Hollywood: The Sex Shortage

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With no femme fatale like Garbo, no woman with the animal splendors of the young Ava Gardner, Hollywood has completely lost its come-hither look, falling behind the competition from Europe, where Sophia Loren still unquestionably rules the pantheon. Around her, Bardot and Lollobrigida are fading. But Romy Schneider, Simone Signoret, Claudia Cardinale and Elke Sommer can each outsex all that the American industry has to offer. Hollywood is so barren of sex, in fact, that only last week Universal Pictures had to hold a beauty contest in New York's Americana Hotel in order to find three girls to add wattage to a promotion for its new film, The Brass Bottle, which stars the shapely, sultry, sloe-eyed Burl Ives.