{"id":3814,"date":"2016-07-17T14:01:47","date_gmt":"2016-07-17T14:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sixtiescinema.com\/?p=3814"},"modified":"2016-07-17T14:01:47","modified_gmt":"2016-07-17T14:01:47","slug":"happy-birthday-phyllis-davis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomlisanti.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/17\/happy-birthday-phyllis-davis\/","title":{"rendered":"HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHYLLIS DAVIS!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"aphyllis\"<\/a>Remembering the late lovely 60s starlet Phyllis Davis on her birthday.\u00a0A striking dark-haired beauty with curves galore, Phyllis\u00a0was similar in appearance to Edy Williams and was usually hired only to fill a bikini though she found deserved fame in the seventies in exploitation movies and on television as a regular on Vega$<\/em>.\u00a0Due to Phyllis Davis\u2019 sultry looks and knockout body highlighted by a gleaming smile, the 5-foot-6 beauty began playing minor scantily-clad roles in such films as Lord Love a Duck<\/em> (1966), The Swinger<\/em> (1966), and The Last of the Secret Agents? <\/em>(1966).\u00a0She appeared in a number of Elvis movies including Spinout<\/em> (1966) and Live a Little, Love a Little<\/em> (1968), and continued popping up on television usually swimsuit clad. Despite these minor parts, Davis got noticed by studio insiders and was voted a Hollywood Deb Star in 1966.\u00a0 Another bikini role\u00a0came in The Big Bounce<\/em> (1969) playing a bimbo with nothing more to do than splash around a pool with an older rich guy. But the brunette beauty filled a wild swimsuit so lusciously and showed comedic talent that she was hired for the blackout skits of the new series Love, American Style <\/em>beginning in 1969. For the next four years Phyllis was clad either in the skimpiest of bikinis or shortest of mini-dresses for the brief sketches where she was usually the object of desire for bungling nebbish Stuart Margolin that were edited in between episodes. In 1969, she snagged the Barbara Parkins part from Valley of the Dolls<\/em> in the unofficial sequel Beyond the Valley of the Dolls<\/em> (1970) directed by Russ Meyer. Davis\u2019 character is a fashion designer and aunt to aspiring rock star Dolly Reade who comes to LA with her friends seeking fame and fortune. With her long black mane parted in the middle and hair sprayed stiff, a pale-looking Davis comes across like Vampira and performs in a bit too stiff a fashion for this loose take-off on Hollywood excess though her character is supposed to be oblivious to the weird goings on surrounding her. The film was a huge hit but Davis was unsatisfied with her part and Meyer.<\/p>\n

While continuing on TV\u2019s Love American Style<\/em>, Phyllis lost out on being a Bond Girl to Lana Wood in Diamonds Are Forever<\/em> (1971) but snagged the lead in Sweet Sugar<\/em> (1972) an outrageous exploitation women-in-prison film. She convincingly played a prostitute working in Latin America set up on a bogus drug charge by a crooked politician and sent to a chain gang to work on a sugar plantation.\u00a0 As with most of her contemporaries who wanted to keep working in film, Davis (looking fantastic in her mid-riffs and short shorts) got over her shyness doffing her blouse in many a scene to the delight of her male admirers and repeated going topless in Terminal Island<\/em> (1973) playing another tough-talking sexpot. Exiled for life to a penal colony on an island off the coast of California for murder, Davis was cast as bimbo killer Joy who loves to sexually tease her male compatriots. The chaste bikini-clad Elvis starlet had come a long way baby.<\/p>\n

A much smaller role came next for Phyllis in Mike Nichols\u2019 disappointing The Day of the Dolphin<\/em> (1973) as a bubble headed blonde receptionist more interested in her personal phone call than helping George C. Scott who is waiting to see her boss.\u00a0 She then channeled Scarlett O\u2019Hara in the extended dream sequence in Train Ride to Hollywood<\/em> (1975) directed by Charles Rondeau who helmed many episodes of Love, American Style<\/em>. Davis got noticed playing a dominatrix in the otherwise disappointing\u00a0\u00a0The Choirboys<\/em> (1977) and then was cast as private investigator Robert Urich\u2019s brainy assistant in the popular lighthearted series, Vega$<\/em> a part she played from 1978 to 1981. During the course of the series Davis drastically changed her appearance by cutting her hair short and going blonde. The show brought\u00a0Phyllis back into the mainstream limelight and helped buoy her career into the nineties. She retired and never looked back. Sadly, she passed away from Cancer in 2013.<\/p>\n

You can read more about Phyllis Davis in my book Glamour Girls of Sixties Hollywood<\/a><\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n