• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

What are the rarest romance comics?
32 32

6,421 posts in this topic

Dr. Love, if you (or anyone, for that matter) have a copy of Quality's Campus Loves 3, take a look at the indicia, and there's a great chance we'll learn the name of the Dimple Doll!

and a big :applause: to Duke for the GREAT detective work!!

 

Alice Amanda Kelly

born May 14, 1932 in Springfield, MO

died June 27, 2012 in Pasadena, CA. She is buried at Forest Lawn.

 

By age 12, she was already being noted in magazine photos as a striking beauty. She was a titled beauty queen, being named "Miss Junior Miss 1948".

 

How striking was she? Enough to be the subject for Alberto Vargas. This Watercolor on board, 20" x 16", was sold recently on Heritage in 2011 for $3,346. Anyone want to buy it? (just kidding...I'd never sell it...no really I'm kidding, I don't own it or even knew it existed until today!) lol

 

 

Vargas_Alicec100_zps3a79d339.jpg

 

As a model and actress, she used the name "Alice Ann Kelley" and was featured on numerous magazine covers. At 21, she married Ken Norris, then a lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He later inherited Norris Industries from his father and became a leading philanthropist in the Los Angeles area. Altogether, his family trust has contributed more than 70 million dollars to various causes. They had two sons together and were later divorced in 1973. He died in a boating accident at the age of 66 in 1996.

 

I'm going to start calling her Dollface Dimples.

...and you aren't the only one. On her profile page in Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen , it says that somewhere between 1948, when she was crowned Miss Junior America, and 1952, when she was awarded a long term contract by Warner Bros, she was " discovered by a talent scout, who is first attracted by her unusually deep and sparkling dimples".

 

Alice Ann is listed in imdb. Of her credits, the most illustrious role was that of Princess Patma in "Against All Flags", starring Erroll Flynn and Maureen O'Hara. You can see her in living color in this clip. She shows up at 1:30 in.

 

Apparently she made quite an impression on men, including but not limited to us comic nerds. Here is a moving tribute on her Forest Lawn obituary page:

 

"I had known Alice since we were 14 years old. We did some modeling together, even dated for while. When she married in 1953, I was in the Navy and my heart was "crushed." I have never forgotten how beautiful, sweet and kind she was. May her soul rest in peace...."

 

Aliceheadc100_zpsb0417921.jpg

 

Aliceobitc100_zps7c64a564.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Nice work Andy!

 

Ken

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Her and I have the same birthday. May 14th (different years of course).

 

We have another very memorable birthday coming up soon- June 1st. Marilyn Monroe. I always celebrate that day in my own, personal and affectionate way, which usually begins by collecting as many lilac blossoms as I can find and filling the house with them. :luhv: Fortunately, lilacs are almost always in bloom right about this time of the year. Then I typically watch a few of my favorite MM films, such as Bus Stop (1956), in which Marilyn plays an adorable, befuddled hillbilly gal with dreams of Hollywood, but is sidetracked against her will by a handsome but bull-headed cowboy (Don Murray) who's determined to marry her, even if it means tossing a lasso around her (which he does!) and dragging her off back to his ranch in Montana. Great film, one of Marilyn's best (and funniest) performances ever. But The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) is probably her best comedic performance, even in light of the fact that Some Like it Hot (1959) is the film that's generally hailed as an American comedy classic. In Some Like it Hot, Marilyn's role is really more of the straight character, while Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis provide the bulk of the laughs.

 

Anyway... (sigh).

 

I'm really surprised and impressed by how far we've come with our research into miss Alice Kelley! When I first put two of her comic covers together and suggested it might be the same gal, I had no idea it would turn into the enthusiastic, collective effort to discover who she is that it did. Great work, everyone. Miss Kelley may not have made the same impression on popular culture that Marilyn did, but no matter- she was no less beautiful, charming, adorable, special, one of a kind. Like Doohickamabob said, hopefully she'll be better remembered as the result of our efforts here, and it would be awesome if one day CGC will assign to their labels the designation, "Alice Kelley Cover".

 

That can be our next project.

 

 

DimpleDoll002_zpseeaf296e.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Like Doohickamabob said, hopefully she'll be better remembered as the result of our efforts here, and it would be awesome if one day CGC will assign to their labels the designation, "Alice Kelley Cover".

 

That can be our next project.

 

 

DimpleDoll002_zpseeaf296e.jpg

 

I love that idea! My impression is that CGC's default has been to follow Overstreet, who, of course, doesn't know Alice Kelley from Alice Cooper. Convincing Overstreet -- or CGC directly -- is probably going to be a tall order.

 

In our favor: Due to the diligent efforts of you folks, we now know that she was on a fair number of covers. Against us: Unfortunately, she is almost totally unknown to the comic collecting world (or the movie fan world).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For those interested, I've made a Photobucket album which contains all the Alice Kelley covers (the most likely ones) and images we've collected over the past week or so. Any new discoveries will be added faithfully.

 

Enjoy.

 

Alice Kelley Album

 

 

Awesome!

 

It's great!

 

Off the point, but I think Alice's last name is the first time I've seen "Kelley" spelled with two e's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Re: GCD or CGC designation as an "Alice Ann Kelley cover"

 

Except in the case of the book with her name in the indicia, the rest are just guesswork. Good guesswork, maybe, but still guesswork nonetheless.

 

Even though many on the forum are true experts in comic books, I haven't seen anyone here state that they're a professional facial recognition expert. (Anyone here work for the FBI?)

