Page 2: The Personal Appearances Circuit - Again
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Irish's segment runs for just over a minute and begins with her sitting on the balcony of her home in the Malibu artist's colony, overlooking the ocean (middle photo above). She describes herself now as "queen of the beach", rather than Queen of the Jungle and she invites the camera inside to see what she has been doing. She proudly shows off a large seascape she painted of the coast near her studio (bottom photo above) and also displays paintings of her two grown sons, Sean and Kim. The piece concludes with Irish back on the seaside balcony, looking very relaxed and contented as she delivers the line, "I'm an artist. I'm a painter. That's what I am. I won't ever go back." Throughout this brief, but fascinating, segment Irish comes across as a strong, confident woman. She would also have benefited considerably by this exposure on a national network as it would certainly have generated a lot of interest in her at fan conventions at the time.
In 1981 Irish was also offered a role in an NBC miniseries called The Star Maker, which focussed on the topic of the Hollywood casting couch. The plot centered around a movie mogul, played by Rock Hudson, and the actresses that he helped propel to stardom. Irish was offered the role of Delores Baker, a former world famous pin-up queen. Melanie Griffiths, who was then a blossoming starlet, played her daughter, one of a string of young women that Rock seduced, married and then discarded. Once she is Rock's mother-in-law, Delores proceeds to show an unhealthy interest in seducing her new son-in-law. Irish declined the role because of her commitment to her art and the role was given to Brenda Vacarro (Black & Feret and IMDb).
achieve
a significant amount of success as an artist in the region, with several
galleries in Prescott displaying and selling her work (see the Art
page for more details). This success, however, was short-lived and
her health began to deteriorate again. In 1983 she
was diagnosed with cancer of the groin, but this new affliction was
successfully banished by a series of radiation treatments (Glamour Girls).In 1983 Irish appeared on another program devoted to tracking down forgotten celebrities - Where Are They Now?. Unlike Whatever Became Of...?, described above, this program had a relaxed pace and devoted a substantial amount of time to the four guests featured on this half-hour program. At the beginning of the show the two local TV hosts, Bob Surat and Kerry Cochran, explain that in the past few months since the last program they have received hundred of suggestions for "where are they now" stories, indicating the program was only screened intermittently. Two of the celebrities featured - Sixties pop idol, Bobby Sherman and ventriloquist Paul Winchell also appeared in Whatever Became Of...?. Winchell was also a talented voice artist who had contributed to many Hanna-Barbera and Disney cartoons, most notably the role of Tigger in several Winnie The Pooh specials. The other guest, Mary Wilson, the founding member of The Supremes, is shown taking drama classes to fulfill her aspirations of breaking into theatre or television.
Irish's segment runs for over four minutes and does contain a couple of errors. Firstly, Antonio Vargas, the famous pin-up artist who helped Irish get noticed in the early-Fifties, is mistakenly identified as Arturo Vargas, an LA Latino rights activist in the 80s. The program also claims that only twenty-six episodes of Sheena were made before the company went bankrupt, which is false. I suspect this information was probably provided by Irish herself, either as her own vengeful joke on the Nassour Brothers, who she abhorred, or as convenient shorthand to avoid the vague ambiguity of the truth (see Page 11: Series Cancelled in the Filming In Mexico section for the full story).
The introduction to the segment reports that the New York Times said that the Sheena series was "so bad it was fascinating." It goes on to say that the show had very little plot or action, terrible dialogue, hokey costumes, cheap nature scenes and tinny music, but reports that it was a very big hit with several generations of males because of the presence of Irish McCalla. The program contains several extended interview segments with Irish (photo top right) in which she relates some of her well-known stories about working with Chim, the chimpanzee - how he would sometimes pinch her very hard and how she once chased him with a spear (see Page 7: Neal in the Filming In Mexico section). The commentary explains that Irish now lives in a cabin high in the Arizona mountains, and there is a wonderful brief scene of her shoveling snow in her driveway. There are also several nice shots of her working in her art studio (photo right). One amusing part is when the interviewer asks her about her fan mail and Irish replies that when she was Sheena she used to get a lot of mail from kids saying, "I wish my mom looked like you." Irish says that she doesn't worry about the fact that Sheena was a lousy actress because God didn't mean her to be an actress, he meant her to be an artist. "And I'm a good artist." she says confidently. At the end of the segment the presenter announces that screen testing is under way for a new Sheena to appear in a movie to be released in the summer of 1984. "Irish McCalla says she has no interest in the part," she says, "but she would like to draw the poster." (see the Tanya Robert's 1984 Sheena pages)
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In late 1984, despite her
recent operations, Irish was persuaded to make a special appearance
on the daily entertainment newsmagazine Entertainment
Tonight to help promote the forthcoming release of Columbia
Pictures big-budget Sheena film, starring Tanya Roberts. This
was typical Irish McCalla behaviour, true to the grit, determinism
and can-do attitude she had always displayed (see both Page
6: Working Conditions and Page
9: Irish's Accident in the Filming
In Mexico section). Additionally, Irish was always proud
of the fact that she could still fit into her old Sheena costume and
was happy to accommodate the CBS Paramount producers (see photos).
