Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe & Pinup History

<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:00:45</time>
For me as a historian, when you think of pinups, there's going to be an image that comes to your mind.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:00:50</time>
The flower and the hair, the big curly 1940s hairstyles, the tight fitting clothes, a woman's silhouette, the red lipstick.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:01:00</time>
Those images don't just come from nowhere, they come from women who set the trend of those images.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:01:06</time>
I wanted to celebrate those women as groundbreakers, as history makers.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:01:16</time>
Only one I need.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:01:24</time>
Welcome to Talk with History.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:01:26</time>
I'm your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian Jen.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:01:28</time>
Hello.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:01:29</time>
On this podcast, we give you insights to our history Inspired World Travels YouTube channel Journey and examine history through deeper conversations with the curious, the explorers and the history lovers out there.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:01:42</time>
Now, Jim, you can tell we're going to be talking about some pinup stuff by the thing in your hair.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:01:46</time>
And for those listening, you guys probably saw the podcast podcast title, but we're talking about a visit you made out to Los Angeles a few weeks ago.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:01:53</time>
But before we dive into that, we just want to put out there that the folks who are affected by the fires in Los Angeles, this is January of 25 are, they're in our thoughts and prayers.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:02:04</time>
I have a lot of friends and family that still live out there, so we've been making sure, kind of checking in on them.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:02:08</time>
And we just want to say that we're thinking about you, you're in our prayers and for anybody that I know, you know, let me know, reach out and I'll help out however I can.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:02:17</time>
Yeah, we definitely are thinking of you and our prayers are with you at this.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:02:23</time>
So you made a trip out to Los Angeles a few weeks ago, November, and you got to go out and visit some iconic world famous pinup models.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:02:34</time>
Now why don't you tell us a little bit about where you were and kind of how you got to go visit them and who you saw.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:02:41</time>
Sure.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:02:41</time>
So for me as a historian, when you think of pinups, there's going to be an image that comes to your mind.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:02:47</time>
There's going to be an image of the flower in the hair, the big curly 1940s hairstyles, the tight fitting clothes, a woman's silhouette, the red lipstick.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:02:59</time>
Those images don't just come from nowhere.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:03:01</time>
They come from women who set the trend of those images, women who were the first to do it, groundbreaking women who took these photographs for morale of the 1940s.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:03:12</time>
And I wanted to celebrate those women as groundbreakers, as history makers.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:03:17</time>
I wanted to pay them a visit.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:03:18</time>
I dressed in pin up to pay them a visit.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:03:21</time>
The very first one I went to Was the woman who really was the most famous, the most popular, the most requested photograph from the 1940s, World War II.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:03:33</time>
It actually made Time Life's 100 Greatest Photographs of All Time.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:03:37</time>
Ms.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:03:38</time>
Betty Grable.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:03:39</time>
Yeah, so.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:03:39</time>
So learning about some of these pinups myself was interesting because I, I'm very familiar with the images.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:03:46</time>
Right.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:03:47</time>
I know the classic Betty Grable over the shoulder look and I'll post that up on the video.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:03:53</time>
So tell us a little bit about Betty Grable and how she kind of came into this ultra classic kind of pinup aura.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:01</time>
Sure.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:02</time>
So Betty Grable was a star.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:04</time>
She was already a Hollywood star.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:06</time>
She had made some B A movies.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:09</time>
She had.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:09</time>
She was a blonde.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:10</time>
So in the 1940s, that blonde look.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:12</time>
She was born in 1916.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:14</time>
She gets involved in radio and then into movies, mostly B list movies, but it was the musical Du Barry Was a Lady that brought her some attention.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:24</time>
But it was in the 1940s where she takes this famous photograph and turns and it's just like the backside of her in the white swimsuit and it's her long legs that really become her iconic image.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:40</time>
So much so that her legs are insured for a million dollars by the studio.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:45</time>
And she has this great quote that says, I became a star for two reasons and I'm standing on them.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:52</time>
And I love that about her.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:04:53</time>
So when you think of Betty Grable, her movies, you might remember she was in some movies with Marilyn Monroe, she did a couple, you know, a movies that you would remember her.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:05:03</time>
But she's not known for her acting, she's known for the photographs.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:05:06</time>
She's known for that 1940 photograph because it was the most requested photograph once it came out in 1943.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:05:14</time>
GIs wrote home for it, GIs ordered it.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:05:17</time>
GI's bought the magazines it was in.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:05:19</time>
And that photograph not only was on the walls in their bunk rooms, in, you know, their canteens, in their mechanic shops, they used it for the silhouettes of nose art.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:05:30</time>
Yeah.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:05:31</time>
And there's even.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:05:32</time>
You mentioned this in the video.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:05:34</time>
I think there's one nose art picture that I found and it might be a more modern one with her.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:05:38</time>
I mean it's that picture.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:05:39</time>
But then also you think of the Memphis Belle and who is it?
