Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend

A kiss on the hand may be quite continental
But diamonds are a girl's best friend
A kiss may be grand
But it won't pay the rental on your humble flat
Or help you at the automat
Men grow cold as girls grow old
And we shall lose our charms in the end
But square cut or pear shape
These rocks don't lose their shape
Diamonds are a girl's best friend
Diamonds are a girl's best friend

Let's Rock

There may come a time when a lass needs a lawyer
Diamonds are a girl's best friend

There may be when a hard boiled employer
Thinks you're awful nice
But get that ice or else no dice
He's your guy when stocks are high
But beware when they start to descend
It's then that these louses go back to their spouses
Diamonds are a girl's best friend
Diamonds are a girl's best friend

Let's rock again

Lyrics from T-Bone Burnett's Diamonds Are Girl's Best Friend

Photo from the movie RPM - Revolutions Per Minute(from imdb.com) - About a radical, west coast college professor who takes over during a campus revolt but can't decide between restoring order or anarchy.

Bobby D On A 500 Brit

Some say he crashed his Triumph Tiger up around Woodstock, New York. Some say he didn't. And some just don't say.

Photo: Getty Image

Kitten Rides A Tiger

Thrill seeker, motorcycle enthusiast and all around double barreled bundle of joy, Ann Margaret, starring in this 1966 film, The Swinger, on a Triumph Tiger 500. Margaret, as writer Kelly Olsson, swings hard to prove to girly-mag editor, Tony Franciosa's Ric Colby, that she's capable of the steamy romps she writes about. And that her stories are everything his sexy-time magazine requires.
Whew! Its getting a little warm in here for 1966. The wattage from Ann Margaret alone could provide power for most mid-size towns.

Photo: dailymail.co.uk and imdb.com

Driven Too Far By His Own Hot Blood

Marlon Brando leaning on what might be a Triumph 650 Thunderbird in 1954s The Wild One. Sporting the Schott Perfecto One Star as t-shirt. With his policeman-like hat cocked to one side, someone might've suggested something to Marlon about rolling the pant legs down a bit but that might have been risking a swift, square toed engineer's boot to the arse or a shiv through the ribs.
This kicks off a brief, shirttail, motorscooter retrospective.

Photo: Everywhere

Quick And Dirty

As the story goes, McQueen was able to get Paramount Studios to underwrite the Silver Vase team trip to East Germany to represent America in the 1964
International Six Days Trials by hiring Cliff Coleman and Bud and Dave Ekins as bodyguards to accompany him while he attended the European movie premier of
Love With A Proper Stranger.

Bud Ekins is well known, not only for his motorcycle riding and racing prowess, but for his stints as a stunt double. And it is Ekins who was filmed jumping the fence in The Great Escape.

In the 50s and 60s, Steve McQueen's scooter of choice was often a Triumph. And it was a Triumph he rode during the '64 ISDT. It also appears his riding gear of choice was the Barbour International, or the Barbour Suit as it was called. An oil or wax coated jacket and pants. A range originally designed by Duncan Barbour, son of a son of, THE J. Barbour And Sons in the 1930s to help keep motorcycle riders dry. Leathers, if fit snug enough, were often worn underneath.

Credits:
motorcyclemuseum.org
pentonusa.org