Jack Kirby’s Daughter Was 1960s Pop Starlet?

In early March this year, I posted on Facebook what I viewed as merely a mildly interesting bit of trivia. Subsequently, it was taken up by other sites (with my consent, to be fair) as a proper ‘news item’, so here for the benefit of latecomers, is the original post:

‘In addition to comics, I sometimes flog vintage mags on my eBay page, and was surprised to discover this item about Jack Kirby’s daughter in the women’s mag Petticoat for Oct 1st, 1966. According to her account, she was the facial inspiration for many of Jack’s “Big-Panty-Monsters” of the 1960s. Not a comment many daughters would take as a compliment.

‘Never reckoned Kirby’s art on “Captain Marvel”, meself…’

(The Petticoat hackette probably misunderstood  ‘Marvel Comics’, but…)

Rascally Rich Johnston, of Bleeding Cool, unearthed more data on this obscure comics/pop connection—I took the liberty of contracting and paraphrasing his article.

As a teen, Susan Kirby relocated from Long Island, New York to Toronto, Canada, where she joined a band, Lady Greensleeves. This band went to Britain in 1965, where they were all assumed to be Canadian (an error still found on their Wikipedia page). They acquired a bassist in Pauline Moran, who had been a member of Blackpool The Missfits (and later became an actress, famous for playing Miss Lemon in Agatha Christie’s Poirot). Thus were She Trinity (never ‘the’ She Trinity, despite the Petticoat article) formed. They soon had a recording contract with Columbia Records. However, though managed by Peter Grant, later of Led Zeppelin fame, and produced by Mickie Most, the band met with little success. To Columbia, they were little more than a gimmick.

Sue Kirby got a credit, along with the rest of the band, for ‘The Union Station Blues’, b-side of their first single. She is also the only credited writer of ‘Wild Flower’, b-side of their second single, though it seems to have actually been a group composition; both tracks were instrumentals. Their their single was a version of The Beatles’ ‘Yellow Submarine’. This may have influenced EMI’s decision to release The Beatles’ version as a single (though The Beatles’ version hit the shops a week before She Trinity’s).

She Trinity would tour in Europe, and appeared on bills with such bands as The Tremeloes, The Hollies, The Kinks, and later on Hot Chocolate. For six concerts they opened for The Who. But by then it appears that Sue Kirby, had been sacked from She Trinity. ‘She was actually kicked out,’ band member Shelley Gillespie said. ‘She was very young and very immature, and… enough was enough.’ The band itself finally broke up in 1970.

Sue Kirby was asked by her father to write song lyrics for a character in 1983’s Silver Star #1. She passed away, according to her niece Jillian Kirby, a few years ago.