The reason she later gave was that "so many women
asked if I could still get into the costume." (Celebrity
Sleuth). In their biography Black and Feret wrote that Irish was not in top form on the Entertainment Tonight segment. They added that despite the visible effects of her poor health Irish still looked quite spectacular. Unfortunately, Irish was prevented from attending the premiere of the new Sheena film because she was suffering from a back injury at the time. |
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In
the early-90s Irish again began accepting invitations to attend fan conventions
and made appearances at nostalgia shows in Atlanta and Memphis. In
August 1991 she accepted an invitation by Bob Gallagher, the organiser of
the Movie Convention and Collectibles Show in New York, to appear as his
"star" personality. The convention was held at the Roosevelt
Hotel in Manhattan and it was Irish's first trip to the Big Apple in 25
years. She and second husband, Patrick Horgan, had lived there
for several years in the early-1960s (see Page 3
:Those Three Husbands) Irish delighted the convention attendees
with her charm, wit and still formidable loveliness. She recounted
stories of the days when she rubbed elbows with Marilyn Monroe, Mamie Van
Doren and Elvis Presley. She was a very valued guest and the adoration
she received from devoted fans seems to have inspired in Irish a fresh enthusiasm
for the memorabilia circuit. She entered into a partnership with her
son Kim, who also lived in Prescott, and together they began merchandising
Irish McCalla memorabilia. With the same characteristic energy she
had displayed ten years earlier, Irish devoted what little free time she
had left from her work in art and real estate to the promotion of McCalla
Enterprises.Another major project that Irish became involved in in the early-90s was the production of her biography by two dedicated fans, Bill Black and Bill Feret. Both men were writers and artists and were also zealous enthusiasts of the jungle girl genre. Bill Feret had included an article about Irish in his wonderful book, Lure of the Tropix (1984), still the bible for enthusiasts of exotic women in films, serials, television and comics. He also interviewed her for the August 1985 edition of Heroic Fantasy magazine, largely inspired by the renewed interest in Sheena generated by the Tanya Roberts film. Bill Feret had been instrumental in organising Irish's appearance at the Movie Convention and Collectibles Show in New York in August 1991, where the photo at top right was taken. Bill Black, his buddy and collaborator, was well placed in this venture as the editor and publisher of AC Comics, a publication devoted to keeping alive an appreciation of Good Girl Art from the Golden Age of American comics.
For a couple of years Irish, Feret and Black traded correspondence and phone calls about this work. Irish sent them many photographs of herself and also provided access to the journal she had written on location in Mexico in the mid-1950s (see the Filming In Mexico pages). The book included full colour reproductions of two original Sheena comics from Fiction House comics but AC Comics were prevented from producing any new original
Sheena
stories for the book because the name had been copyrighted by Columbia Pictures
in the early-80s. This obstacle turned into a boon when Bill Black
decided to write a new comic adventure featuring Irish herself as the heroine.
He enlisted the aid of AC artists Brad Gorby and Mark Heike and Black
himself did the colouring and lettering. Irish of the Jungle
was an inspired piece of work and allowed these talented fans to let their
imaginations run wild (middle right). Irish was very flattered and
gave the production her full blessing. The book was originally planned
for release in January 1991 but as new material became available from Irish
this date was postponed to August 1992. Further delays were caused
by the production of the original artwork and the book, TV's
Original Sheena - Irish McCalla, was eventually launched at the
TNT Collectibles Show in Tampa, Florida in January 1993. Irish
was in attendance to promote the book and sign copies for fans. Author
Bill Black finally got an opportunity to meet Irish in person ( photo bottom
right). 
