The musical Kiss Me, Kate was inspired by the on-stage/off-stage battling of husband-and-wife actors Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne during their 1935 production of
The Taming of The Shrew, as witnessed by future Broadway producer
Arnold Saint-Subber, the stage manager of the 1935 show. Saint-Subber wrote the initial treatment for the
KMK story [at the insistence of his good friend actor Montgomery Clift]. In
1947 he asked the Spewacks (Sam and Bella, undergoing their own marital woes at the time) to write the script; Bella Spewack in turn enlisted Cole Porter to write the music and lyrics. Bella tried writing the book on her own but Sam became more prominent in the writing process in order to polish up the product. Sam Spewack was not the director of the original Broadway run which premiered in December 1948 but was the director for the first London run in 1951.
So 2017 brings us to the
70th anniversary of the
creation of the hit and beloved musical Kiss Me, Kate. As good a reason as any to start sharing some of my 50+ "spanking scene" finds that come straight out of the newspapers of the day. Kiss Me, Kate - as is noted elsewhere in the CSR - has had a remarkable long and usually successful run of national, regional, local and school productions. From early on the "spanking scene" was the go-to publicity shot for local newspapers publicizing an upcoming run of the show - not the only scene snapped by any means but an action photo that seemed to be very appealing to photographers and primary cast members alike. As the decades rolled on and feminists objected, Fred/Petruchio spanking Lilli/Kate became less popular as the signature scene for publicizing the musical. Reviewers in this century seem to forget that the spanking is
less about taming than it is about
retaliation and that Lilli gave out, by way of slapping, punching, biting and kicking more than what she received in return.
Today's offering highlights the 1980s. I collected these photos through my newspaper archive by scanning for certain key words combined with Kiss Me, Kate or sometimes just Kiss Me, Kate. I did not retain the worse reproductions. Perhaps some of these images can be found elsewhere on the web but I don't know if that is the case or not and frankly
I don't care since I found all these images through my own concerted effort. For further images and in particular photos not taken from the newspapers consult
Harry's work at Vanilla/Mainstream Spankings and of course the Chross Collection [assuming you can still get to it]. Elsewhere in the CSR Forum nice contributions to the KMK photo collection or history by
Dan, Boom and
Web-Ed can be found.
- KissMeKate#30September19,1982PalmBeachFL.jpg (58.11 KiB) Viewed 12832 times
- KissMeKate#32July20,1984Burlington,VT.jpg (64.43 KiB) Viewed 12832 times
- KissMeKate#31Appleton,WIJune10,1984.jpg (48.27 KiB) Viewed 12832 times
. I notice that the onlookers are mostly men but I thought the reactions of the 2 women were the most interesting. The one on the right appears to be laughing heartily and it gave me the impression that she was wondering how long it would be before someone spanked this naughty girl 
. Thanks, Phil
