I'm reading "Zale Parry, Aquatic Hollywood Star and Early Acid Tripper, Dies at 93/A diving feat landed her on the cover of Sports Illustrated and led to a film and TV career. She also took part in one of the first LSD studies" (NYT gift link).
"Girl skin diver" — I like that old-time locution.
Onto the LSD part of the magnificent lady's story.
[I]n 1951, when she was a secretary at Douglas Aircraft Company in Santa Monica, Calif. A colleague set her up with an engineer there named Parry Bivens, thinking that they would make a good match because they already had the name Parry in common....
Parry and Parry married. She said of him:
“His mental and physical library of technical information, on everything from cybernetics to cryogenetics to Einstein to quantum physics to psychopharmacology, was extensive. Parry was ahead of his own future.”
That futurism included getting his hands on LSD back when it was not illegal. He brought in a psychiatrist, Oscar Janiger, and "they created a 'consciousness clan,”'as they called it, that included Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts and Anaïs Nin.
What a cast of characters! As if skin diving with Lloyd Bridges wasn't enough, she had a consciousness clan with Aldous Huxley, Alan Watts, and Anaïs Nin. What a life! And LSD was not illegal.
After taking LSD during Dr. Janiger’s study, Ms. Parry volunteered to babysit other participants in case they had bad trips. She never used drugs again.
Decades later, she recounted her experiences with LSD to her godson, Thomas Tillman.
“She described colors becoming almost impossibly vivid and ordinary thoughts unfolding into ideas she never would have expected,” he said in an email. “She laughed a little while trying to explain it, admitting that even after all those years it was still difficult to put into words.”
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33 comments:
Girlskin (one word) has a nice ring to it.
It used to be a highly desired signifier of prestige or fashionability to have your wedding announced in the New York Times.
Nowadays it is your obituary.
Girl skin is what Buffalo Bill was making.
Zale was a most attractive 21 year-old in every respect.
I took a liking to her partner on the show, too. He sure knew his world capitals.
"Girlskin"
I bet it makes a nice Necronomicon, but Lodges and Harvard could not be reached for comment.
Ah...the good old days when we had girl skin divers. I suspect these days that would take on an entirely different connotation.
But at least we have a 'womyn's basketball league' that claims to be willing to allow men to play in it.
I'm so confused.
Never heard of her before. How is her first name pronounced?
Zale? or Zalie?
What a woman.
--Rhett Butler
$1,000 was worth so much more then.
Pronounced Zale, short for Rozalia.
An accomplished woman, but Zale was no match for her sisters Tiffany, Van Cleef, and Harry Winston.
How do you circumcise a whale ?
Send down four skin divers.
Cracks me up every time.
Watched Sea Hunt regularly. Loved Lloyd Bridges. Skin divers, a term from the past. He was great in the Airplane movies.
Roger -thank you.
I think that magazine cover made my day.
ON a related note, I was interning with a producer that shared an office with Debra Hill, the legendary producer of Halloween. She was working on a SeaHunt movie update and I designed some script covers for them before the sent them around for funding, etc. This was back in the day when printed scripts still went from place to place. Now it's a PDF that probably still gets printed to be easier to carry and read. She was an interesting woman. Died too young.
The past is truly a different universe. People like this have completely disappeared into the mist. We have devolved. We are butt smooching puppets with minds wired to our masters while we sit in our vats.
A secretary at McDonnell Douglas indeed.
Tillamook is a wonderful place to live unto 93
I believe the term skin diver predates the use of air tanks, aka scuba diver. Skin divers are now referred to as, free divers.
Skin diver was also used early on when referring to scuba divers.
Life. That's how you do it. Here's to you, Zale Parry. (lifts OJ)
Sigh. I don't dive anymore. (Scuba). Seems like a bad idea, post heart attack. Last trip was Palau. Also, my wife likes to say, scuba is not a glamour sport. One generally looks like hell after, especially after a cold water dive.
If you go to Palau, be sure to visit their Capitol complex. Surreal.
If he had taken her name in marriage, he would have been Parry Parry.
Inspiration for the SI Swimsuit Issue?
Women in teenie, weenie camouflaged 👙.
Pretty amazing. Glad to she lived to be 93. what a life.
The Most Interesting Woman In The World.
I’m glad she was a skin diver. A wet suit is less entertaining.
When a frogman mates with a skin diver, the offspring are . . .?
Also, I think “skin diver” distinguishes one from divers in bulky suits, air hoses and metal helmets.
Girl Skin Diver would make a great masthead motto. CC, JSM
I want to be a girl skin diver, yea yea yea,
I want to skin dive for girls ,yea yea yea,
Oh babah I’m skin… diving…. For you, you you you.
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