At
about this same time Irish was plagued by a recurrence of the brain tumours
that she had been fighting for over twenty years. She had her third
brain tumour surgery in I992, during the period she and Black and Feret
were putting together her biography. That operation was again successful,
but for several months her energy levels were severely affected (Black).In the mid-90s two items were produced that gave a clear indication that Irish McCalla, the "cult icon", was beginning to achieve a level of status far in excess of what she had attained up to that point. In 1995 the famous Knifeworks Co. issued the Irish McCalla Novelty Pocketnife, featuring art very similar to the Brad Gorby art used in the Irish of the Jungle comic (right). It features the logo, TV's Original Sheena - Irish McCalla, the title of her biography. The following year, artist Ron Van Gilder imortalised Irish in a painting that he called The Royal Pair (bottom left). It was issued as a lithograph, signed by the artist, and sold for $125. Irish sent Bill Black a copy personally inscribed by her. When Bill queried Irish about the fact that Van Gilder appeared to have exaggerated her endowments in the picture she explained that when she met the artist (top left) he went to great pains to explain to her, in almost scientific detail, that the size of her breasts rendered in the painting was completely accurate (Black).
In
a 1994 interview Irish said that she was attending about one fan convention
a month on average (Glamour Girls). In April 1993 she appeared
at the Hollywood Collectibles Show with the legendary Gordon Scott (right),
star of five Tarzan films in the late-50s
and 
early-60s,
including two of the best films in the whole Tarzan catalogue - Tarzan's
Greatest Adventure (1959) and Tarzan
the Magnificent (1960). Irish and Scott had posed together
for a mutual publicity photo shoot in early 1955, before the Sheena series
had been filmed (left). Scott had already made his first Tarzan film,
Tarzan's Hidden Jungle (1955),
but Irish would not depart to film the Sheena series in Mexico until several
months later. She had, however, already made the three pilots, filmed
in California, that were to become Forbidden
Cargo, The Renegades and Touch
of Death (see also Sheena Image 11 on the Sheena
Image Galleries page).
In
September 1994 Irish attended Glamourcon
1, the first of a series of conventions to celebrate pin-up art, still
running to this day. The significance of this for Irish was that virtually
all of the fan conventions that Irish had previously attended had invited
her because of her fame as Sheena. Glamourcon, however, principally
wanted Irish for her fame as an early-50s pin-up model. The fact that
she was also Sheena was an added bonus. Fortunately, her supply of
memorabilia covered both her glamour model phase as well as her jungle girl
period. It was at this event that Irish was approached by the Las
Vegas collector who had been fortunate enough to purchase Antonio Vargas'
personal collection of photographs and negatives. Included amongst
these items was a set of eight 4 x 6 inch black and white photographs of
Irish naked, taken by Vargas in 1948 when she was 18-years-old. This
was the only occasion in her life when Irish had posed naked for an artist
or photographer and until that time she had never seen those photos (read
the full story on Page 6: Nudity
in the Modelling section).
The photo at left was taken at Glamourcon 1. | Chelsea and Halley, Kim McIntyre's two daughters, were both raised with Sheena because Irish owned the old episodes on video tape and she and her granddaughters would sit down together and watch Grandma when she was young. On one of their visits, when they were aged about nine and eleven, they asked what had become of her old Sheena costume. Irish told them it was locked away safely in the safety deposit box and they wanted to know if it would fit them. She explained that it might be a little too big for them, but it might. When asked them why they were asking they explained that some of the kids at school, who had seen the photos and had watched some of the videos that Chelsea and Halley owned, had said to them, "She's not really your grandma." Irish offered to go get the Sheena suit so they could take photos of the girls and Grandma in the Sheena suit. "So I did. And with the older one, I looked at her; and she has long blonde hair, they're both very tall. And I said, 'Oh heck, in another three or four years she's gonna be another Sheena.'" (The TV Collector) The photo at right, taken at Irish's Arizona property, shows Ghost Hawk, a local Santee Sioux Indian, bestowing the blessing of good health on Chelsea and Halley. Ghost Hawk, and old friend of Irish, sometimes posed for her. |
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In
May 1998 Irish was one of the featured guests at the Knoxville
Film Festival in Tennessee (see photo left). She appeared on a
