13 September 2013

Eve Eden

Popular pin-up model Eve Eden (1940) aka Rosa Dolmai was a starlet in British B-films of the late 1950s and 1960s.

Eve Eden
Yugoslavian postcard by Grafoplastika DD, Smederova.

Anatomical Marvel


Eve Eden was born as Rosa Dolmai (or Delmai or Delmar) in Bath, UK in 1940 (some sources say 1938) and reportedly, she owed her exotic looks to Portuguese and English ancestry.

17 years later she was a waitress who became ‘One of Britain’s many anatomical marvels (39-22-36) in the figure modeling field', as TidiousTed notes on his blog RetroRamblings. Rosa was discovered by an unnamed photographer in the Thames Valley Photographic Club where she became a popular attraction for other camera club photographers who named her 'The West Country Lovely'. As Rosa Dolmai or Rosa Dolmaille, she was featured in glamour photographer Harrison Marks’ magazine Solo No.3.

Rosa Dolmai's first appearance in his magazine Kamera followed in issue No.11. After that she became a regular model for several months. She came under contract to 'leading London agent for glamour’ Bill Watts, who was also the agent for Sabrina and Shirley Ann Field.

Between 1957 and 1959, Rosa Dolmai with her seductive dark looks appeared often in the pocket magazines from TOCO, such as Spick & Span, Foto, Model, QT, Hush, Strip Lingerie, Sleek, X For Men, Beautiful Britons, and Fan Fare, usually in white lingerie, corsets, panties and stockings.

While modelling, Rosa also harboured tap dance aspirations. She worked as a compere for stage shows and made her screen debut on TV as one of the presenters of an episode of the Six-Five Special (1958). Rosa gained bit parts in TV commercials and variety shows with Norman Wisdom and Benny Hill. Parts were to follow in series like Danger Man and Airline Detective. She had an uncredited bit part in the crime film Naked Fury (Charles Saunders, 1959) and played credited as Eve Eden in the war comedy Operation Bullshine (Gilbert Gunn, 1959).

Sabrina
Sabrina. British postcard in the Greetings series. Photo: Douglas Burn.

Naked Fury


In the following years, pretty Rosa Dolmai continued to appear in glamour magazines. Credited as Eve Eden, she was a dancer in a strip show in the comedy Doctor in Love (Ralph Thomas, 1960), the third sequel to Doctor In The House (Ralph Thomas, 1954). She played small parts on television and in B-films like So Evil, So Young (Godfrey Grayson, 1961) starring Jill Ireland, the crime drama Rag Doll (Lance Comfort, 1961) and The Clue of the Silver Key (Gerard Glaister, 1961).

In Belgium, she appeared in the comedy De ordonnans/At the Drop of a Head (Charles Frank, 1962) with country singer Bobbejaan Schoepen. After a bondage full-nude layout brought her to public scandal, she dyed her hair blond, reinvented herself as Eve Eden, and landed a bit part as a high priestess in the Beatles’ film Help! (Richard Lester, 1965).

She had another uncredited part in the sixteenth in the series of Carry On films, Carry On... Up the Khyber (Gerald Thomas, 1968), as one of the wives of The Khasi of Kalabar (Kenneth Williams). Reviewer Shell-26 at IMDb: "Probably the best of the Carry-Ons. Genuinely funny performances from all the actors and a classic script."

Later she appeared also in When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth (Val Guest, 1969). Eve Eden continued to pose until the late 1960s. Her dozens of pictorials included spreads in international magazines like Playboy, Hi-Life, Modern Man, Fling, Beau, and Knave. There’s an unverified rumour that Eve Eden then married a wealthy South American and retired from modelling.

And finally a word about Eve from the editor of The 60s Glam Database: "Perhaps the most beautiful model of England's Golden Age and certainly today one of the most highly sought after models. Magazine appearances are becoming increasingly collectable."


Eve Eden a.k.a Rosa Dolmai
Yugoslavian postcard by Studio Sombor.

Sources: The 60s Glam Database of British Glamour Models of the 1960’s, RetroRambling and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 7 February 2024.

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