Actually I'm still looking for proof that it's a genuine photo. You know, proving a positive and all that? But I guess I'm the kind of person who gets suspicious when confronted with something that seems to have no discernable origin or trail of existence to speak of. When confronted with something as significant as a Lynda Carter nude that has supposedly remained absurdly obscure for almost 30 years, I'd like some proof that it's real. Otherwise, I ain't biting.
I'd like to see those extensive vidcaps of Lynda from Bobbie Jo that you mentioned having been posted online before mine. I've done over a dozen different google image searches for everything related to BJ&TO online over the years and I've never seen anything except scans of the film frame stills from Celebrity Skin magazine, or shoddy, low-quality VHS vidcaps of the just the nude and semi-nude scenes from the film (and only a handful of those at that). Please post links to any sites that have extensive vidcaps of the entire film (or at least of the first half hour which is all I've yet been able to cap and post). I'm sure a lot of us that frequent this thread would like to see them. I know I would; instead of spending the time it takes to do my own vidcaps I can just re-post theirs. Please post those links if you can.
The Colleen Camp photo in question was never publicly seen until the Pl@boy article from the 10/79 issue. The c-fold shot of Colleen is barely visible in Apocalypse Now although it gets a little more screen time in Apocalypse Now Redux. My guess is that some clever fellow read the same article, found out about Lynda's almost-participation in the film, and concocted a fake using the Colleen Camp photo--at least in part--as the basis for his Lynda Carter version (complete with staples in the center to give it that "genuine" look). Like I said last time, making fake & composite photos to be passed off as genuine is nothing new; government intelligence services have been doing these sorts of things going back at least to the 1950s.
And I believe there have been several fakes of Lynda using Cynthia Myers fantastic Pl@boy photos over the years (I'll see if I can dig up any and post them here). But Cynthia's Pl@boy shoot is one of the most well known Playmate shoots of all time. If someone wanted to make a fake to pass off as genuine why would they use such a well-known centerfold that too many people would recognize? Not much profit in being recognized as a fake if you're trying to pass something off as genuine, which I think also answers the question of why the "artist" has never come forward: after passing off this photo as real and selling copies of it, why would such a person come forward and admit that it's a fake? He wouldn't be able to make money off of it anymore and would probably get buried in lawsuits.
You're right about one thing: much of my argument is conjecture, but then again so is yours and without much solid reasoning or facts to back it up. An organization like Pl@boy no doubt keeps very concise and organized records and archives of all the photoshoots they've done over the years. One look at the sheer amount of photo re-presentation in their specials--the square-bound type that cost like $7-$9, not the "special issues" of the regular magazine--proves that, although it doesn't really have to; Pl@boy's bread and butter is nude photography and I seriously doubt they ever "forget" anything (that's what archives and records are for anyway). As for the K.C. Williams example, do you know for sure that they "forgot" about the previous photo(s)? Perhaps they decided not to use them for a variety of reasons and therefore didn't mention them.
In any given photoshoot there are dozens, sometimes hundreds of shots taken that are never used for the actual magazine layout. The editors and photographers need to have a wide variety of shots to choose from when selecting those relative few that will ultimately be used in a published photospread. This is another reason why, if the photo of Lynda is a genuine Pl@yboy photo, it can hardley be the only one. It might be the only one that anyone has got a hold of--assuming it's real for a second--but it was no doubt one of dozens of shots taken during the supposed photoshoot. Pro photogs never shoot just one photo for something like this, they usually shoot dozens of shots in different poses, lighting etc., so they can have a selection to show their bosses when it come time to pick just one.
Now I'm not questioning Collen Camp's intelligence, honesty, or memory, but she's referring to events that she was not a part of or even a witness to that occoured years before she became aware of them. That's heresay. I'm not judging Colleen, I'm just saying that she's relating events that she wasn't witness to so she could be wrong. It is possible. She may not have heard the whole story, or the person who told her may not have known the full story, and Colleen was never an actual Playmate anyway so I doubt if she had much of an "inside track" regarding the goings-on with Hef &Co.
And lastly: just because you've had the photo for 27 years doesn't mean it's genuine. It doesn't mean it's a fake either. It doesn't prove anything except that it was shot or created prior to when you obtained it in 1980.
It's funny, I just looked through several dozen copies of both Celebrity Skin and Celebrity Sleuth magazines and found at least seven different article/ photo-layouts on Lynda. ALL of them use pix from Bobbie Jo, most use pix from Wonder Woman, some use pix of Lynda in tight-fitting workout gear, or shots from her Vegas act or TV specials, or other sexy pix of her in swimwear and sexy clothes. NONE of them use the photo we're discussing here. Not one. Now you'd think that whoever owns the rights to the photo would want to sell the shot to magazines that regularly do skin-oriented photo-articles on Lynda Carter. And you better beleive that both Celeb Skin & Celeb Sleuth would pay top dollar for the rights to that photo. But they haven't. You know why? Because it's not real. I wish it was my good man, but it ain't. In my opinion of course.
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