BACARDI RUM AD SHAKEN WHEN STIRRED

Yesterday, you saw a black and white ad from the pages of PLAYBOY magazine that featured the fiendish countenance of sometimes-horror actor Henry Daniell. The ad appeared in the magazine in 1965, two years after his death.

The Bacardi Rum ad must have had legs because another ad, albeit with the same image, had run two years earlier -- this time in color -- in the October 1963 issue of PLAYBOY. Not to understate yet another morbid coincidence, but October 1963 was the month and year that Henry Daniell died. To make things even weirder, he died on Halloween.

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DEVILISHLY SMOOTH AND FIENDISHLY DRY

Quite at home playing the villain, actor Henry Daniell had a face made for horror films. Able to crack a wry, sinister countenance seemingly at will, Daniell played all sorts of bad guys during his long film career.

To genre fans, he is best remembered as "Toddy" MacFarlane alongside Karloff's John Gray in the film adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's THE BODY SNATCHER. He also played the ancient, head-shrinking Jivaro witch doctor in THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE. He even had the distinction of playing Dr. Moriarity in one of his numerous film roles in the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series of films.

His evil-looking visage was the perfect image for a series of Bacardi Rum magazine spreads with a "devilishly smooth and fiendishly dry" ad copy theme. The examples shown here are from the March 1965 issue of PLAYBOY. A devilishly strange and fiendishly morbid fact about his appearance here is that Mr. Daniell had been already dead for two years.

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IT CAME FROM THE MEN'S MAG: ZOMBCON

The Zombie craze is white hot. Season Two of the blockbuster THE WALKING DEAD has stumbled onto TV screens, and the second year of zomBcon, "the world's first Zombie culture convention", has just come and gone. Even men's mags have picked up the vibe to appeal to their demographic. Here's how, in their November 2011 issue, PLAYBOY reported last year's fest in Seattle, the city of shambling shoegazers.

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HAMMER GAL GOES TO PRISON

According to the Associated Press, this week in Los Angeles, "A former Playboy Playmate of the Year who appeared in the horror movie ROSEMARY'S BABY has been sentenced to nine years in state prison for shooting her husband in the back at their Hollywood apartment.

Los Angeles County prosecutors say 66-year-old Victoria Rathgeb was sentenced Wednesday. She pleaded no contest to attempted voluntary manslaughter.

Authorities say Rathgeb shot and wounded her husband last October during an argument. Prosecutors say he recovered and was in court for the sentencing but did not make a statement.

Rathgeb was 1968's Playmate of the Year under the name of Angela Dorian. She had TV and movie roles in the 1960s and 1970s and played a recovering heroin addict in the 1968 hit ROSEMARY'S BABY.

Readers of MONSTER MAGAZINE WORLD may also know that the gorgeous Miss Vetri/Dorian/Rathgeb was the stage name of the actress who played in other horror/adventure movies over the years, such as WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH and INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (a,k.a. GRAVEYARD TRAMPS).

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SUNDAY MORNING MACABRE

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