Robin Johnson

Generally referred to as The Press Kit, this is the big-ass promotional package AFD released in North America. Since they didn’t have a table of contents, I can’t be sure what all was in it, not without examining all of them… which is impossible because I’m afraid most of them have been taken apart, the text pages tossed, and the photos sold off individually, because, hey, more money that way. But I have seen four of them, and although two are missing items the others have, the most complete ones contain:

• 1 8″ x 10″ sheet of “PHOTO CAPTIONS GENERAL INFORMATION”
• 16 8″ x 10″ black and white photos with accompanying caption sheets affixed to their back and folded over their fronts
• 8 information packets, totaling 37 8.5″ x 11″ pages:
• SYNOPSIS (5 pp.)
• ROBERT STIGWOOD Presents “TIMES SQUARE” (8 pp.)
• PRODUCTION INFORMATION (8 pp.)
• ROBERT STIGWOOD BIOGRAPHY (3 pp.)
• BRITISHER TIM CURRY ACTING RARITY–SKILLED IN MODERN AND CLASSIC (1 p.)
• “TIMES SQUARE” STAR ROBIN JOHNSON IS A NATURAL IN SCREEN BOW (4 pp.)
• TRINI ALVARADO–SHOW BUSINESS ‘PRO’ AT 13 (2 pp.)
• FILM DIRECTOR MOYLE KEEPS HIS COOL ON FIRST MAJOR FILM (3 pp.)
• MUSIC FROM ‘TIMES SQUARE’ NOW TWO-RECORD SOUNDTRACK ON RSO RECORDS (3 pp.)

I also don’t know for sure what order the items originally went in. Except for today, I’m going to post the images in the order the scenes they represent appear in the film, and not with their caption sheets, although I will include the text from them in their captions (as you can see below). I don’t have unlimited server space, so two copies of each picture is kind of out of the question at the moment. I’m also only going to post the texts that mention Robin, unless, say, I get several dozen requests clamoring for the biography of Robert Stigwood.

So, to start with, here’s the U.S. Press Kit version of the picture we saw here, with and without the caption sheet.

This version is more tightly cropped than the previous one, but it’s lower contrast, so we can read her “I Am Anonymous – Help Me” button. The other version has a tiny number “36” on it, which is cropped out of this version and replaced by the longer number consistent with the rest of the AFD publicity stills.

By this time they’ve settled on the trademarked logo for the film title. The caption sheets all omit the last digit of the number printed onto the photographs: this photo is TS-57-26/1, but the caption sheet identifies it as TS-57-26. As I said before, I also don’t know what the numbers signify. “TS” is obviously “Times Square,” but the rest… scene-shot/take, maybe? This particular photo is just a publicity glamor shot, as well. So, I’m waiting for someone who knows more about it to tell me.

The bottom of the caption sheets, which are on the backs of the photos the way they’re folded, are all identical:

And, just for kicks, here are the pages from the credits packet that have Robin’s name on them.

Funny, I never noticed before, even in 1980 David Johansen’s publishing company was called Buster Poindexter, Inc.