Lynda Carter ~ Colleen Camp Picture Debate

[maluminse]

The vastly different lapel is enough for me to say its not the same photo. Lynda Carter was replaced by Colleen after she had done the pretend playboy shoot.

Fingers different, lapel, hair its her. Why would you fake a pic and change the second pic to have a different lapel?

The photographer had a look he was going for. He did it with Lynda then he did it with Colleen. Same pose, same outfit. Why is this so hard to believe?

The first time a model was replaced or bowed out?

[hard8]

My 2 cents on this, is that its a very well done fake from the late 70s. Lynda Carters head was put on a pic of Linda Carpenter, that was done as a production piece for Apocalypse Now.

2 pics below... first is no highlights, but in the second the similarities are definitely enough for me to believe that the body is Carpenters.





I believe Camp is correct in what she's saying about Lynda being cast as a playmate thats a old story I remember hearing back in the early 80s. However she may be wrong about why Lynda left. it might not have been "because of the typhoon". Apocalyse Now went over budget and WAY to long in filming for many reasons, the typhoon being only 1 of them.

I dont think Colleen is "confusing" Lynda for Linda - as everyone know who Lynda Carter is. I doubt she'd make that mistake.

Remember the original shooting schedule for Apocalyse Now was supposed to be about 17 - 18 weeks. Preproduction started as early as 1975, and even earlier to when Coppolla was marketing Godfather2.

Coppolla is also one of the directors who likes reading through scripts with his cast. This is done at a pretty early stage, so its possible Lynda was cast as early as 75 for the film.

[Retrovintro]

Man, this surely is a protracted and heated debate. At the core of this, I have to admit I am a bit lost. Both of them did topless scenes in their careers so I dont know why its so hard to fathom there wouldn't be at least one topless photo of each of them that had not surfaced by now. I have a very limited understanding of fake photos prior to Photoshop. I lived with a professional photographer for a while and the methods she had to employ just to fix things up was pretty outrageous and demanded some developed artistic skills.

BTW, I do tons of photo editing every day and I dont see any similarities in the examples in post #132. The angles, shapes, lighting source and direction, and placements are different, aside from the massive skin tone issues.
I downloaded this example and experimented with placements and super-imposing and they simply dont match up. Yes, you can do MUCH more with digital tech these days, but this is an old photo.

[serio02]

There are a lot of differences between those photos, almost so much as the differences between the Lynda´s with the photo of Camp.

[tertium]

Originally Posted by hard8

My 2 cents on this, is that its a very well done fake from the late 70s. Lynda Carters head was put on a pic of Linda Carpenter, that was done as a production piece for Apocalypse Now.

If anyone ever produces the photo of Linda Carpenter that they put the head of Lynda Carter on, I'll believe it. The two photos currently debated are completely different. Hands, jeans, lapels, angles. They are two different photos.

Lynda Carter was cast in Apocalypse Now. This has been documented by many sources. A magazine centerfold of her character physically appears in the movie in several scenes.

Lynda was replaced by Linda when the shooting schedule fell behind and Lynda's contract to begin Wonder Woman took effect.

Either all copies of the Lynda Centerfold would have had to be destroyed and then a few years later someone gets a non-published version of Linda Carpenter (who just happened to replace her in the movie) and paints Lynda face on it. Or...

1 of literally hundreds of crew members could have stolen 1 copy of the Lynda Centerfold and sold it to a magazine.

I think that's a whole lot more plausible than someone going to those extraordinary lengths to make a fake Lynda Carter nude photo in the late 70's.

[tertium]

This is interesting. Looks like our debate has spilled over into the more traveled areas of the internet. Like Wikipedia.

From Lynda's Wikipedia page:
"In 1979's Apocalypse Now, she originally was cast in the role of Playboy Playmate Bunny, but the filming of her scenes was interrupted by the famous storm that wrecked the theatre set, prompting nearly two months' delay for rebuilding. By the time Coppola was ready to shoot again, Carter's contractual obligations to Wonder Woman forced her back to the states, and her scenes were re-shot with Colleen Camp. The only evidence remaining of Carter's involvement are the Playboy centerfolds that were specially shot by the magazine as movie props. At one point in the Redux version of Apocalypse Now, a glimpse of Carter's pinup is visible, as the only nude work ascribed to the actress outside of Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw."

I'd really like to hear the special features audio track when Frances Ford Coppola references the Lynda centerfold. Or get a good screen cap of the Lynda centerfold in the movie.

