Smitten With Kittens

From weird little Web sites do odd books grow. Swinginchicks.com was the Internet’s answer to “Where are they now?” questions about women who’d been pop culture darlings of the 1960s. What ever happened to Brigitte Bardot? Where is Judy Carne hiding? You don’t care? Well, Chris Strodder did.

The sometime Web designer and writer was an impressionable second-grader in 1965 when he first saw Angela Cartwright, the foil-wrapped ingenue of TV’s “Lost in Space” series. Years later, a quest to become the Boswell of the groovy decade’s divas began with curiosity about how time had treated this first crush.

Gradually, Strodder, a UCLA grad who lives in Mill Valley, added respectful biographies of more than 50 women with swingin’ ‘60s credentials to the Cartwright Web shrine. Yahoo named the site a Cool Link, and as a trickle of hits grew into a tsunami of attention, it became obvious that Strodder wasn’t the only 20th century relic with fond memories of the starlets, singers, athletes and party girls of the ‘60s. The next step was a colorful softcover book, “Swingin’ Chicks of the ‘60s” (Cedco, $19.99), and a 2001 calendar packed with pictures and data (average weight of the 120 Playboy Playmates of the 1960s: 115 pounds).

A Swingin ‘60s Chicks trivia game could follow. Which TV “monster mom” started her career as a radio DJ? Which ‘60s supermodel was imprisoned by Nazis during World War II? Mick Jagger was the best man at which international film star’s ‘60s wedding? If you answered Carolyn Jones, Veruschka and Catherine Deneuve, you spend far too much time indoors.

It wasn’t difficult for Stoddard to divide the genus Swingin ‘60s Chicks into sub-species. There are the Beach Girls, the Bond Beauties, Elvis’ Babes, Movie Stars both American and foreign, Songbirds and TV Stars.

Sometimes it’s morbid curiosity that fuels such historical investigation--the kind that makes E!’s “True Hollywood Story” a nasty camp masterpiece. But one of the nice things about checking in with the once “hip, hot and happenin’ ” honeys of Austin Powers’ favorite era is discovering how many of them are thriving. Cartwright married, raised two children and ran a gift boutique in Toluca Lake that’s now online at https://www.rubberboots.com. For every burned-out or born-again case, there’s a Goldie Hawn or Tina Turner, triumphantly redefining cool as the years roll by.