The Pictures On My Wall (Part 2)
It's not easy being a teenage boy, especially when the hormones kick in and you start to realize that girls aren't, in fact, icky, but lovely creatures you want to get to know better. It's even worse when, like me, you're the only male living with two women which makes you more than usually coy and embarrassed about your natural masculine instincts. My mother could be a real piss-taker if she found out I fancied someone on the telly and I would only steal furtive glances at Page Three or Titbits for fear of being caught ogling some boobs or bottoms. So graduating from Bruce Lee to putting a woman on my bedroom wall was a big step, but I made it when I stuck up this poster of Marilyn Monroe over the foot of my bed.
But it wasn't because I really fancied Marilyn — though I wouldn't kick her out of bed if she farted — in the 1970s there was a lot of nostalgia for old Hollywood glamour (there was nostalgia for a lot of things in the 70s, a sign of how bad things were in the present) so it was almost compulsory to have a picture of her or Humphrey Bogart or James Dean on your wall — usually bought from Athena — though the fact that you can see right up her skirt must have influenced me as well. Dusky brunettes like Raquel Welch were more my cup of tea but I think the nostalgic element of Marilyn made her a "safer" choice, despite her obvious va-va-voom qualities in that picture being a vintage icon made her seem less raunchy and a little more innocent than Raquel Welch who was still a potent sex symbol in the 70s and posed for Playboy back then. Putting Marilyn on the wall was like sticking up the Mona Lisa, she was a classic, that Playboy I had to keep in my cupboard under a pile of comics.
Download: Dumb Blonde - Dolly Parton (mp3)
Download: I'm Ready To Groove - Raquel Welch (mp3)
Another sex symbol of the 1970s who didn't end up on my bedroom wall either was Farrah Fawcett-Majors (her name at the time which I still call her) whose now-iconic poster apparently sold 12 million copies which means I was about the only bloke in the world who didn't have her on his wall. That's because I just wasn't into that all-American, cheerleader type, all big blonde hair and big dazzling teeth. I also never put up that poster of a tennis player scratching her bum. Why on earth was that so popular back then?
5 Comments:
I had that same Marilyn poster but i did have a thing for blondes.
Incredible - I had the exact same poster at the foot of my bed too (above my record player)..
And also used pull-outs and pin-ups from Custom Car mag..but no, never FFM (but did have a bionic woman one)
I also had one of a Victorian train falling off the edge of something with the caption "Oh shit" and another with a large cartoonish cavewoman saying "Sod off" to a little one
I TOO had that poster on my wall. It was very popular it seems. It was lovely to just gaze at.
My very first 'sexy' poster was of Joanna Lumley as Purdey draped across the bonnet of a car. Lovely. It was something like this:
http://i.thisislondon.co.uk/i/pix/2009/05/old-joanna-415x275.jpg
But she was, er, draped across a car bonnet...
Other great ones I had:
... Johnny Rotten in a white dinner jacket and shades
... the blood MASSIVE free poster that came with The Pop Group's first album 'Y'.
... a great black and white one of Throbbing Gristle that came with '20 Jazz Funk Greats'.
Happy days!
The Marilyn poster I had was the famous black and white still from The Seven-Year Itch where the wind blows up her skirt.
It was next to a giant poster of the cover of the Flesh & Blood LP by Roxy Music.
memories.
That was a great sleeve. Designed by Peter Saville if I recall.
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