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:05:42</time>
Who's the artist that did that?
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:05:43</time>
It was George Petty.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:05:44</time>
Yeah.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:05:44</time>
So Petty, the Petty are these photographs that were also an Esquire magazine.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:05:49</time>
Again in these silhouettes of women, very tight fitting silhouettes of their everyday life.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:05:56</time>
So you think of your everyday wife or girlfriend or sister and.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:06:01</time>
But they're in these very iconic everyday images.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:06:04</time>
And Petty would draw these.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:06:06</time>
She was kind of the true life embodiment of that art, which is, I think, was one of the reasons why it was so requested.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:06:13</time>
It was just a drawing that GIS had had before and it was in Esquire magazine and all of a sud.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:06:18</time>
Here's a real life picture of someone who's a movie actress, a movie star, and it just like you said in the video for the 40s, it kind of quote unquote, went viral.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:06:27</time>
Yeah.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:06:27</time>
And when you think about it, it's very simplistic.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:06:29</time>
It's just her in a white bathing suit, high heels.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:06:32</time>
Nothing else is in the photograph.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:06:34</time>
It's just her turn from behind and smiling.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:06:37</time>
So what makes it so simple, I think is what makes it so iconic is there's not much to it besides a woman's silhouette and her playful smile with it.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:06:48</time>
And that photogr.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:06:49</time>
Again, it just went viral.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:06:52</time>
And at the time when something viral wasn't a thing.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:06:56</time>
And so again, she's going to be.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:06:59</time>
She's chastised for it because it is showing a lot of skin in the 1940s, but it also makes her famous.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:05</time>
And this is the most famous pinup photograph of all time.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:09</time>
I went to find her in her final resting place.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:11</time>
She's at Inglewood Park Cemetery.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:14</time>
It's not an easy location to find if you watch the video because she's in this.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:18</time>
So many mausoleums there.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:20</time>
She's in an indoor mausoleum.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:22</time>
And there's different sanctuary names.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:24</time>
I had someone actually help me find her.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:27</time>
They all look the same, so it's very difficult to find.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:31</time>
Yeah.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:07:31</time>
And it was a lot bigger than I realized because there was.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:07:34</time>
You took some good footage of you walking around inside.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:07:37</time>
For being in the middle of Los Angeles.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:07:39</time>
Like, that's a pretty big mausoleum.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:42</time>
Yeah.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:42</time>
And it's.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:43</time>
There's a lot of famous people in that cemetery.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:45</time>
I was just looking for her, but it's definitely there for you to go and visit.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:07:49</time>
She dies young, 56 years old from lung cancer.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:07:53</time>
Yeah.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:07:53</time>
Now, the next pinup model that you visited wasn't too far away.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:07:57</time>
Most of these were pretty close.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:07:59</time>
And that was Betty Page.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:08:00</time>
Right.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:08:01</time>
So we're talking about the next Betty.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:08:03</time>
Now, I was very familiar with some of Betty Page's iconic photographs.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:08:09</time>
The one that most people I think would recognize is her posing on the beach in like a leopard print bathing suit.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:08:16</time>
Right.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:08:16</time>
Yeah.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:08:17</time>
That's where she's fully covered.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:08:18</time>
That's where she's fully covered.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:08:19</time>
When I started.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:08:21</time>
Awkward moment for me when I Started like googling her name to find like YouTube clips of her.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:08:26</time>
And she had kind of starred, I guess, in some films that are really pushing the edge of what was allowed and appropriate and what was acceptable at the time.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:08:36</time>
A lot of stuff where she's like basically completely nude, all sorts of stuff.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:08:42</time>
So talk a little bit about Bettie Page.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:08:44</time>
So bettie page is 1950s.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:08:46</time>
I want you to think she's not the same as World War II.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:08:48</time>
She's building on to what the women of the 40s did.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:08:53</time>
So she's really like the first pinup model.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:08:56</time>
She's really what.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:08:58</time>
They took this idea from the 40s of women with these very feminine silhouettes in the makeup, in the hair.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:09:05</time>
And she specifically did that.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:09:08</time>
And she even pushed the envelope.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:09:10</time>
She goes into more risque photographs.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:09:13</time>
She goes into more people having different kind of fetishes and things like that.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:09:17</time>
And she is referred to as the queen of pinups because she has again, a very iconic look.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:09:23</time>
She has these thick bangs, dark hair, dark red lipstick, and she's very light skinned.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:09:29</time>
So it's the very much this color contrast that she's making now.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:09:34</time>
She was so iconic that she really empowers women in their femininity.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:09:40</time>
And she's taking these photographs and they're so popular that they're just more and more things get asked for her.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:09:49</time>
So when it comes to pin up models, photographs more exist of Bettie Page than any other pinup.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:09:56</time>
And they made these like films, I'll call them films, right?
