The Lively Set reviews Swingin' Chicks of the '60s


	Sharyn Peacocke reviews SWINGIN' CHICKS OF THE '60s a tribute to 101 of the decade's defining women

"Angela Cartwright made me write this book," explains Chris Strodder in his Introduction to Swingin' Chicks of the '60s. "I started to think back to the energetic, bright, eternally youthful girls I had admired so long ago. I wondered whatever happened to Becky, the first neighborhood girl I ever noticed. I assumed she had been living in a convent lo these many years, disheartened because I’d never followed up on the one kiss I lightly touched to her cheek back in 1967. While Becky wasn’t findable, Angela Cartwright certainly was."

And so were more than 100 other chicks from the grooviest decade of them all. This colorful theme-matched book and calendar, both of which emanated from a website of the same name, profiles ‘60s chicks as diverse as beach teen Donna Loren, Bond girl Daniela Bianchi and sex author Helen Gurley Brown.

"I wrote it to celebrate those glorious, sometimes goofy, sometimes profound times,” says Chris, “and to help preserve the memory of the decade’s wonderful women."

And he has succeeded! Swingin' Chicks of the '60s has been lovingly and meticulously compiled by a talented writer whose style is witty, hip and immensely readable. Divided into 13 segments - including The Beach Girls, The Elvis Girls! Girls! Girls!, The Songbirds, The Movie Stars, The TV Stars and The Look - it manages to combine coffee-table charm with a curl-up-in-bed-and-readme kind of appeal that makes it a winner on all fronts.

Colors synonymous with the '60s - pink, lime, orange, purple - have been used to delineate the book’s various segments, and every page, whether featuring a chick as 'now' as Sally Field or as 'then' as Sharon Tate, is a visual fruit salad.

Happily, the book’s printing and binding have received no less attention than the savvy text, the fab photos and the funky design. Produced on low-sheen art paper and bounded by a cleverly constructed full-color laminate softcover, the book is section sewn, ensuring that its 204 pages survive the most enthusiastic and frequent thumbings.

As if that’s not enough, there’s a ring-a-ding-ding 2001 calendar to match! Produced in the same groovy color-scheme as its companion, the calendar features pix from the book, many of them enlarged for optimum impact. January: Deborah Walley fishing off a wharf in print bikini and (what else?) white boots. April: Stella Stevens perched leggily on a satin ottoman wearing a bathrobe and fluffy stilettos. September: Julie Newmar in catsuit-and-claws (with rope at the ready) leaning on a workbench. And December: Mamie Van Doren wearing ... well, gosh, little more than flowers in her hair and lots of lipstick!

Text abstracts accompany the photographs, and each date-square contains a fascinating reference to the corresponding day in history. ("June 17, 1967 - It's the second night of the legendary Monterey Pop Festival, the three-day concert that brings Janis Joplin, the Who, and Jimi Hendrix to prominence in the U.S.")

Overall, Swingin' Chicks of the '60s is a pretty groovy package, and one I’m delighted to own. For those ‘60s swingers among us, it’s a trip back in time; but given the emphasis on retro these days, it is also fashionably chic and very 21st Century cool. No prizes for guessing what this ‘60s chick is giving her swingin' friends for Christmas!

Details:

Swingin' Chicks of the Sixties, by Chris Strodder, with foreword by Angie Dickinson, published by Cedco Publishing Company; 9 x 9 softcover book; 12 x 12 wall calendar.

Reviews cover page

or use the links below to navigate the site