Friday, Jun. 04, 1965

"It"-Up to Date

Actresses have always counted their physical charms as attributes, but how much of them they revealed has varied vastly with the times. In the forgotten '20s, bosoms were sometimes bared in flickering film orgies; in the '30s, Norma Shearer in the sheerest of slips was enough to make temperatures simmer. World War II G.I.s strained at the sight of Lana Turner in a sweater. Then came Marilyn Monroe's enamel-textured calendar shot and Brigitte Bardict's nudity-with-towel, and most barriers were down.

in the past 3 1/2 years, no fewer than 20 actresses with established reputations have appeared in various stages of undrape in various men's magazines, most notably Playboy. Among them: Carroll Baker, Jane Fonda, Carol Lynley, Elsa Martinelli, Shirley MacLaine, Kim Novak, Hike Sommer, Susan Strasberg, Liz Taylor and Susannah York. Some were in coy poses, some in semi-erotic, some had a phony "naughty-naughty" look in their eyes. The current Playboy shucks all that in favor of an actress whose view of nudity is that if it's classic, it's beautiful, even in Kodachrome. She is Ursula Andress, the girl who said yes in Dr. No. Why she also said yes to Playboy is no deep mystery. Though she says, "It's often sexier to keep your clothes on," and in fact refused to play a nude scene before the cameras, she cheerfully went along when United Artists paid her photographer husband, John Derek, half of his $15,000 fee to promote her next film, She. "Sex within bounds is part of show business," says Playboy's Hugh Hefner. "All that's happened is that nudity is now accepted as a legitimate expression of sex appeal."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.