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:10:00</time>
I don't really know what else to call them, but one of the ones that stuck out my head was called Teaserama.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:10:05</time>
And.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:10:06</time>
And she was known for this film in Teaserama, where she's essentially just kind of dancing around and taking off certain kinds of clothing and doing this fetish stuff.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:10:14</time>
I was honestly a little bit surprised and I kind of said, I told you while I was editing the video.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:10:19</time>
I was like, Jen, I didn't realize Betty Page was pushing it so far.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:10:22</time>
I mean, this is edgy stuff for, for the 50s.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:10:25</time>
Yeah.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:10:25</time>
So she had an impact on society.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:10:27</time>
Like what she's doing is pushing the envelope for women's sexuality, that it's, it's okay to be a sexual person and it's okay to express your sexuality and have fun doing it.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:10:38</time>
It's not a shameful thing.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:10:41</time>
She looks beautiful again.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:10:42</time>
She's setting a precedence of a pinup look.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:10:46</time>
Because of that, she's considered the queen of the pinups now.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:10:48</time>
She's buried at Westwood Memorial park in the same cemetery as so many famous people.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:10:55</time>
Marilyn Monroe will be there.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:10:56</time>
We'll talk about her later.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:10:57</time>
But I saw Dean Martin there, I saw Natalie Wood there, I saw Donna Reed there.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:11:02</time>
It's like right in the heart of downtown la, it's hard to get to.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:11:06</time>
It's kind of in the middle of a city block with all of these big buildings around it.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:11:12</time>
And it actually says Queen of the Pin Ups on her grave.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:11:16</time>
So I was able to visit her, sit with her.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:11:18</time>
I left a flower for her.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:11:20</time>
She's going to die later in life at 85 years old.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:11:23</time>
And in the end of her life, she's going to convert to Christianity, she's going to study the Bible, she's becomes a missionary.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:11:30</time>
And so she definitely has a change of what her emphasis in her life is, but what she left behind in American history, especially for women, and just empowerment and confidence and sexuality.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:11:46</time>
She really was a history maker.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:11:48</time>
Yeah, she was beautiful.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:11:50</time>
She was, you know, Queen of the pinup says it right on her grave.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:11:53</time>
It was fun to try and make an appropriate video pictures of her.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:11:57</time>
Now, the next one that we're talking about here is not far from Betty Page.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:12:02</time>
It's just across the way in the Westwood cemetery that you were at.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:12:05</time>
And that is the, I would say the icon of icons.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:12:09</time>
And that's Marilyn Monroe.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:12:10</time>
She is the most famous pinup.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:12:12</time>
So I will say when I went to visit her, there are still people waiting.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:12:16</time>
Then I went to her grave and shot part of the video that you'll see on Walk with History.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:12:21</time>
And everyone was respectful of each other.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:12:23</time>
And everyone was very respectful at her grave.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:12:26</time>
You'll see at her grave.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:12:28</time>
So many women kiss her grave.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:12:30</time>
They'll put on the red lipstick and kiss her grave with the lip marks because of the iconic image of the red lips that Marilyn Monroe as part of that pinup look.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:12:40</time>
And that has stained the marble pink from wiping it off so much.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:12:44</time>
Yeah.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:12:45</time>
And it's actually hers as well as Hugh Hefner, who's right next to her, because when she passed away, he bought the crypt right next to her.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:12:53</time>
And so there's lipstick marks on both of their grave sites.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:12:56</time>
Yes.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:12:56</time>
And they're both kind of this reddish color because the caretakers there are trying to wipe the lipstick off and it kind of stains it red.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:13:04</time>
So Hugh Hefner specifically did that because she is his first model in his Playboy magazine.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:13:11</time>
When he develops Playboy and the first issue release, Marilyn Monroe was on the COVID He explicitly bought the nude photos of Marilyn Monroe.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:13:20</time>
Those are what are in the very first issue of Playboy.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:13:23</time>
He bought the crypt beside her from that moment on.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:13:27</time>
So if you ever followed Hugh Hefner's career or Playboy's career, you knew he was always going to be buried beside Marilyn Monroe.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:13:34</time>
He had bought that crypt early on.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:13:36</time>
