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Betty Grable
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Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable was an American actress, singer, dancer, and pin-up girl whose sensational bathing-suit photo became the number one pinup of the World War II era. Grable was best known for her shapely legs, which were showcased in all of her Technicolor musicals and famously insured by her studio 20th Century Fox for one million dollars per leg. Grable was born in St. Louis, Missouri to John Conn Grable and Lillian Rose Hoffman. Most of her recent ancestors were American, but her distant heritage included Dutch, Irish, German and English. She was propelled into acting by her mother, who insisted that one of her daughters become a star. For her first role, as a chorus girl in the film Happy Days (1929), Grable was only 13 years old (legally underage for acting), but because the chorus line performed in blackface, it was impossible to tell how old she was. For her next film, her mother tried to get her to sign a contract using false ID, but when this was discovered Grable was fired.
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The celebrated "pin-up girl" of World War II, American actress Betty Grable was the daughter of a stockbroker and an aggressive "stage mother." When her older sister Marjorie balked at a show business career, Grable was taken in hand by her mother and trained to sing, dance, tell jokes and play the ukulele and saxophone. Despite her father's objections, Grable begged her mother to take her to Los Angeles for a movie career, preparing herself with a two-girl musical act while attending Hollywood Professional School. Lying about her age, 13-year-old Grable was hired as a chorus girl for short subjects, getting her first important exposure as the energetic blonde "cowgirl" who sings the first chorus of the first song in the Eddie Cantor film musical Whoopee! (1930). Grable played supporting parts in two-reelers and bits in features for the next couple of years, attaining her first major role in Hold 'Em Jail (1932), a comedy starring the comedy team of Wheeler and Woolsey.
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Betty Grable had a relatively short life. She succumbed from lung cancer at age 56. But during her short life she had a prolific film star career. By the time she was 23 years old she had already played in about 20 films including the Academy Award-nominated film, "The Gay Divorcee" in 1934.
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Betty Grable had one of the finest voices in Hollywood during the 1940s, but unfortunately she was under contract to 20th Century Fox. Fox discouraged their stars from working for recording companies. Betty never had the opportunity, as did other stars of that era, to capitalize on both her vocal and acting talents . . . Read More
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Betty Grable was truly a potent force in 1940s Hollywood. For 11 consecutive years (1941–51), she ranked among the film industry's top stars. During the 1940s there was no more popular female movie star in the world. Grable's most successful films were lavish formulaic Technicolor musicals, beginning with Down Argentine Way in 1940. In all, she appeared in some 22 of these color spectacles, all for Twentieth Century-Fox, including Song of the Islands, Springtime in the Rockies, Coney Island, Sweet Rosie O'Grady, Diamond Horseshoe, and Mother Wore Tights. All ranked among the most popular films at the box office for their respective years of release.
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Posters of Betty Grable traveled abroad with soldiers during the Second World War, and she was considered to be one of the first and finest pin-up stars of the era. Grable was ... known as the “Girl With the Million Dollar Legs,” thanks to a famous insurance policy filed with Lloyd's of London. Fox, Betty Grable's studio, was concerned that damage to Grable's legs could spell the end of her career, so they negotiated the then highly unusual insurance policy on her shapely legs.
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Betty Grable