The Old Batchelor, ca. 1865

More impressive than this cat drinking half a bottle of gin, is that he managed to get that cork back in the bottle.

(Photo by Henry Pointer, via Getty Images)

30 Vintage Photos of Mrs. Gertrude Shilling Wearing Eccentric Giant Hats for Years at Royal Ascot Racing Events

Considered now to be one of the greatest milliners and hat-makers in the world, the hats David Shilling designed for his mother Gertrude to be worn at Royal Ascot in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were anywhere from over the top, to avant-garde, to just plain insane!

For 30 years, until she was well into her 80s, Gertrude Shilling appeared at showy events in towering creations that took imagination to design and construct, and a very determined sort of cheek to wear. There was the five-foot tall giraffe design that she pioneered in the 1970s, a three-foot wide daisy hat – with a stalk embroidered down the back of her coat – and a massive concoction of an apple with a four-foot arrow pierced through it.

Gertrude Shilling was made for exaggeration. Born (March 3, 1910) and educated in St John’s Wood, London, she was one of the nine children of businessman Louis Silberston and his wife Phoebe. Her grandfather had been an alderman of the City of London, and most of the family were members of the Gold and Silver Wyre Drawers, a City craft guilds.

Gertrude married Ronald Shilling, who was something in the rag trade, and with whom she had David, her only son. The family lived in London’s west end, and socialized at places like the races at Deauville.

Gertrude encouraged her son’s design sense. He was 12 when he first designed a hat for her – she wore it to Ascot in 1966, stunned the staid folk in the enclosure and made the front page of the evening papers. It was the beginning of more than 30 years of Ascot outings for the mother-and-son partnership.

“I was at St Paul’s,” said David Shilling. “And art was really not on the agenda there. My mother allowed me to indulge my creative side by designing outfits for her. The outfits I made for my mother were really theatre rather than fashion. The early ones were quite extraordinary, three and four feet high, the product of a child’s imagination.

“My mother’s outfits were outrageous, but as I got older they became more glamorous and that really sowed the seeds for this revolution. It is exciting that women have the freedom now to dress how they want.”

Gertrude Shilling was often congratulated on her slender figure but she had had to struggle hard for it. As an 18-year-old debutante, she weighed 14 stone and hated being photographed. At her coming-out dance she wore a silver and white dress and described herself as looking like “an oversized fairy queen.”

The following year, she vowed to lose weight in time for a Cote d’Azur party, with the Prince of Wales and Noel Coward among the guests. In five months she lost four and a half stone. A young man, who had not seriously noticed her before, told her she looked gorgeous. To celebrate, she treated herself to a white swim suit, with stripes of red and blue stripes, at Debenham and Freebody in Wigmore Street; a matching cap made her look a little like a French revolutionary.

Gertrude was first diagnosed with breast cancer in the 1960s, but did not let it impede her appearances at Ascot. She was later the first woman to have a breast implant in Britain. She worked for charity, entertained the elderly and kept her hats in a special warehouse near in home. When all was said and worn, she had chutzpah.

“She was great fun, incredibly energetic. A gay icon before the term was even thought of. She got cancer while I was still at school and then survived 35 years after diagnosis. Amazing. Having Royal Ascot to look forward to each year helped to prolong her life, giving her that goal of getting there.”

Gertrude Shilling died on October 13, 1999.

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There Was a 1920s Health Fad Playing Hockey in Swimsuits

Here, members of the Buffalo Snow Birds playing hockey in the winter time in their bathing suits to keep healthy and fit in New York, circa 1928.

Another photograph shows women in Minneapolis playing hockey in bathing suits, circa 1925.

Ice hockey came to the U.S. from Canada at the end of the 19th century. Women started playing immediately, forming their own clubs.

The rise of the sport came at a time when women were increasingly attending college, joining professions, and taking on wage work. With this came the controversial ideal of the “strenuous woman,” who should be strong and capable, rather than meek and frail like a model Victorian lady.

Vintage Photos of People Posing With Paper Moons in the Early 20th Century

Paper moons were particularly popular from the 1900s through to the 1930s, and especially in the United States, though examples exist from other countries, including Australia.

Paper moons were a feature of traveling fairs, as a photo booth where people would go to have their picture taken by a professional photographer, at a time when photography was not as accessible to everyday people.

The song “It’s Only a Paper Moon” was published in 1933 and the movie Paper Moon was released in 1973, by which time the paper moon photo booths were no longer as common themselves. Developments in photography through the early twentieth century meant more and more people had access to equipment.

Here is a set of vintage photos that shows portraits people posing with paper moons in the 1900s and 1910s.

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The Man Who Would Be King: Some Vintage Album Covers of Orion, Elvis Presley’s Masked Doppelganger

“If Elvis is alive, he wears a mask and goes by the name Orion.”

