Monday, April 25, 2011

Dania Ramirez

She's been a regular or recurring character on several series including The Sopranos, done films ranging from social commentary (She Hate Me) to horror, and even appeared in a number of music videos!
Talented, beautiful, and athletic enough to handle action scenes with aplomb, Dania's made quite an impression both as heroine and villainess!
Genre appearances include...
Premium Rush (Vanessa)
Heroes (Maya Herrera)
Quarantine (Sadie)
Illegal Tender (Ana)
Fat Albert (Laurie)

Check out...
Dania's MySpace Page
 Other actresses to play Callisto include...
Saffron Henderson in X-Men: Evolution
Susan Roman in X-Men [1993]

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Elisabeth Claira Heath Sladen (Miller) 1946-2011

We learned yesterday of the passing of actress Elisabeth Sladen, best known as Sarah Jane Smith on Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures, due to cancer.
with the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee)
She played opposite Jon Pertwee, then Tom Baker as The Doctor.
Elizabeth was so popular that, when she left the show, it drew media attention that only the changing of the Doctor's portrayers had previously-garnered.
with the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker)
The BBC created a pilot called K-9 & Company starring Sladen as Sarah Jane along with the robot dog created during Baker's run of Dr Who.
It wasn't picked up, but Elizabeth returned to the Sarah Jane role in "The Five Doctors", playing opposite Jon Pertwee once more as all The Doctor's incarnations (along with various aides) were brought to Galifrey, his home planet.

Elizabeth played Sarah Jane once more on the resurrected Doctor Who (the first human character from the earlier series to do so) in "School Reunion".

with the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant)
with the Eleventh (current) Doctor (Matt Smith)
With both ratings and audience response to Sarah Jane's return going thru the roof, the BBC decided to add a second Dr Who spinoff, but with a juvenile slant, to counterpoint TorchWood's more "adult" orientation.
The result was The Sarah Jane Adventures, with Elizabeth leading a motley group of teens, including Sarah Jane's adopted son, against alien threats to Earth.
The series, now in it's fifth year, is among the highest-rated kids' shows in England.
Hopefully, SyFy will run the remaining seasons of Sarah Jane Adventures...

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

MORE Comics Coming to Femmes Fantastique!

Due to an astounding number of hits to the previous comics entries on this blog, we're expanding the presence of fictional females like Phantom Lady (above) to include at least one comics story per week (or more, if we can fit them into our production schedule).

Fear not, we won't neglect the flesh and blood embodiments of female perfection, aka Femmes Fantastique, we've been featuring all along!
They'll be here too.  ;-)

Check out the

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

MORE Jennifer Beals!!!

I've been enjoying Jennifer on The Chicago Code, so I thought "why not do another, expanded, gallery of her?"
And, since it's my blog...here we go!
Enjoy!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Linda Harrison (Zanuck)

With a NEW Wonder Woman tv series currently filming, we thought it only appropriate to look at the first actress to embody the Amazon Princess on screen!
In 1966, at the height of the "camp" craze spawned by Batman, the show's producer William Dozier tried three more comic characters as tv series.
One, The Green Hornet, ran for a single 26-episode season.
The second, Dick Tracy, never made it past the pilot.
The third, Wonder Woman, reached the "test reel" stage, with about 10 minutes of footage being shot. Linda Harrison was Wonder Woman, opposite a plain-Jane Diana Prince played by Ellie May Walker. After seeing the footage, 20th Century Fox execs vetoed even going for a 30-minute pilot and the project died.
The footage has surfaced on a number of bootleg dvds and YouTube...

A year later, 20th began pre-production on the first Planet of the Apes film.
Concerned that the ape makeup, so critical to the success of the film, might not look right on film, a screen test was done with Edward G. Robinson as Dr. Zaius, James Brolin as Cornelius, and Linda as Zira playing opposite Charlton Heston.
The concerns proved valid. The makeup was redesigned before main unit shooting began. (You can see the test footage on the Planet of the Apes Special Edition and Behind the Planet of the Apes DVDs)
Linda was then cast as "Nova", the non-speaking human female lead in Planet of the Apes, and it's immediate sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes. (And yes, I know she has one line in BtPotA!)

She married 20th Century studio boss Daryl V. Zanuck between filming the two Apes movies.
After BtPotA, Linda changed her name to "Augusta Summerland" and did minor tv and film roles
She divorced Zanuck and retired from acting in 1978.
Linda returned to acting in 1985, in Cocoon, produced, ironically, by her ex-hubby, Zanuck!
Genre appearances include...
Planet of the Apes [2001] (Woman in cart)
Cocoon / Cocoon: the Return (Susan aka Mom)
Planet of the Apes / Beneath the Planet of the Apes (Nova)
Planet of the Apes Makeup Test (Zira, played by Kim Hunter in three films)
Way, Way Out (Peggy)
The Fat Spy (Treasure Hunter)
Wonder Woman "Who's Afraid of Diana Prince?" [test footage] (Wonder Woman)
Batman "The Joker Goes to School" / "He Meets His Match, the Grisly Ghoul" (CheerLeader)

Check out...
Cult Sirens: Linda Harrison
The Forbidden Zone (PotA FanSite)

Nova returned in the animated Return to the Planet of the Apes episode "Flames of Doom", voiced by Claudette Nevins.
Note: most purists consider both the animated and live-action PotA tv series to be "alternate universe" and / or non-canonical.
"Nova", played by Lisa Marie in the 2001 PotA movie remake, was a chimpanzee. Not the same character.

Other Wonder Women since Linda include...
Wonder Woman (1973) Cathy Lee Crosby
New, Original Wonder Woman / New Adventures of Wonder Woman (1975-1978) Lynda Carter
Super Friends / The All-New Super Friends Hour / Challenge of the Super Friends (1973-83) Shanon Farnon
SuperFriends: the Legendary Super Powers Show (1984) Constance Crawford
The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985) / Superman (1985) "Sorceress of Time" "Birthday Party" BJ Ward
Justice League / Justice League Unlimited (2002-06) Susan Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning (WW as child in "Kid's Stuff")
Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths Vanessa Marshall
Justice League: New Frontier Lucy Lawless
Wonder Woman (2009) Keri Russell
Wonder Woman (2011) [UnSold Pilot] Adrianne Palicki
and the current holders of the name...
Young Justice Maggie Q
Video Game performers: Tara Platt, Courtenay Taylor

Monday, April 11, 2011

TARA: QUEEN OF THE SPACE PIRATES in "Key of the Cuchin Van"

We continue the space-spanning saga of Tara, Queen of the Space Pirates with this tale from Wonder Comics #18.
There was no origin story, but the splash pages usually gave a brief set-up for new readers.
The Grand Comics DataBase lists Gene Fawcette, who did the two previous stories, as the penciler/inker, but it looks like fellow Wonder Comics artist Jerry Scott, who used a more standardized layout and looser inking style.