Pamela Green
Phyllis Pamela Green (28 March 1929 – 7 May 2010)[1] was an English glamour model and actress, best known at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s. She modeled for Zoltán Glass and his brother Stephen Glass, Horace Roye, Jean Straker, Bill Brandt, Joan Craven, Bertram Park, George Pickow, and John Everard.
Pamela Green | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Phyllis Pamela Green 28 March 1929 |
| Died | 7 May 2010 (aged 81) |
| Other names | Rita Landre, Princess Sonmar Harricks |
| Spouse(s) | Guy Hillier
(m. 1951; div. 1951) |
| Website | https://pamela-green.com |
Early life
Born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, England on 28 March 1929,[2] Green attended Saint Martin's School of Art; she started figure modelling to pay for her art school studies and moved on to photographic modelling because it paid more.[3] She also worked as a dancer[4] and appeared in the Latin Quarter at The London Casino (aka Prince Edward Theatre) and Bernard Delfont's Folies Bergère at the Hippodrome, London. Early in her career, while still at art college, Pamela Green was photographed by Bill Brandt, Zoltán Glass and Angus McBean.[5]
In 1954 Green started to supply the bookshops and newsagents of London's Soho with her own postcard sets of glamour photographs, to supplement her work as a photographer's model. In 1955 Luxor Press published a pictorial monograph on Green featuring the photographs of George Harrison Marks, entitled Pamela.
Career
Her rising profile prompted her to set up Kamera Publications Ltd with Marks. With Green as Managing Director, they produced several magazines, with Kamera being the most successful. It was the first glamour magazine of any note in the UK, and heralded the top-shelf magazine industry in the country. As their success grew they ventured into 8mm cine film production,[6] which was the format commonly used for home viewing.
Her first film appearance was in Michael Powell's psychological thriller Peeping Tom (1960). Green appeared in the nudist film Naked as Nature Intended (1961),[7] released in the United States as As Nature Intended, written and directed by Marks. She appeared in other sex and nude films produced by Kamera.
In 1961, Green's personal relationship with Marks ended, but they continued their business relationship. By the mid-'60s Harrison Marks was increasingly preoccupied by film making. Kamera ceased publication in 1968. He always acknowledged his debt to Pamela Green and said in his biography The Naked Truth, "Pam set me up. She started it all." In 1964 she appeared in an episode of This Week.[8]
Green continued to model for her then partner the photographer Douglas Webb. She became Webb's camera stills assistant and worked for the major film companies in London. In 1992 she wrote the foreword to David McGillivray's book Doing Rude Things,[9] which was reprinted in 2017. A television version of Doing Rude Things was produced by the BBC in 1995, in which she was interviewed.[10]
Personal life
In 1951, Green married stagehand Guy Hillier. The marriage lasted only a month.[11] From 1953 to 1961 she lived with George Harrison Marks and took his name. Her third partner was the photographer Douglas Webb, a former war hero of the Dambusters raid,[12] with whom Green lived until his death in December 1996. At first they lived in a Victorian villa on the Isle of Wight and in 1993 they moved to Yarmouth, where Green was a member of the Yarmouth Women's Institute.
Pamela Green died from leukaemia, aged 81, on the Isle of Wight on 7 May 2010.[4]
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | Peeping Tom | Milly | |
| 1961 | Naked as Nature Intended | Pamela | |
| 1961 | The Day the Earth Caught Fire | Nurse at Laundrette | Uncredited |
| 1961 | Badland Big'eads | Short | |
| 1963 | The Chimney Sweeps | Maid | |
| 1967 | The Naked World of Harrison Marks | Herself | |
| 1968 | Otto und die nackte Welle | Model | |
| 1975 | Legend of the Werewolf | Anne-Marie |
Kamera Cine striptease films
- Art for Art’s Sake (1960) with Jean Spaul
- Witches Brew (1960) as Rita Landre
- Cover Girl (1960) (uncredited cameo)
- Xcitement (1961)
- Gypsy Fire (1961) as Sonmar Harriks
- The Window Dresser (1961)
Published works
- Naked as Nature Intended, The Epic Tale of a Nudist Picture. Suffolk & Watt, 2013, ISBN 9780954598594.
- Pamela. Luxor Press,1956.
References
- https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2ba5f072e2
- Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Birth Index: 1916-2005 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008. Original data: General Register Office. England and Wales Civil Registration Indexes. London, England: General Register Office.
- https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/may/19/pamela-green-obituary
- Vallance, Tom (12 June 2010). "Pamela Green: Actress and model best known for her role in Peeping Tom who also helped start the 'top-shelf' tradition". The Independent. Retrieved 23 February 2012.
- https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/may/19/pamela-green-obituary
- https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-xcitement-1960-online
- https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/may/19/pamela-green-obituary
- http://www.bafta.org/heritage/in-memory-of/pamela-green
- https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/may/19/pamela-green-obituary
- https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2ba5f072e2
- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/film-obituaries/7734345/Pamela-Green.html
- https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/may/19/pamela-green-obituary
Further reading
- Sheridan, Simon. Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema. London: Titan Publishing, 2011.
- Stanborough, Denise (September 2005). "Fetish: Interviews: Pamela Green". Bizarre. Dennis Publishing Limited. Retrieved 23 February 2012.
- Naked as Nature IntendedI The Epic Tale of a Nudist Picture. Suffolk & Watt, 2013, ISBN 9780954598594.
- McGillivray, David. Doing Rude Things: The History of the British Sex Film,Wolfbait Books, 2017
External links
- Pamela Green at IMDb