pictures of marta kristen in beach blanket bingo

Pictures of marta kristen in beach blanket bingo movie#
Pictures of marta kristen in beach blanket bingo series#
Pictures of marta kristen in beach blanket bingo free#

I much preferred the costume belt I wore for close-ups. The tail was basically latex and fiberglass. And if it did, I may have missed them – I was already filming the pilot of Lost in Space in Red Rock Canyon when the film came out.Ĭan you tell me about the mermaid tail you wore? Beach Blanket Bingo, being a teen movie, wasn’t really going to garner many newspaper reviews. I really don’t recall much of a response. What kind of response did you get, playing a mermaid?

Now, I look at the part and realize that I played the ultimate teenage angst personified – the lonely outsider whose skills and abilities make her unique yet who just wants to know what it’s like to be part of the popular crowd (or in this case, the two-legged crowd). In 1965, it was a chance to do film work in a successful franchise. I like Lorelei today, but for different reasons than I did before. What do you think about Lorelei when you think of her now? It sounds simple until you realize we were shooting next to a boulder in 55° water with a tidal surging trying to push me into the rock! The thing I remember most about making Beach Blanket Bingo is that I took so many chances that, being older and hopefully wiser, I would never consider taking today. I remember one scene early in the film where I pop my head out of the water, see a parachute in trouble, then dive back underwater. It was more physical of role than I expected. Was it a challenging role physically? You seem to spend a lot of time in the ocean! The challenge was trying to move once you had it on! I had to have a stage hand holding me steady as I tried to hop around without tripping on the fins! And there was always a crewmember in a wetsuit nearby, just in case. Getting into the tail wasn’t the problem – a little wriggling, a little talcum and a lot of inhaling.

Pictures of marta kristen in beach blanket bingo movie#

First a Disney movie with Brian Keith and now a beach movie with Frankie and Annette – I was going places! Of course that was before I realized how much work was involved in playing a mermaid. I was excited to get a part in a beach movie! Beach Blanket Bingo was the fourth film in the Frankie and Annette series, which was hugely popular. So were you excited to play a mermaid on film? She was gracious enough to respond, and our Q and A follows. Here’s a compilation of the very very awesome Lorelei scenes, which are by far the best ones in the film, though I might possibly be slightly biased:Īs you can see, I had no choice but to email Marta.

Pictures of marta kristen in beach blanket bingo series#

Lorelei was played by the gorgeous and hilarious Marta Kristen, who would go on to star in Lost in Space and appear in a ton of other television series and commercials and films. The best part of Beach Blanket Bingo, though, is at the very end (this is a spoiler but honestly it’s not really the kind of movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat), when Annette turns to Frankie and asks, “Was there really a mermaid?” Frankie looks at her and answers smoothly: “Is there a moon? Is there a sky? Are there dreams?” We cut to the ocean, and a mermaid’s tail flips out of it, and then the word “FIN-EE” appears on the screen.

Pictures of marta kristen in beach blanket bingo free#

Lorelei gets some temporary legs for her earthbound beau and they have a lovely romance… until Lorelei has to return to the water and her own kind, which is tragic but finally okay because it leaves Bonehead free to romance Linda Evans of later Dynasty fame and that is clearly the better choice financially. “I’ll be the only boy in my block that knows a real live mermaid!” Bonehead exclaims, when he discovers that Lorelei’s not quite a normal girl. So I’m sure you’ve seen the cinema classic Beach Blanket Bingo starring Frankie and Annette and their good friend Bonehead who falls in love with the mermaid Lorelei after she saves him from a surfboard accident.