[tertium]

I found Coppola's commentary track on youtube. Here he is confirming that Lynda Carter was replaced by Colleen Camp.

http://youtu.be/INfOlSps2BQ?t=5m57s

[nailsfromthething]

Originally Posted by tertium

I found Coppola's commentary track on youtube. Here he is confirming that Lynda Carter was replaced by Colleen Camp.

http://youtu.be/INfOlSps2BQ?t=5m57s

Blimey. Is that not a thread-closer? Kudos for the link.

Way I still see it: Carter did the original and genuine nude shot, which had already been featured in pre-storm footage. Storm came. Carter left. Camp had to fill in and use the 'same' picture in her helicopter scene with Chef (seen on the Redux edition), and so the picture was painstakingly recreated, with great care that elbows etc be seen in at least roughly the same position, even in the age just before VHS gave the public the freeze-frame.

Also it should be noted that the exact pose in question was a significant part of that then-excised scene, as Chef made her recreate it in front of him to bring his fantasy to life. So that level of mimicry of the original was pretty important when generating the Camp topless photo.

[tertium]

Before I post my hopefully final definitive summary of the Lynda Carter poster debate, there are a couple of facts that I uncovered that I haven’t addressed yet.

The first are Lynda Carter’s hands. These are screen captures of Lynda’s hands in the Wonder Woman Episode, “The Man Who Could Move The World”.



This is a close up of the most visible hand in the Lynda Carter centerfold.

Lynda’s hands have very prominent knobby knuckles


These are close-ups of Colleen Camp’s hands in her centerfold.

Colleen Camp’s hands have much less noticeable knuckles. Her finger’s look straighter and thicker.


The second thing I found is that some of the Lynda Carter Centerfolds have been altered beyond removing the obvious fold that occurs along the entire centerfold. In this version of the centerfold, someone has painted over her eyes and done so pretty inexpertly:



This version from the magazine Expose doesn’t have this alteration and so I will be using it for my future comparisons instead of other versions.

[tertium]

I’m posting this list of the most obvious differences between the two photos to show that it is so implausible that someone painted/touched up the Colleen centerfold to produce the Lynda centerfold that it approaches the absurd. If a highly skilled photographic artist/restorer/hoaxer were to attempt to create a Lynda Centerfold from the existing Colleen Centerfold, there would be no reason to change the entire photo. The face would be the only absolutely essential thing to change. The change in hair would add highly to the credibility/believability of the fake. But repainting the shirt in a different position with different lighting? Repainting her jeans? Fingers? Hand positions? Arch of the back? Position of the chair? The background? That stretches believability well past its breaking point. In the following photos Colleen’s centerfold always appears on the left, Lynda’s on the right.



Hair: Lynda’s hair is darker. Colleen has two areas where her hair appears much lighter due to reflecting the light. They have completely different hair styles. Lynda has “big hair” no bangs, and no part down the middle. Colleen’s hair lays flatter, she has a part down the middle of her hair and she has bangs.



The left hand: Colleen’s hair obscures part of her hand. Colleen’s nails are longer and painted. Lynda is pointing up and has a ring on her index finger. Colleen’s ring finger cannot be seen. Lynda’s knuckles are noticeablely larger than Colleen’s.



Shirt collar: Lynda’s collar is raised (popped) while Colleen’s collar lies flat.



Pearl snap on shirt shoulder: Colleen’s pearls snap is brightly reflecting the flash or other light source. Lynda’s is much less bright.



Right Hand: Lynda’s hand is positioned further back on her hip. Colleen’s fingers wrap around her front. Lynda’s fingers are on the side of her hip. Colleen’s nails are painted and longer. Lynda’s ring is larger than Colleen’s. Colleen’s gold bracelet is clearly visible, cannot be seen on Lynda. Lynda’s knuckles are more prominent than Colleen’s.



Arch of back: Lynda’s back is arched further than Colleen’s and has a smoother curve.



Jeans: Different color. Lynda’s jeans have an extra loop by her thumb. Colleen’s jeans have double stitching at the top, Lynda’s are much more plain.



Chair in bottom right corner: To show relative position, the model’s belly button is in the upper left corner of both of these cropped photos. The wood and rattan chair is much more noticeable in Colleen’s photo. The rattan portion is very light and easily seen. The chair can barely be made out in Lynda’s photo and is much darker.



Lynda’s photo has a sharp contrast between the backgrounds on either side of her head. The right side is much lighter than the left. On Colleen’s photo, the backgrounds on either side of her head are essentially the same and have very little contrast.


Background: The background on the right side of Lynda’s photo is much lighter than the same area on Colleen’s photo.

I'll post my final post on this subject (hopefully) tonight or tomorrow. I believe that I have discovered visual proof that the Lynda centerfold is visible in Apocalypse Now Redux for a few frames.