Just 52 years ago today, Miss Betty Grable struck a pose. It might have been nearly two decades since a not-dissimilar picture vaulted her to superstardom, but she still had her fair share of It, no? She's 44 or so here and looking damn good.
I think Grable should be the patron saint of late bloomers. She didn't really hit it big until a dozen years and more than four dozen pictures into her film career, but she made up for lost time by thoroughly enjoying her decade as box-office catnip. No one would accuse a Betty Grable movie of being art, but in their day they were enjoyed by audiences around the world as few before or since can claim to be. When her day in the spotlight waned, she gracefully moved on (saying "Go and get yours, honey - I've had mine!" to Miss Monroe on the set of How to Marry a Millionaire, her last big hit) and had a more than respectable time of it in nightclubs, on stage, and in the occasional TV appearance.
The only thing that troubles me about this alluring snap is the date - is there a stage-costume exception to the immutable rule about white shoes and Labor Day? One does hope so...
Life, when lived on the stage, transcends both the Gregorian and Julian calendars.....I'm told.
ReplyDeleteHollywood knows no season, and with the right filter on the lens, it knows no time of day.
ReplyDeleteApparently 600 people attended Betty's funeral including her ex-husbands Harry James and Jackie Coogan, Dorothy Lamour, Shirley Booth, Mitzi Gaynor, Johnnie Ray, Don Ameche, Cesar Romero, George Raft, Alice Faye and Dan Dailey, which says something. Neither of her daughters attended, however, which says something else... Jx
ReplyDeleteI don't know - anyone who can get along with both exes and Alice Faye had to have been doing something right, don't you think?
DeleteOne wonders whether Miss Faye was there just to make sure the lid was fastened properly. Jx
DeleteOh, Jon. I almost fell off my chair with that one.
Deleteshirley had no way to get to the funeral home that day so i dropped her off.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why you were late for canasta. We waited.
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