Ed Wood Wednesdays: The Wood Collaborator Odyssey, Part 19 by Greg Dziawer

Jean Nieto strikes a seductive pose in this pinup pic.

The incomparable Jean Nieto in 1958.

Last week, I shared with you a couple of high school yearbook photographs of a strikingly attractive young lady who would soon find herself performing in a film now generally believed to be written by Edward D. Wood, Jr. This week, I'm finally revealing her identity and taking a stab at the very first index of her work across various media.

By the late 1950s, in the wake of Hugh Hefner's Playboy, the men's magazine quickly became a pop culture staple. Similar mags proliferated on newsstands, their raison d'etre images of naked women. While these sorts of magazines had existed all the way back to the 19th century, only now were they readily available for mass consumption. 

A similar seismic shift was simultaneously occurring in films. The distribution of burlesque strip shorts via mail had begun in the early 1940s, if not earlier, and the films would become increasingly graphic and explicitly sexual over time. Hardcore shorts were also made back then, but seeing one was unlikely unless you were a lodge member, where these so-called "smokers" were commonly screened. As for feature films, female nudity penetrated the cultural landscape via foreign art films. Finally, losing all pretext, a new type of motion picture called the nudie cutie appeared. Russ Meyer's The Immoral Mr. Teas from 1959 is generally considered the prototype, a smashing success whose appeal largely existed in the exhibition of voluptuous unclad women. 

In the early summer of 1957, a young lady graduated from Burbank High School in Los Angeles, California. In the wake of the Great Depression, Burbank established itself as the hub of the Hollywood film industry. The Oscar-winning classic Casablanca (1942) was shot there. The population remained almost entirely Caucasian, and that young lady was one of the few students of Mexican descent who attended BHS.

Her name was Jean Nieto, and it could not have been long after high school that she began her career as a performer, dancer, and model. In the short span of a few years, she toured under the name Ramona Rogers as an exotic dancer, dubbed The "Wow!" Girl. An ad for her act appeared in the June 21, 1959 edition of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. At that time, Jean/Ramona was appearing at the Rivoli Theater, which was demolished in 1970. 

An advertisement for one of Jean's personal appearances in 1959.

Jean also shot photo features for men's magazines, and her short films were advertised in those same mags, along with sets of nude photos. In 1959, she landed a small role in the nudie Western Revenge of the Virgins. The screenplay for Virgins is credited to Pete La Roche, with the general consensus—and I concur—that it was penned by Edward D. Wood, Jr. 

After 1960, Jean Nieto's work on stage and film and in print appears to cease. She certainly wasn't the first young lady who entered the adult entertainment business, only to disappear from it just as quickly. Did she get married and raise a family? Did she descend to the streets and addiction? We will likely never know, but given her charisma, beauty, and poise, I'd bet Jeanie led a successful and fulfilling life. We hope she is still with us, healthy and happy. 

What we do know is that she left behind a clutch of films and photos, indexed below. And for that, I'm grateful.

Jean Nieto aka Ramona Rogers

Feature Film:

• Revenge of the Virgins (1959) - Directed by Pete Perry. With Charles Veltmann, Jr., Henry Darrow, and Nona Carver. Narrated by Kenne Duncan. As one of the Golden Horde, the topless natives are nearly indistinguishable from one another. Jean is the last credited of the six girls of the Horde, as Ramona Rogers. It's her sole film credit.

Short Films:

NOTE: These short films were made circa 1959 and exhibited in peepshow arcade machines and sold via mail order. In them, Jean often dons a pair of gold earrings that are dead ringers for the pair she wore in her high school graduation photo.

The logo for the Candlelight series.

• White S7 - The Starlight series of peepshow/mail order shorts remain clouded in obscurity. When they were made, and by whom, is unknown. Due to the volume and ubiquity of these films, with many hundreds of them still extant, eagle-eyed vintage sex film aficionados have identified enough girls to place these shorts on the West Coast. Those same ID's have aided in pinpointing the approximate time-frame in which these shorts were released. An amazing series, in color and at the forefront of full frontal nudity, Starlight titles often included title cards with an ornamental logo alongside an index number and a first name for the featured girl. Sometimes, less often than not, the model's actual first name would be used. An additional signatory image was that of a statue of a female nude on her knees, stretching back in a near-impossible fashion.That image often appeared on title cards and as a blink-and-you'll-miss-it insert at the halfway point in the shorts. Candlelight was another series related to Starlight. While White S7 is untitled in its surviving form, its alpha-numeric index number places it within the orbit of Starlight-related loops. Jean is breathtaking here, getting fully out of bra and panties on a characteristic motel room bed. Beautifully shot in almost-entirely medium and full closeups, in color.

• CA7 - A "softer" cut of White S7, minus full frontal nudity.

• Bab W50 - Jean stares into your eyes and hypnotizes you, in this lengthy-for-its-era short. Lasting almost 11 minutes, it appears on volume #198 of Something Weird's Nudie Cuties "Peepland" compilation series, a sprawling collection of sex film shorts largely pre-dating the 1970s and the depiction of hardcore. The setting is another motel room. In lovely color, and, yes, there's full frontal nudity. 

• Jeanie T51 - Surviving in a eye-catchingly colorful print, we remain in Starlight-territory, given the statue's appearance on the title card. Occasionally, models in these films were credited under their actual first names. Here, for instance, Jean is listed as Jeanie, suggesting that was her nickname. More states of undress and pantyhose madness, with Jeanie fittingly appearing by candlelight, and this time it looks to be shot on a film set.

• Connie W51 - Jean in the shower, first in merely a corset and ultimately fully nude. She's clearly teasing the cameraman here—lucky him—making him an unseen part of the action. This was a typical element in the best of the Starlight-related shorts, taking them beyond mere voyeurism. 

Some title cards for Jean Nieto shorts.

• Untitled/unknown short - Included on Something Weird Video's Nudie Cuties Volume #122, Jean here appears in (faded) color. The brief three-minute short remains relatively chaste— T&A only, minus any full frontal nudity. Jean writhes around on a bed, smiling into the camera as it pans up and down and back and forth across her body. 

• Untitled/unknown short - Perhaps one of the last of Jean's extant, identified shorts. Jean appears slightly older physically and sapped of her typically bright energy. In B&W, this is the first short on the compilation Nudie Cuties Volume #54.

Men's Magazine Pictorials:

• Sheer - vol. 1, no. 7 (1959) (also cover model)

• Spice - vol. 1, no. 5 (1960)

• Scamp - September 1960 (photography by Del Hayden)