What a generation of women that was! The 40’s & 50’s surprised the heck out of me. That was my parent’s generation, WWII, the fifties. I thought I would be hard pressed to find 10 women I knew of. I really thought my favorite would be the Grace Kelly or Rita Hayworth type. Who knew it would be the grownup version of the most famous child star of all, Shirley Temple (circa 1948 age 20)! Aside from the beauty she grew up to be, she also struck me as an unbelievably nice person. I ended up having so many great photos of the women of this era, I put the extras in this post. The photography back then was so much better. Lighting, background, composition, color, the use of B&W.
Another surprise was Janet Leigh, who as far as I could tell never took a bad photo! It was amazing, winner after winner after winner… I have this vision of Grace Kelly from Rear Window and I don’t think anyone ever photographed her as well before or since. Loretta Young had 1 exceptional photo and left me mystified as to what was going on the rest of the time. I couldn’t find 1 decent color Myrna Loy shot. I ended up taking Betty Grable out of the post. She strikes me as a really nice/down to earth person. Who had zero sex appeal. I don’t know what it was. I replaced her with someone I hadn’t known until recently, Dorothy Malone. Like Gene Tierney, I hadn’t known they existed until this past year.
Two others that were nearly devoid of good color photos were Julie Newmar and Ava Gardner (In fact the choices for them were so bad I ended up removing them). Photographers captured about 1/10th of the sultriness that was Gene Tierney. One thing I did notice that was different from the more modern decades was the classic style, beauty and grace that the photographers captured in this era. While the few candid photos stand in stark contrast to the formality of the day, there was definitely something to be said for the ‘old school’. It was never so clear as in the post mentioned above where I used the surplus 40s/50s photo, modern day photographers are such hacks. And it wasn’t because of the advent of digital photography, that didn’t start in earnest until the late 90s or 2000s. By the 1960’s photography was quickly becoming a wasteland. [Here is a great link, “Bullet Bra Ladies of the 40s & 50s”. Awe inspiring.]
Shirley Temple
Grace Kelly
Rita Hayworth – This picture is a good example. The first one I’d used was a simple indoor photo of Rita in a blue sweater next to yellow drapes. It worked really well with the redhaired beauty. It was small and Rita was sporting a rather ‘canned’ smile. This photo is easily 4 times as big and Rita has a very natural contemplative expression, and mostly natural lighting. It also shows how simple a good photo can be. She’s standing in the yard leaning up against a telephone pole wearing a simple blue dress with a corsage on the belt as the secondary subject. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have the finest subject in the world either. There’s that.
Janet Leigh
Gene Tierney (*great story below)
Loretta Young
Dorothy Malone
Fort Apache was on TCM this morning starring Shirley Temple. That 1 year later at the age of 21 she should make her last movie (A Kiss for Corliss) just seems criminal! Quite.
Shirley has a wonderful interview on YouTube with Larry King from 1988 when she was 60 years old. Great stuff about the pervs at MGM and how when she asked for her money at age 22, the $3,000,000 plus she’d earned as a child was gone. Poof! (I took out some photos of Miss Temple so my crazed obsession would not be quite so obvious.)
*Gene Tierney had the most heartbreaking story that really is apropos in this time of pandemic. She was volunteering in 1943 at the Hollywood Canteen for soldiers on their way overseas. A high school girl who was a fan thought she’d show what a hero she was, and broke the rubella (German measles) quarantine she was under to visit Tierney at the canteen. The disease she gave the pregnant Tierney caused her daughter to be born deaf, blind and retarded and have to be institutionalized the rest of her life. Luckily her medical expenses were paid for by Howard Hughes and her ex-husband Oleg Cassini. In a final bit of irony, years later she met the very same fan again that had destroyed her daughters life. She bragged to Tierney about breaking the quarantine to show how devoted a fan she was.
Women of the 2000’s Women of the 90’s
Iowa life 