IYKYK.
JK about “If you know you know.” We know which local girls are in this photo and are more than happy to share that information. But first consider identifying them on your own.
Two clues: The young ladies were wearing flapper costumes for a production of the “Baker’s Roaring ‘20s Scrapbook” at the Montauk Community Church. The year was 1976.
Ray Smith, who took the photograph, would have been 70 or 71 and working for the East Hampton Star at the time. He had a career in high-fashion shoots and ad campaigns from the 1930s to the 1960s and started photographing dockside life and nature after settling in Montauk in the 1940s, before being recruited to cover local events like graduations and community fundraisers.
“It’s difficult to open up a Star from the late 1970s and not find a Ray Smith byline underneath an image,” says a biography in the Montauk Library Archives that accompanies its extensive Ray Smith Collection.
We were able to identify one of the girls in the library’s archival photo, as well as the month and year, thanks to the Star’s caption for the photo above, which Ray Smith must have shot in the same visit to the church. Sometimes a little redundancy is a good thing!
Drop us an email or leave a comment if you’d like to tag any or all of these stunning starlets, a number of whom can still be found around town if you’d like to ask for an autograph.
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