Now, Marilyn Monroe, beauty comes to LA and she's working in a factory in, during World War II, right.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:13:46</time>
She's one of those women who go to work.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:13:47</time>
A photographer is walking through the factory and sees her and asks to take photos of her.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:13:53</time>
And those photos are nude photos, they are pinup photos.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:13:57</time>
And from there she gets seen and put on contract in movies.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:14:03</time>
And she makes a couple B list movies where she gets more and more famous.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:14:06</time>
And as she, her rise to fame is happening, those photos come out.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:14:11</time>
And at the time, nude photos could ruin a person's career.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:14:15</time>
But for Marilyn Monroe, those nude photos sent her into the stratosphere.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:14:20</time>
And she was right at the cusp in the 50s of this sexual revolution for women.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:14:26</time>
And no one has touched, in my opinion, touched Amanda Monroe and what she has done for sexual empowerment for women and their sexual image.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:14:35</time>
And those photos are what you will see in the first Playboy magazine.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:14:38</time>
So it's a different Maryland look.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:14:40</time>
She has the longer blonde hair, she's not the short platinum blonde.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:14:45</time>
But that photo, that pinup photo has made her the most famous pinup of all time.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:14:52</time>
And Scott and I talked about this pinup photos in mechanics garages and things weren't always covered women, they were nude photos.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:15:03</time>
Oh, yeah.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:15:04</time>
And that nude photo of Marilyn Monroe was the most pinned nude photograph of all time.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:15:10</time>
Yeah.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:15:10</time>
And the next thing too is like, she's kind of building a little bit on like what Bettie Page had started doing.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:15:17</time>
But she, she broke into cinema, right?
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:15:19</time>
She, she broke into movies.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:15:21</time>
And like you said, she had actually done, I think one, maybe two with Betty Grable, Right.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:15:24</time>
They had been done, done a couple parts together and there's actually pictures of those two together.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:15:29</time>
But one of the things that I found kind of interesting and I appreciated about Marilyn, the role that Marilyn Monroe always played was, you said it in the video, that kind of comedic blonde bombshell role.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:15:41</time>
But it's comedic in the sense that she's playing this part where the woman is driving the movie.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:15:47</time>
It's, it's, she's in control in kind of a comedic way.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:15:51</time>
But you see us, the viewer, when you're watching this movie, you see how whether it's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes or whatever that the movie is, she's kind of playing the part of kind of a dumb blonde.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:16:04</time>
But you Know she's not.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:05</time>
Yeah.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:05</time>
So she's that blonde bombshell.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:07</time>
So like you said, Betty Grable is the highest paid actress in the 1940s.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:13</time>
Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:15</time>
She is going to.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:16</time>
She's the top billed actress for a decade after this.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:19</time>
Because not only is she the blonde Bond show and the sexual symbol, she understands the power of that.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:24</time>
And that is what I think sets her apart from these other women.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:27</time>
And the part she's playing in movies, she's playing the dumb blonde, but she's not dumb, but she knows how to play the part.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:35</time>
And that is what is so interesting about her is she understands where her power lies and she understands how to use that to her advantage.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:44</time>
And that's what you see in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Seven Year Itch things along that nature again.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:50</time>
She is the most famous pinup now because of that.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:54</time>
Most people couldn't separate in her life the image from reality.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:16:57</time>
Yeah, she was very much.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:00</time>
People thought of her as what they saw on screen and thought she was this, this unintelligent woman.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:06</time>
She definitely gets hounded a lot and not seen for anything more.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:09</time>
More than her exterior.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:12</time>
She has three unsuccessful marriages, but she dies young at 36 from a drug overdose and buried at Westgate in the.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:19</time>
She's in the mausoleum.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:20</time>
She's not in the.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:21</time>
Betty Page is in the ground.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:22</time>
Marilyn Monroe is in the mausoleum.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:23</time>
It's Joe DiMaggio, one of her ex husbands that pays for everything.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:27</time>
He takes care of the entire funeral.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:30</time>