Ever heard of Orion? An unknown singer plucked from obscurity and thrust into the spotlight as part of a crazy scheme that had him masquerade as Elvis back from the grave.

Jimmy Ellis was born James Hughes Bell in Pascagoula, Mississippi on February 26, 1945. He began recording rockabilly songs and ballads for the Dradco label in 1964, never attaining much success as record executives and local DJ’s found he sounded too much like a “second-rate” Elvis Presley.

Things changed dramatically for Ellis in 1972 when Shelby Singleton, owner of the Sun Records catalog since buying it from Sam Phillips in 1969, heard one of Ellis’ singles. The likeness between Ellis’ voice and Elvis’ was so uncanny to Singleton that he asked that Jimmy record Presley’s career-launching “That’s Alright Mama” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” on a single, that was subsequently released without a name credited on the label. When RCA Records, the owners of the rights to Elvis’ songs, heard the recording, they thought Singleton had unearthed lost Presley tapes and had released them without consent, very nearly suing Singleton until convinced the voice didn’t belong to Presley by running voice-print analysis.

In 1977, Ellis was preparing to release the album, Ellis Sings Elvis, when Elvis Presley passed away at his Graceland mansion. Taking advantage of the event, producer Bobby Smith rushed the product onto the market while at the same time asking Singleton if he wanted in on their project. After a meeting with both Bobby and Jimmy, Shelby began formulating the idea that would turn Ellis into “Orion,” partly based on an unpublished book he had heard about written in the early 1970s by Gail Brewer-Giorgio, which imagined the life of a rags-to-riches rock singer who eventually died after succumbing to drugs and ill-health, startlingly similar to the life of Elvis.

Singleton took the fictional character’s name of Orion Eckley Darnell and gave Ellis his new alter ego, and thereafter took steps to trade off on the public’s reluctance to believe that Elvis Presley was really gone. The resemblance between the two singers’ voices paired with Ellis’ thick black hair and Elvis-like wardrobe (the mask was devised by Singleton to hide the fact that, facially, Jimmy bore no resemblance at all to Elvis) helped to give Orion audiences of 1,000+ in his appearances in the American south during the late 1970s and into the 1980s. Orion’s reputation grew, garnering him a devout fan-base; at one point he had 15,000 members in his fan club; some fans would travel across the country to see him perform, and two fans consisting of a mother and daughter would follow Orion on tour for months at a time.

Ellis started to become at odds with his fame, some speculating because he wasn’t being recognized as himself, but merely as an Elvis imitator under a mask. Tension grew between he and Singleton over Ellis wanting to record under his real name, eventually ending up with Jimmy pulling off his mask in mid-performance during a 1981 New Year’s Eve concert; a photographer caught the unmasking and the myth of Orion was exposed, showing the fans that he looked nothing like Presley and thereby shattering the illusion. Singleton parted ways with Ellis immediately afterward.

Ellis continued to record under the Orion name, but to smaller and smaller sales and audiences alike; during the mid-to-late 1990s, he virtually retired from performing and opened several stores near a highway on land that he inherited from his parents, including a gas station and convenience store.

On December 12, 1998, Ellis was murdered during a robbery in his store, Jimmy’s Pawn Shop. Jeffrey Lee was convicted of the murder of Ellis and Ellis’ ex-wife Elaine Thompson, who was working as an employee at the store, and the attempted murder of employee Helen King. Lee was sentenced to death and his appeal against the sentence was refused on October 9, 2009.

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1989 Conair Impressions: The Wildly Creative Styling Crimper That Puts Stars, Hears, Lighting Bolts in Your Hair

“Who said styling your hair can’t be fun?! Conair’s Impressions styling appliance adds a new twist to hair design.”

In addition to the braider, Conair also created the Impressions crimper. It wasn’t enough to just crimp your hair — this nifty tool also allowed women to stamp different shapes into their locks. With the help of changeable plates, you could imprint a heart, a star, or a lightening bolt into your hair. This was a really fun idea if you were eight, but if you were any age past that, you just looked strange with random stamps in your pony tail or bob.

30 Amazing Vintage Album Covers That Feature Women With Their Very Big Hair

The bigger the hair, the closer to God.

Since the late 1950s, the styles worn by the rock and roll singers and popular bands of the era were embraced by lovers of the music. From this, teenagers developed their own street fashion.

This influence continued right through the 1960s, from the über-fashionable mods through to the psychedelic sounds of the later 1960s. There was a wide range of musical styles throughout the decade and this had a big impact on fashion and women’s 1960s hairstyles.

