Automobile Art And Entertainment: Lil' Blonde Darling: Honey West!

Blonde Beauty Icon Honey West

Girls and guns. It's such a glamorous combo! One of my favorite girls packing heat is Honey West, created by the authors Gloria and Forrest E. "Skip" Fickling under the pseudonym "G.G. Fickling" in 1957. Noted for being one of the first female "private eyes" in popular fiction, this glam super sleuth enticed readers with her titillating, sexed up adventures of danger and espionage. In 1965 ABC created a live action Honey West TV series starring Anne Francis, designed as the American answer to Emma Peel in the popular British spy series The Avengers. The series was produced by TV legend Aaron Spelling, who would later reuse the concept of glamorous female private detectives on his hit show Charlie's Angels. On this groundbreaking show, Honey West (with her pet ocelot "Bruce" in tow) solved crimes every week with her partner Sam Bolt, who was usually confined to their high-tech surveillance van, talking to Honey via a radio hidden in her lipstick case. She was usually always seen clad in her signature wardrobe staple of animal prints, unless she was sneaking around at night in a skintight black catsuit. Of course, going undercover sometimes required Honey to don a bikini or other revealing costume! You know....to blend in. A black belt in judo and karate, Honey also used a bevy of glam spy gadgets; an exploding compact, a garter-belt gas mask, and tear-gas earrings to name a few. In an era when roles for actresses were confined to housewives and girlfriends, Honey West was one of the first TV series in the U.S. with a female star in an action-adventure role traditionally reserved for a male actor. Unfortunately, the series was canceled after only one season, in part by the American debut of The Avengers. Without this series, we wouldn't have seen female driven spy shows like The Bionic Woman, La Femme Nikita or ALIAS. The character made a brief return to print the early 1970's, was the basis for an un-produced 2003 remake that would have stared Reese Witherspoon, and is currently featured in her own comic book series!