Shawn "Baby Doll" Devereaux

[Argyle1968]

With my first post here I uploaded a clip of 1960's big bust model Shawn Devereaux taken from the 1969 sexploitation film Fandango. As you may know, "Baby Doll" Devereaux is a pretty rare bird, and I'd love to find more of her, either in photos or video. Here is what I know:

She was an early model for Russ Meyer (ca. early 1960s) and posed for the famous black bra shot that is featured prominently in literature re: Meyer's career. She is sometimes credited as being the masked "Abundavita" from Meyer's Europe in the Raw and Mondo Topless, the former never having been made available on video. She posed for men's magazines like Fling and Adam in the late 1960's, before appearing in three (that I can find) sexploitation films around the turn of the decade: Fandango, How to Succeed with Sex and The Seven Minutes. I have seen The Seven Minutes and her part, as Yerkes' girl, was rather insignificant. Today I just obtained a poor quality copy of How to Succeed with Sex, and the better parts of Shawn's role as "Phyllis" are shown in stylized yellow sepia, for some stupid reason.

She is billed as being in "Tit Queens of the 1960's, Volume No. 7", as seen here: www sunsetglamour

That's about it. For years, literature from RM Films used her picture and promoted her as a prominent part of the "forthcoming" Mondo Topless II, but obviously that never materialized.

So. I am wondering if anyone out there can help me, either with more info, pics or video. I always found her to be one of the most uderrated of the figure models. Perhaps not the prettiest, but few had better bodies than "Baby Doll".

Thanks for any help.

[kevin]

Nice looker for sure Argyle - She has a folder * Here (http://www.myarchives.net/gallery/browseimages.php?c=557)

http://www.myarchives.net/gallery/files/4/3/shawn-092305_02.jpg

[Argyle1968]

Thanks, Kevin. I've got a few shots I can probably add to that gallery.

Question for anyone: was Shawn really "Abundavita" in Russ Meyer's Mondo Topless? I've heard that a few times before, without any real evidence. With the wig, it's hard to tell. To me, the facial expressions looked different, but the areolae were the same size, so I'm not sure at all. Thoughts?

[newf54]

very nice, thank you

[Tony T]

Question for anyone: was Shawn really "Abundavita" in Russ Meyer's Mondo Topless? I've heard that a few times before, without any real evidence. With the wig, it's hard to tell. To me, the facial expressions looked different, but the areolae were the same size, so I'm not sure at all. Thoughts?

From leafing thro' Russ Meyers 'A Clean Breast' I can only find one reference to Abundavita (and that is as 'Berlin's Abundavita The Bosom Bountiful!')and that is on page 284 (Vol. 1). This shows a small photograph of her alongside two photographs of Shawn D. It is difficult to tell from the photos but apart from the obvious difference in hair colour there could be a difference in breast shape (though not much).

Sorry this doesn't help much.

TT.

[dalecooper]

Abundavita being Shawn seems intuitively wrong to me. We're talking a different body type here. Abundavita appears both taller and slimmer. Moreover, if you watch the scenes in Mondo Topless, Abundavita has this very full pouty mouth, which I don't see on Shawn. I could be totally wrong, of course. My first instinct is that that's counterintuitive, however. Where did you hear that, Argyle?

[Argyle1968]

Haven't been around in awhile, but I wanted to provide some closure to the debate over whether "Abundavita" from Mondo Topless is really Shawn Devereaux.

A definite 'no'.

Some of you may be aware that Meyer's Europe in the Raw was recently released as part of the 4-DVD set "Abundant Beginnings", a collection of Russ' early works which also includes Teas, Wild Gals..., and Eve & the Handyman. Raw basically incudes the same content as the European gals seen in MT, only the 'travelogue' is about the Euro red light districts.

"Baby Doll" appears for a total of about 30 seconds or so in a few cliplets set in "Rome", splashing around in a swimming pool. Her tan lines and other features are clearly far different from those of the Bosom Bountiful, Abundavita.

It's a pity that Meyer didn't use Shawn more in his flicks. I know that she was supposed to appear in MT2, but that was most likely to be rehashed footage from Raw. I'd like to think that somewhere there are miles of film of her, but that's probably a pipe dream....

[dalecooper]

As a follow-up to this discussion, Argyle, I finally saw "Europe in the Raw" myself yesterday, and thought it was pretty fun. Hopefully this is a preview of things to come and the other "lost" Meyer works that RM films owns will be released.

I was glad to see the confusion over Abundavita vs. Shawn be resolved too; it was immediately apparent why the rumor of them being the same person had started--they were simply in the same film. I was surprised to see Shawn in "Europe in the Raw" though, since it was made in '63. Seems at least three or four years too early, as it's always seemed that Shawn didn't start appearing in girly mags until about '68, or late '67 at the earliest. I, at least, have never heard of an appearance earlier than that.

[Argyle1968]

I was glad to see the confusion over Abundavita vs. Shawn be resolved too; it was immediately apparent why the rumor of them being the same person had started--they were simply in the same film. I was surprised to see Shawn in "Europe in the Raw" though, since it was made in '63. Seems at least three or four years too early, as it's always seemed that Shawn didn't start appearing in girly mags until about '68, or late '67 at the earliest. I, at least, have never heard of an appearance earlier than that.

Men's magazines are hardly known for their credibility with names/dates/etc., so it doesn't surprise me at all. Pictures of Uschi Digart looking 25-ish were still coming out in mags in the late 70's and early 80's.

I suspect that Meyer was probably the first to shoot Shawn, and then other photogs followed within a year or two of that date, with the photos gradually released to publishers over time. If you compare her photos to her later screen work, in Fandango, The Seven Minutes and How to Succeed with Sex, she looks a bit different. I think the photos were from an earlier period.

[dalecooper]

Oh, absolutely. Photo sessions are reused for years and years. As you say, photos with Uschi looking 25 were still being released in the late 70s and early 80s. However, those photos were also appearing in magazines in 1969. With Shawn. Joan Brinkman was still appearing in Fling in the 70s using photo sessions that originally began appearing in magazines in 1962-1963. Photos of Shawn similarly appeared all throughout the 70s. But the original spurt of appearances seems to be circa 1968. I have never heard of an appearance of hers before that. So if those photos were being held onto for years, with no releases to magazines at all, that is highly unusual.