The 1960s saw the onset of a counterculture revolution, with accepted social norms in every realm from music to film. Slowly, the bouffants, pompadours and poodle cuts that reigned over the previous decade were replaced by more exaggerated, edgier hairstyles.

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Do Not Believe Him

In WWI there were numerous campaigns aimed at slowing the spread of this debilitating disease that can stop an army in its tracks. This poster was produced by the American Social Hygiene Association warns young men not to have causal sex because it is likely they will contract VD.

If some ‘wise guy’ tells you that sexual intercourse is not dangerous, the facts are:

• A girl who would yield to one man has probably had relations with another. Very likely she is diseased.
• Most prostitutes (private or public) have either syphilis or gonorrhea or both.
• Furthermore, there are no antiseptics, prophylactic treatments or other preventives which assure absolute safety.

30 Vintage Snapshots of People Taking Pictures of Their Feet For Fun

Feet are an important part of our body.  They take us where we want to go. They do so much for us, they are incredibly complex devices. Feet may be humble, but they are the most overworked and under-appreciated parts of our body.

People from the past are weirdly obsessed with taking pictures of their feet. Here are some:

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Schwa-chan-egger in the 80s: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Most Bizarre Japanese Commercials

Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, Hollywood celebrities made extra cash by doing cheesy commercials in Japan. And now, they are coming back to haunt them. That included Arnold Schwarzenegger, who did a number of TV ads for the country in his heyday.

There are a few reasons for this. Back in the 1980s, the Internet wasn’t really a thing, so the chances that American audiences would ever see these, often silly, ads were pretty slim. Celebrities also felt that being seen in advertisements was “selling out,” and people wouldn’t take their other ventures as seriously, whether it be sports, fitness, or acting. With the advent of social media and personal brands being integral to advertising, this mentality has been completely flipped on its head.

In Japan, there is no word for “selling out.” Japanese celebrities would do this and see no issue, especially back in the 1980s. The reason companies in Japan wanted foreign celebrities endorsing their products was because they wanted to get the Japanese people excited at the idea that other cultures liked their local goods.

This compilation video includes over a dozen Arnold Schwarzenegger Japanese commercials the actor did in Japan from 1987 to 1992. In them, he hawks everything from vitamin drinks to ramen noodles to coffee drinks. There are even some Japanese commercials for his films The Running Man and Total Recall.

While advertising groups aren’t allowed to disclose how much they pay their U.S. stars, actor Dennis Hopper quoted saying, “I couldn’t believe what they were paying me. If I could do one every year, I could retire.” And in 1996, Entertainment Weekly reported that U.S. stars could make anywhere between $500,000 and $2 million for a two-day shoot.

Back When the Rotor Rides Were Fun and Dangerous!

The rotor is an amusement park ride, designed and patented by German engineer Ernst Hoffmeister in 1948. The ride was first demonstrated at Oktoberfest 1949, and was exhibited at fairs and events throughout Europe, during the 1950s and 1960s. The ride still appears in numerous amusement parks, although traveling variants have been surpassed by the Gravitron.

The ride itself was a scientific experience as riders felt the force of centripetal acceleration seemingly sticking them to the wall.  What is happening on the rotor falls in line with Newtonian physics in that a body in motion remains in motion unless acted upon by a resisting force. A rider traveling around the drum of a rotor is constantly changing the direction of their motion but at any given point Newtonian laws state that they would prefer, if unhindered, to continue traveling in the direction they are traveling at that particular moment in time. However, every split second whilst the ride spins the planar vector that defines what is perpendicular keeps changing, thus the rider feels that they are being pushed outwards against the wall of the drum.

The sequence of the ride varied in the early machines. Some loaded at the top with the floor dropping as the riders are pinned to the wall and as the ride slows the riders slip ungraciously down to the floor and exit in the pit of the drum. Others saw the floor lower and then return to allow riders a bit more dignity as they left via the top of the drum. Finally some machines loaded at the bottom, pushed the riders up with an elevating floor, which then descended and re-ascended to pick up the riders.

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40 Amazing Behind the Scenes Photos From the Making of ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child’

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child is a 1989 American gothic slasher film directed by Stephen Hopkins and written by Leslie Bohem. It is the fifth installment in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, and stars Lisa Wilcox, and Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger. The film follows Krueger, using a now pregnant Alice Johnson’s baby’s dreams to claim new victims.

The film’s general tone is much darker than that of the previous films. A blue filter lighting technique is used in most of the scenes. It is one of the final slasher films released in the 1980s.

The Dream Child was released on August 11, 1989, and grossed $22.1 million on a budget of $8 million, a steep decline in box office receipts from Dream Warriors and The Dream Master, while still a box office success and the highest grossing slasher film of 1989. It received mostly negative reviews from critics.

The film was followed by Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991).

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