Although PulpFest was looking forward to welcoming artist’s model Eva Lynd to the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Pittsburgh – Cranberry, our 2020 guest of honor will not be able to attend our convention. Due to safety concerns, Eva, her publishers Bob Deis and Wyatt Doyle, and PulpFest have decided to cancel her appearance at PulpFest 2020. All agreed that it was wise for Ms. Lynd to avoid traveling by air in early August.
A frequent collaborator with Doc Savage model Steve Holland, our guest was born Eva Inga Margareta von Fielitz to Countess and Count Asti von Fielitz in 1937. She took the name Eva Lynd to help her acting career after emigrating to the United States in 1950.
Although some of her friends used to call her “Countess” and her brother — who still resides in Sweden — uses his title, Eva never considered herself to be royalty. Instead, she worked as a model for many of the top glamour girl photographers — Peter Basch, Wil Blanche, Herb Flatow, Leo Fuchs, Emil Herman, Morris Kaplan, Charles Kell, Lester Krauss, Earl Leaf, Ed Lettau, Jerry Yulesman and others. Alluring photos of Eva appeared in dozens of men’s pinup magazines, bachelor magazines and men’s adventure magazines. She also modeled for cover and interior photos published by “true crime” and detective magazines.
Eva was — and still is — an actress. Her television career included appearances on CAGNEY & LACEY, THE GARRY MOORE SHOW, HOGAN’S HEROES, PETER GUNN, THE STEVE ALLEN SHOW, THE TEXAN, and THE THIN MAN. She also appeared in several films — including THE HYPNOTIC EYE and THAT LADY FROM PEKING — as well as television commercials. Eva’s most remembered role was as the “The Girl in the Tube” — the gorgeous babe who emerges seductively from a tube of Brylcreem in the classic and award-winning commercial.
If you’re a fan of vintage men’s adventure magazines, you probably know that Eva was also a favorite model of artists Norm Eastman and Al Rossi, two of the top illustration artists who worked for the MAM market.
Eastman used the talented model for dozens of the cover paintings he created for the notorious “sweat magazines” published by the Reese and Emtee companies. Eva is frequently one of the scantily-clad, distressed damsels being tormented by sadistic Nazis, evil Japanese, communists, bikers, or aboriginals in the artist’s paintings. In others — such as our post card painting — she is a brave, gun-toting freedom fighter.
Rossi had Eva model for both men’s adventure magazine interior illustrations and for paperback covers. The most famous paperback cover painting by Al Rossi is the 1953 Ace Double paperback edition of William Burroughs’ early novel JUNKIE, published under the pseudonym William Lee. The artist also did the cover painting for NARCOTIC AGENT, the novel on the flip side of this very valuable Ace double.
Another of Eva’s frequent collaborators was the famed artist’s model Steve Holland, whose face and image appeared in hundreds of paperback and magazine cover paintings, as well as interior illustrations. Holland is best known as the model used by artist James Bama as Doc Savage on the covers of the Bantam paperbacks.
Although Eva Lynd never lived in a castle nor considered herself an honest to goodness countess, all of us at PulpFest believe that she has been absolutely majestic during the months that we’ve known her. It would have been wonderful to roll out the red carpet for “An Evening with Eva Lynd,” but that event will have to wait for another year. With regrets to her many fans, Eva Lynd will not be at PulpFest 2020.
(At PulpFest 2019, Bob Deis and Wyatt Doyle debuted an advance edition of EVA: MEN’S ADVENTURE SUPERMODEL, specifically produced for the convention. A pictorial autobiography of Eva Lynd, the book features a cover painting by Norm Eastman. It was originally created for the December 1968 issue of NEW MAN. The modified painting is reproduced here, courtesy of The Rich Oberg Collection. NEW MAN was published by Reese Publishing from 1963 through 1965 and Emtee Publications from 1965 through 1972.
Many thanks to Bob Deis. His article, “(Re)Discovering Eva Lynd,” at the IDOL FEATURES website, was an invaluable resource for this post.)
