Prints Charming Sunday: Leave It To Barbara

Welcome to Prints Charming Sunday!





I thought today's post should be done in honor of Barbara Billingsley, who I'm sure you all remember for her role as repressed housewife June Cleaver on the 1950's-'60s tv show Leave it to Beaver. R.I.P, Miss B. We'll miss you!

Barbara's fashion style on Leave it to Beaver was upper middle class, but not flashy or too "money" (she was "just" a housewife and mom, after all). She rocked smart, matching shirtdress and cardigan sets and the ubiquitous (and now cliche) pearls like nobody's business!





It wasn't an easy feat to find a classic shirtdress with a novelty print that wasn't *too* nutty or over the top for today's post, as her character never would've worn anything too bold, but I think I found just the thing (and how much it resembles her dress in the pic above is kinda cool), this Vintage 50's Butterfly and Pocket Watch Novelty Print Dress, available on Etsy from seller Our Tea Party, for a mere 40 bucks!:




I admit I never knew too much about Miss B and her acting career outside of Leave it to Beaver, though I recall her small but WAY sassy bit part on an episode of the tv show Roseanne in the '90s. But my favorite is, of course, her *ingenious* role as the jive talkin' old white broad on Airplane! ("Stewardess, I speak jive."). She was ahead of her time in those unexpected comedic roles, long before Betty White became, well, Betty White. And so I leave you with these final thoughts, immortalised by Miss Jive Talker herself: "Chump don' wan' no help, chump don' GET da help!"

O Captain! My Captain...Lou!

As most of you have heard, 80's wrestling kitsch sensation, Captain Lou Albano passed away yesterday at the age of 76. His wrestling career started in the 50's, gained momentum in the 60's as part of a tag team called "The Sicilians", rockin' the Italian cliches as their schtick (awesome), and by the 80's he was known as "Captain Lou Albano". Plus, he rocked a Hawaiian shirt like nobody's business!

Honestly, I don't even like wrestling, whether real or that fake WWF stuff. But I will remember him in the only way I know how: from his Cyndi Lauper days. I have sparse memories of him from the 80's, when I was a wee lass. But I recall his guest appearance in Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun video, playing her uptight father. I guess their bond was very tight and very real, because there used to be a rumor going around that they were really father and daughter. (Not true, of course.) Fact-o-rama: that video won the first ever award for Best Female Video at the 1984 Video Music Awards on MTV.

Captain Lou also appeared in Cyndi's video for The Goonies "R" Good Enough--I didn't know there was a video for the song until I bought the dvd of The Goonies movie. There's an option on the dvd to play her video and I was all "say WHA?". It's incredibly cheesy- terrible, even- but in a good way. I couldn't find any decent stills, so here's the video, chock full of crappy acting, kickass vintage clothing from the 50's & 60's, and of course, Captain Lou:




And from their very sweet photo shoot for Life magazine, September 1984:

Some Kind Of Wonderful

Sigh, again with the bad news.

Early today, 80's teen flick phenom John Hughes died at the age of 59. You might, nay, you better know him as the writer/director/producer of freaking classics like Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, the Breakfast Club, Nation Lampoon's Vacation, Ferris Bueller's Day Off...and about a jillion other movies that cheesehead dorks like me quote on pretty much a daily basis. His absence will, without a doubt, leave a big ol' void in the cinematic world that will be impossible to fill. We will miss you, John.

..."You're going the wrong way!!!"...