to her movie work.
It was while acting in of one of her last films, The Loved One, that she met Southern, who had written the movie’s screenplay.
“Terry fell madly in love with her on the set,” friend Kati Meister told The Sun.
The pair moved to New York, then Connecticut, where Gilmore began to teach ballet.
During her time with Southern, Gerber socialized with folks like Peter Sellers, Lenny Bruce, Jane Fonda, Allen Ginsberg William Burroughs, Ringo Starr and the Rolling Stones, according to friend Kati Meister.
“She’s had an amazing life,” said Meister, who knew Gerber for her last 16 years.
Gerber is survived by her stepfather Karl Dudda, a resident of Bowen Island, Meister said.
