Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Continued.

Less than a month after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the September 3, 1945, issue of LIFE magazine featured a two-page photo spread on little-known 22-year-old Mexican starlet Linda Christian, whom a publicity hungry MGM had oddly dubbed the "Anatomic Bomb."



This brief LIFE article and cheesy photo spread is among the earliest, if not THE earliest efforts to appropriate the mystique of the atomic bomb for commercial marketing purposes. At the time they probably didn't know if the propaganda would work in their favor, hence the little known chosen girl...who went on to Hollywood fame.


"Sprawled gracefully on the curving edge of a swimming pool,” read the first photo’s caption, Christian "soaks up solar energy.” Years later, historian Paul Boyer's "By The Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture At the Dawn of the Atomic Age" (originally published in 1985) is the first book to explore the cultural "fallout" in America during the early years of the atomic age. He remarked on her "oddly passive, almost deathlike pose."



"By The Bomb's Early Light:" text & photo source: Archive.org


Christian intended to become a physician until Errol Flynn, who became her lover after she graduated from high school, persuaded her to pursue acting instead. Flynn also created her screen name, giving her the surname of Fletcher Christian, the character he played in a 1933 film, "In the Wake of the Bounty" (IMDB).



Christian was the first Bond girl, playing Valerie Mathis in a television adaptation of "Casino Royale" broadcast live and in color on CBS on its anthology series (1954-58) "Climax!" on October 21, 1954. The production starred Barry Nelson as James Bond and Peter Lorre as crime boss Le Chiffre.

Best known for being married to actor Tyrone Power from 1949-56, Christian (born Blanca Rosa Henrietta Stella Welter Vorhauer) appeared in 36 films and television shows from 1943-88. She also played Mara in the last Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan film "Tarzan and the Mermaids" (1948). Wow, with a 6 chained mix of paternal/maternal surnames like that, reeks of aristocrat wealth.


Linda Christian bio




Her other daughter had some kinky film days...



Highly sus on her missing daughter given mom's film background and in a place like New Orleans. After missing for over 29 years she was declared presumed dead in December 2014.


Circling back to atomic adverts, later trinkets of marketing mass destruction include...


No more Hiroshima earrings

Pennsylvania company's "Tears of Hiroshima" hot sauce features Enola Gay on label. (2015)


Looks like "tearsofhiroshima.com" got nuked and a very dormant @TearsofHiroshim twit account.


And then there’s the Dallas-based Manhattan Project Beer Company that created and sells a line of nuclear-themed beers, including "Bikini Atoll," "Hoppenheimer," "Fallout" "Particles Collide," "Half-Life," "Plutonium-239," and "Necessary Evil." Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper would approve!


Marshall Islands says beer named after Bikini Atoll unacceptable


After the name of its "Bikini Atoll" brew was criticized as deeply insensitive by Pacific Islanders and the government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in 2019, the company tweeted that its corporate and product names served an educational purpose:


And their twit account has been dormant ever since.