Fay Estabrook (Harper)

In the 60s PI classic, Harper, Shelley Winters (then at her most Rubenesque) plays Fay Estabrook a once gorgeous movie starlet.
The wife of an abusive thug and the mistress of a "kinky" millionaire, one promising move starlet Fay Estabrook is now an emotionally vulnerable alcoholic who works as an astrologer and interior decorator. With her considerable curves packed into an ultra-tight and ultra-shiny black and white silk dress whose low cut front shows off her ginormous boobs to maximum effect, Fay still looks sexy. Ralph Samson the rich playboy whose kidnapping drives the plot certainly thought so – he installed the one-time sex symbol as his mistress and gave her picture pride of place on his bedside table and her body pride of place in his bed. Having found out where poor Fay hangs out, the PI of the title heads over in the hope of meeting and pumping her for information. He arrives just in time to see Fay’s brutal husband Troy dismissively throw a few bills on the table and storms out leaving his sexy wife to fend off the attention of the local drunks, Seeing his chance, Harper makes his move. Although initially suspicious, Fay is easy prey for the PI's smarmy charms. Unaware that Harper is only interested in what she might let slip about her rich boyfriend she happily gulps down every drink he buys her, When Fay passes out, Harper takes her home and manhandles her unconscious body onto the sofa in her living room before sneaking off to search her bedroom for clues.The last we see of the lovely if rather pathetic evil babe is towards the end of the movie. Looking drop-dead gorgeous in a tight leopardskin top over a leather pencil skirt and arm length kid gloves, poor Fay is forced into a closet at gunpoint and left to await her arrest.
FAY'S STORY (FULL) 
When down-at-heel PI Lewis Harper is asked to investigate the disappearance of millionaire Ralph Sampson by his long-suffering wife, the first place he looks is Sampson’s astrologically-themed hotel room at Los Angeles’ Bel Air hotel. By Sampson’s bed, he finds a framed picture of the wealthy man's mistress, a gorgeous one-time movie starlet called Fay Estabrook. When he asks Sampson’s pilot what happened to Fay the man cruelly sniggers "She got fat”. 
H eventually tracks Fay down to a supper club where she has just been publicly humiliated and dumped by her sadistic husband Troy. While poor Fay has indeed piled on the pounds, it is obvious she remains very fastidious about her appearance. Her outfit she's chosen for tonight is in a skintight black and white silk dress which is straining to hold back her ginormous jugs. The finishing touch to what is a very sexy look is an expensive-looking black and white jeweled choker and a black silk bow which highlights her platinum bob cut hair.
Having sized up the fact that Fay is consoling herself with a few drinks, Harper moves in and pretends to be a fan. Although dubious at first, the ex-silver screen goddess is obviously starved off affection and is soon eating out of Harper’s hand. Eager to find out what he can about her relationship with Sampson, the PI pours drink after drink down poor Fay’s throat and lie after lie into her ear. “Yeah, I am classy. Not everybody notices," she says at one point. Sadly, she herself fails to notice the lengths Harper goes to to dodge her clumsy attempts at kissing him. 
Too besotted or too sozzled to register the contemptuous looks H keeps giving her as the night goes on, Fay can't believe it when H proposes taking her to the Belle Aire. Barely are they sat down when Harper starts quizzing her about Sampson. Despite being three sheets to the wind and having mistaken Harper’s probing for jealousy (“What is it with me that men all the time want to possess me!”), Fay gives very little away. Touched that such a handsome young man should be interested in her, she tells her new admirer that there is nothing to worry about as Ralph is her oldest friend, albeit one with “a very kinky personality”
Seeing Sampson’s daughter, Harper makes an excuse and leaves the table. Thinking that’s she’s been dumped for a second time, poor Fay is left to console herself by polishing off another mini-bottle of champagne. While she is doing so, Harper is telling the girl that Fay isn’t a date, “she’s a hard night’s work.”
When he returns to the lounge, Fay is trying to lead the band in a tuneless rendition of La Cucaracha. Sensing that his victim is too pissed to stand, H deftly dodges her latest attempt at a kiss and Fay collapses into a banquette.
When Harper gets Fay home he unceremoniously dumps her semi-conscious body onto the sofa. Her pretty, if overmade up eyes full of confusion, the poor deluded woman still thinks Harper wants to make love to her. “Don’t try anything tonight, dumpling,” she says in a small, scared voice, “some other time, any other ti….” 
Soon Fay is sawing logs on the sofa. Pausing only to compare a framed portrait of the former pin-up in her prime against the dumpy drunken wreck beneath it, H goes into her bedroom to search her things. 
Before he can get out of the house, Harper is found by Troy who promptly pulls a gun on him and asks him what he thinks he is doing. When he explains that he was Miss Estabrook’s escort for the evening, Troy rather ungallantly remarks “what do you want with an old bag of worms like her?”.
Scoffing at Harper’s easy lie that Fay is in fact “the sexiest thing he ever done see”, Troy calls his bluff. “Sport, if you want her, you can have her”. When Harper declines to do so, Troy gives his pretty wife a contemptuous look and says “she never could handle her liquor”
The second and last time we see Fay she is with Troy in the house of another kidnapper called Betty Fraley. While the plainly terrified Fay is begging Betty to tell Troy all she knows, Harper bursts in and shoots Troy dead. 
When Harper hears Fay wail that “you’ve killed him in cold blood”, he says “and if you don’t shut up your yapping, I’ll kill you, too!” 
Desperately scuttling up the wall, her ginormous jugs hyperventilating inside the too-tight leopardskin top and black leather pencil skirt in which she has vacuum-packed her generous curves, Fay pleads for her life. “I’ll give you anything, everything I own,” she pleads. 
Looking poor Fay dismissively up and down, Harper says “rich choice, I’ll take your shoes”.
All Fay can manage by return is a breathy ‘What?” of confusion before Harper bundles her inside a flimsy looking closet and locks its dooor. As he and Betty are fleeing the scene, Betty remarks, “Fay’ll get out” thumb|
“A fat barefoot alcoholic? Sure she will” is all Harper says as Fay continues frantically rattling the closet door in an attempt to get away before the police come to arrest her.
TRIVIA 
In the original shooting script, Fay was allowed to escape and the last time we see the "fat, barefoot alcoholic" she is struggling up a rocky slope in the faint hope of evading arrest
Shelley W was so fond of her wardrobe for Harper she recycled it in several other movies. Most notably Patch of Blue (the sexy low cut black and white silk dress) and WIldi in the Street (her sexy choker) Harper's last sight of her is watching her trying 
A few years later, Shelley donned her leathers and played the fiery, red-headed lesbian gang leader, Mommy, in the first Cleopatra Jones movie. Her OTT performance ended with CJ's literally throwning her over the top of a crane gantry and to her death far below.
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Category:1960s
Category:Adulteress
Category:Barefoot
Category:Begs Hero for Mercy
Category:Blonde
Category:Bob Cut Hairstyle
Category:Bondage Used On Villainess
Category:Choker Necklace
Category:Clothes Stripped, Removed, or Stolen
Category:Comical Defeat
Category:Delusional
Category:Failed Seduction
Category:Fishnet Stockings
Category:Fur
Category:Humiliated
Category:Knee Length Skirts & Dresses
Category:Knocked Out
Category:Leather
Category:Live Action Villainess
Category:Low Cut Top
Category:Masochist
Category:Minion
Category:Nail Polish
Category:Opera Gloves
Category:Pervert
Category:Rich
Category:Show Business
Category:Slave Owner
Category:Smoker
Category:Vain
Category:Villain's Lover
Category:Fate: Held Captive