discussion panel with Peter Brown,
who appeared in both Lawman
and Laredo
on Fifties and Sixties TV; Lois Hall,
a regular guest star in TV westerns and the star of the famously bad Daughter
of the Jungle, a Forties jungle girl cheapie; Gary Gray,
a prominent child actor in the Forties who went on to appear in westerns
in the Fifties and Sixties; and Johnny Sheffield,
who played Boy in the Tarzan films and
later played Bomba the
Jungle Boy in a series of films of the 50s. The first question
posed to Irish from the audience is about her recent illnesses. She
explains that she had two brain tumor operations in August and September
the previous year and these have affected her peripheral vision and forced
her to stop driving ("If you see me driving, go to the other side of
the road. I'm dangerous!" she jokes). The operations have
also caused her to go deaf in the right ear, but she says she hopes that
this might only be temporary. Throughout the hour long panel discussion
Irish answers three or four questions and among the things she discusses
are the difficulties she and the other actresses faced while filming
Five Bold Women (1960). In the 1995 interview available
on the Audio Visual pages Irish revealed
that she would have liked to retire to Mexico because she loved it so much
down there, but was forced to make a decision say close to her surgeon (Ultra
Filmfax) (see also the Filming
In Mexico pages).Irish continued to attend fan conventions until her failing health prevented her from doing so. She was still charging a modest fee for signing autographs, but now most of the money she collected went to the American Cancer Society. The story of Irish's last few years, and the fatally serious decline of her health, is described on Page 4: The End. She once said, "I still can't understand why I'm a cult icon, but it's bought me many more fans fans who were too young to have seen Sheena, and I find it fun and refreshing to talk to them. I don't really know what I had that made so many fans so loyal over the years, but I'm very happy for every one of them. What fun to get such attention at my age - a real treat!" (Glamour Girls)
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• Glamour Girls: Then and Now magazine, premiere issue Mar-Apr 94
• TV's Original Sheena - Irish McCalla by Bill Black & Bill Feret, Paragon Publications 1992
• Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
• Prevue Pin Up Special 2 magazine, Aug-Oct 94
• Femme Fatales magazine Jan 99
• Irish of the Jungle magazine, written and edited by Bill Black, Paragon Publications 2003
• The TV Collector magazine, Jan/Feb 97
• Ultra Filmfax magazine No. 66, Apr-May 98
• Celebrity Sleuth magazine Vol 9 No 9 1996
IMAGES
• The photo of Angela Cartwright, Dick Van Patten and Irish from Whatever Became Of...? is from my private collection
• The screenshots from Whatever Became Of...? and Where Are They Now? are from a DVD-R generously provided by Tom Kleinshmidt - see Tom's VHS & DVD Trading site
• The colour photo of older Irish in Sheena costume on left is from Celebrity Sleuth magazine Vol 9 No 9 1996
• The colour photo of older Irish in Sheena costume on right is from Starlog magazine No. Vol 9 No 9 1996
• The photo of Irish and Bill Feret Aug 91 generously provided by Frank Bonilla
• The Irish of the Jungle splash page from TV's Original Sheena - Irish McCalla by Bill Black & Bill Feret, Paragon Publications 1992
• The photo of Irish and Bill Black is from Good Girl Art Quarterly No 11, Winter 1993, AC Comics
• The image of The Royal Pair and photo of Irish and Ron Van Gilder are both from Tease No. 3 magazine, 1995
• The photo of the Irish McCalla Novelty Pocketknife is from my private collection
• The photo of young Irish and Gordon Scott is from People magazine, Aug 56
• The black and white photo of older Irish and Gordon Scott is from Jungle Girls No 14, Winter 1993, AC Comics
• The colour photo of older Irish and Gordon Scott was donated by Frank Bonilla
• The photo of Irish at Glamourcon 1 convention, Sep 93, is from Glamour Girls: Then and Now magazine, premiere issue Mar-Apr 94
• The photo of Irish's granddaughters, Chelsea and Halley, with Ghost Hawk, is from TV's Original Sheena - Irish McCalla by Bill Black & Bill Feret, Paragon Publications 1992
• The screenshot of Irish at the 1998 Knoxville Film Festival is from the video of that event (generously provided by Frank Bonilla)
LYNX
• Many of the publications quoted from here are available from the official AC Comics site
• You can buy a print of Ron Van Gilder's Royal Pair painting, signed by both the artist and Irish McCalla, at Marianne Ohl Phillips' Pinups website
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SHEENA
© is the property of Sony Pictures Corporation
This independent, fan-based analysis of the Sheena material is copyright
© 2006-2008 Paul Wickham
This page was updated May 2008