Josie Benderavage

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Josie Benderavage or Benderaverage was a fan who appeared at the first Torcon in 1948 — if she was a real person at all, and not a hoax or a pseudonym taken on for purposes of programming.

In his salacious and sexist conrep, “Torcon Memories,” Leslie Croutch called her “Josie the Man-Eater” and wrote:

Then there was one Josie Benderaverage who is put together in such a manner as to maker a mere mortal slaver. I didn’t exactly drool down my chin but I didn’t wear a coat of frost, either. I didn’t more than meet Josie, but I can give you my impressions from giving her the once over and seeing her in the fan entertainment. Josie is small – slim – with a sort of pixie look about her, and either she wears a feminine assist to contour or God had fun putting the pieces in the right places, for Josie has a silhouette that Rita Hayworth or Jane Wyman wouldn’t exactly sneer at. And in her part in the play during the fan entertainment, Josie also showed she could put heat in her voice and a mean wiggle in her hips. Yes, I approve of Miss Josie Benderavage.

In All Our Yesterdays, Harry Warner, Jr., commented that “someone named Josie captivated everyone with her manner of wriggling,” which would seem to support this description, except that Harry wasn’t actually there and relied on fanzines for his information, and he was a good friend of Croutch’s.

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Person

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