It's private.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:31</time>
She's buried in the mausoleum.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:32</time>
And then for every week until Joe DiMaggio dies, he had roses delivered to her grave.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:17:39</time>
Yeah, it was.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:17:40</time>
And there's pictures of those two.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:17:42</time>
And again, she's one of those superstars that dies young and is kind of forever kind of fixed at that age in that image.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:17:51</time>
And it was just.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:17:52</time>
That was fun to kind of pull some of those clips because there's.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:17:55</time>
It's easy.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:17:55</time>
Well, she's so famous.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:17:57</time>
She's so famous and she's just so iconically beautiful.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:00</time>
Women mimic her now.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:01</time>
Yeah, women today, they want to do the Kim Kardashian who wore her dress.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:18:07</time>
Recently and you mentioned, like Madonna kind.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:09</time>
Of cues from her in Material Girl.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:11</time>
She's.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:12</time>
She's imitating the whole Gentlemen Prefer blondes musical number.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:16</time>
Like women today still try to mimic Marilyn Monroe's look because of what she did in this sexual revolution for women empowerment and confidence.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:27</time>
She's untouchable as far as I'm concerned.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:29</time>
She is the blonde bombshell.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:31</time>
She is the most Famous pinup visiting her grave at Westwood.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:35</time>
Like I said, it's still popular.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:37</time>
Yeah, people were there just to see her.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:18:40</time>
Yeah, it was pretty cool for you to be able to go visit that.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:18:42</time>
And then last but certainly not least is someone where we're talking about her last.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:18:47</time>
But she's actually considered the first true pinup and that is Dorothy Lamour.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:53</time>
So I.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:54</time>
I wanted to look at the history of the pinup.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:56</time>
Like, how did this even first come to be?
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:59</time>
And.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:18:59</time>
And there was a paper that was written that the very first article about the pinup model and taking pictures out of a magazine and pinning them up was an article in Life magazine of July of 1941.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:19:14</time>
And it named Dorothy Lamour as the first pinup.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:19:18</time>
So who is Dorothy Lamour?
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:19:20</time>
She is an actress who vaudeville, like she was.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:19:24</time>
She's at the quintessential which you would get through this time, late twenties, through the thirties, through the thirties, vaudeville radio into the first movies.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:19:32</time>
And she's so much with these famous vaudeville radio stars.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:19:36</time>
She stars with, with Bob Hope, Crosby.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:19:40</time>
She's in these road to movies which these were.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:19:43</time>
These very famous movies were Bing Crosby and.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:19:45</time>
And Bob Hope would travel somewhere, the.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:19:47</time>
Road to a destination.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:19:48</time>
Yeah.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:19:49</time>
And she would be the girl.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:19:50</time>
And she is beautiful.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:19:52</time>
She's silhouetted and she has quick timing as well.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:19:57</time>
And she actually has a decent voice.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:19:58</time>
There's a couple clips out there, you can find them on YouTube, of her singing.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:20:02</time>
Right.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:20:02</time>
In kind of that classic on stage in front of an audience with the big band behind you.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:20:06</time>
She had a good voice.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:20:07</time>
She was a big band singer in the 1930s.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:20:10</time>
She's a woman of color, which kind of makes her ethnic as well.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:20:13</time>
And she takes those first iconic photographs.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:20:17</time>
She's the first one to really be scantily clad because she would wear a sarong and she would be in these certain movies, like in swimsuits and stuff.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:20:27</time>
So the first to kind of venture into that, and that's why Life magazine calls her the first pinup.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:20:33</time>
July 1941 is when this first article runs.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:20:36</time>
So you can really call her the birth of the pinup.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:20:40</time>
The first pinup.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:20:41</time>
Now, her grave was at Forest Lawn Cemetery.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:20:45</time>
Famous people are there as well, but it's a much more expansive place and it's much more where people are buried in the ground.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:20:52</time>