 

One of the most infallible ways to recognize someone is by their ears. Even identical twins have different ears. Here's the most recent study I could find, done in 2012: http://www.cosy.sbg.ac.at/~uhl/ear_survey.pdf

 

Unfortunately, most of the cover shots in question don't show the model's ears. Even when they do, you don't know for sure that what looks like the right ear is really the right ear, because as we've seen in at least one instance, the negative could have been flipped.

 

As much fun as it is to think that this thread could start an "Alice Ann Kelley cover" designation, the truth is, the only absolutely provable Alice Ann Kelley cover is the lone one with her name in it. Given the fact that there are so many examples of misattributed Matt Baker art listed on CGC headers, I doubt that they'd want to start a new designation that couldn't be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.

 

I'm a "never say die" kind of guy, so if someone wants to push for an "Alice Ann Kelley cover" designation, go for it...but I can see why GCD and/or CGC might not go along.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Those are some great points. The only thing I can think of is that we may be able to turn up an Alice Kelley image bank somewhere on the net. And if it includes the photos used on comic book covers... well, then we'd be set.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For those interested, I've made a Photobucket album which contains all the Alice Kelley covers (the most likely ones) and images we've collected over the past week or so. Any new discoveries will be added faithfully.

 

Enjoy.

 

Alice Kelley Album

 

 

While searching the net, I found about half a dozen more b&w studio photos of Miss Kelley, including a couple of sweet cheesecake shots.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Those are some great points. The only thing I can think of is that we may be able to turn up an Alice Kelley image bank somewhere on the net. And if it includes the photos used on comic book covers... well, then we'd be set.

 

True. Or if the photographers' archives turned up, showing exactly whose photos they placed with the various comic companies and which covers they were used on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Those are some great points. The only thing I can think of is that we may be able to turn up an Alice Kelley image bank somewhere on the net. And if it includes the photos used on comic book covers... well, then we'd be set.

 

True. Or if the photographers' archives turned up, showing exactly whose photos they placed with the various comic companies and which covers they were used on.

 

OK, then perhaps Dr. Love can help us out again. As I mentioned, re: Campus Loves 4 at the GCD site, the names of the photographer and the photo studio (or distributor, perhaps) were also given in the indicia. So...

 

Calling Doctor Love... Calling Doctor Love....

 

Can you please go back to your copy of Campus Loves 3 and find the names of the photographer and photo studio (or distributor)? We just want the names. We'll do the leg work, this time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Those are some great points. The only thing I can think of is that we may be able to turn up an Alice Kelley image bank somewhere on the net. And if it includes the photos used on comic book covers... well, then we'd be set.

 

True. Or if the photographers' archives turned up, showing exactly whose photos they placed with the various comic companies and which covers they were used on.

 

OK, then perhaps Dr. Love can help us out again. As I mentioned, re: Campus Loves 4 at the GCD site, the names of the photographer and the photo studio (or distributor, perhaps) were also given in the indicia. So...

 

Calling Doctor Love... Calling Doctor Love....

 

Can you please go back to your copy of Campus Loves 3 and find the names of the photographer and photo studio (or distributor)? We just want the names. We'll do the leg work, this time.

 

Shh! He's still sleeping! zzz

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Those are some great points. The only thing I can think of is that we may be able to turn up an Alice Kelley image bank somewhere on the net. And if it includes the photos used on comic book covers... well, then we'd be set.

 

True. Or if the photographers' archives turned up, showing exactly whose photos they placed with the various comic companies and which covers they were used on.

 

OK, then perhaps Dr. Love can help us out again. As I mentioned, re: Campus Loves 4 at the GCD site, the names of the photographer and the photo studio (or distributor, perhaps) were also given in the indicia. So...

 

Calling Doctor Love... Calling Doctor Love....

 

Can you please go back to your copy of Campus Loves 3 and find the names of the photographer and photo studio (or distributor)? We just want the names. We'll do the leg work, this time.

 

Shh! He's still sleeping! zzz

 

I'll bet he's been awake for hours, and, even though I told him we just wanted those names and that we would do the investigatin' this time, he's been working on it for hours.

:taptaptap:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry, Duke. My attention has been elsewhere.

 

by Carlyle Blackwell, Jr., Globe

 

OK, great! Thanks, Doc!

 

Unfortunately, Carlyle Blackwell Jr. died on September 20, 1974. So, attempting to contact him for information probably wouldn't be very productive.

 

His father was a popular film star, director, and producer, appearing in dozens of films between 1910 and 1930 (but only in two "talkies"!)

 

Carlyle Blackwell Jr. was also a film star, appearing in 42 films between 1933 and 1947, including Cleopatra (1934) with Claudette Colbert. He was also an avid race car driver. But photography became his real passion. In fact, he made many technical advances in the field that ultimately made possible the transition from b&w to color photography. He's perhaps most famous for his photos of Marilyn Monroe. But, we know he also photographed Alice Kelley.

 

Blackwell Jr. never achieved the same level of lasting fame that his father did. Based on the sparse info about him on the Internet, this could prove to be a matter of discovering and identifying his Alice Kelley work, one photo at a time, as opposed to the "image bank" I'd originally imagined.

 

While browsing an IMDb site, I found a very recent message board post from another individual investigating Carlyle Blackwell Jr. So I sent an e-mail. Perhaps this individual knows something I haven't been able to discover, yet.

 

The above represents only about an hour's efforts. I haven't even begun to look into "Globe" yet. (Photo agency? Media distributor? The Boston Globe?)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
32 32