In the last installment of the Femme Fatales feature we
talked about the Golden Age of the British pin-up. Well, one of Britain's
best exports was June Wilkinson, who came over to the states
in 1957 when she was a mere 17 years old. She quickly became a sensation,
and still is one of the most recognizable models from the 1950's and 1960's.
She was given the nickname "the bosom" by Playboy founder
Hugh
Hefner for obvious reasons. In fact, most pictorials of Wilkinson
feature her in her most common motif of falling out of whatever top she
has on. Beyond her career as a pin-up, Wilkinson
also had
acting success in the stage play "Pajama Tops" and a long stint as part
of the group Spike Jones and His City Slickers. She even
made a cameo in Russ Meyer's early masterpiece The
Immoral Mr. Teas as the faceless, bare-breasted woman in the
window. She, like many other glamour models, fell into a series of B-grade
movies in the late '60s and 70's. She is now enjoying her cult status as
one of the queens of the pin-up.
Read more about Wilkinson in
this essay from 1959 called "JuneWilkinson Goes
To A Party."
Read this modern-day
interview
Java's Bachelor Pad did with June.
|