They do have some mausoleums there, but it's a huge cemetery in.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:20:55</time>
In the LA area.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:20:57</time>
And I was able to find her and leave her a flower and kind of thank her for being a groundbreaker in this pinup look.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:21:05</time>
And One of the things I think was this Dorothy Lamour, they were talking about how many war bonds that she helped sell.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:21:13</time>
Millions upon millions of dollars of war bonds and actually earned the name like the War Bond girl.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:21:19</time>
The Bond bombshell.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:21:21</time>
The Bond bombshell.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:21:22</time>
Instead of the blonde bombshell.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:21:24</time>
She was the, the Bond bombshell.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:21:26</time>
She, she sold $300 million worth of war bonds because she was that look.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:21:32</time>
So it was.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:21:33</time>
You had put some of them in the Walk with History video.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:21:36</time>
Her picture is in the advertisements for war bonds.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:21:41</time>
And then they would make appearances in places, kind of like the precursor to the USO.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:21:46</time>
Just like if you watch the Captain America movies, Captain America was doing that.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:21:50</time>
Same thing, $300 million worth of war bonds.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:21:52</time>
And those photographs would get pinned and put up and saved by gis.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:21:58</time>
So she really is the first one to do this and is successful at it.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:22:04</time>
And I'm glad she gets her recognition for it, especially in historians.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:22:09</time>
She also is older when she dies, 81 years old and she's buried beside her husband.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:22:14</time>
I love seeing it because, you know, there's clips of her with Bing Crosby and I love Bing Crosby, right.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:22:18</time>
I love White Christmas, Bing Crosby movies.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:22:20</time>
So it was fun to see her.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:22:22</time>
So we saw this kind of slow build from Dorothy Lamour to Betty Grable and Bettie Page, then Marilyn Monroe and then really after that, you know, after the 50s, then we get into the 60s and then it's kind of, it's the whole revolution, right?
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:22:38</time>
It's the sexual revolution and kind of the whole hippie era and all that stuff.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:22:42</time>
So these were women who were so public and so world famous that they really kind of, like you said, they empowered women in that way.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:22:50</time>
And it was really fun to be able to spotlight them.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:22:52</time>
It was, it was so great for me.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:22:53</time>
I, I left a flower for them.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:22:55</time>
I was able to wear the red lipstick and to just thank them.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:22:58</time>
And even when I dress up pinup today as a pinup for vet ambassador, I really get to thank them, pay homage to them.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:23:06</time>
As a Navy veteran, I was chosen for this calendar and this calendar is all veterans.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:23:12</time>
I'm the only Navy veteran in the 2025 calendar.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:23:15</time>
But every woman in this calendar is a veteran.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:23:17</time>
And we dress pinup.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:23:19</time>
And this calendar is a complete nonprofit for veteran health care.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:23:24</time>
And we visit veteran homes and give them a free calendar.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:23:27</time>
We sign it, I dress 1940s, pin up when I go.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:23:31</time>
And it just brings so much joy to those people in those homes that it for me, it's just been such a great non profit to be a part of.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:23:40</time>
So I'm a Pinafore vet ambassador.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:23:42</time>
I miss October 2025.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:23:45</time>
And if you're interested in purchasing calendar, again, it's completely nonprofit.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:23:49</time>
All of the women are veterans.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:23:51</time>
We all dress as pinups and it's at Pinups for Vets dot com.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:23:55</time>
Yeah.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:23:55</time>
And I would encourage you.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:23:57</time>
I'll.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:23:57</time>
I'll put some links in the show notes in the video description.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:24:00</time>
It's more on the Betty Grable side of pictures than it is on the Betty Page side of pictures.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:24:06</time>
So it's.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:24:06</time>
You're not going to get Betty Page pictures in the pinups for Vet calendar, but it's a great calendar.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:24:11</time>
I love the concept and we're hoping that we can kind of get the founder on the podcast sometime in the not too distant future.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:24:19</time>
Yes.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:24:20</time>
So again, where does this look come from?
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:24:23</time>
These women of American history, it was so great to honor them, to leave something behind for them and to tell their stories.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:24:30</time>
So thank you for coming along with us on this adventure.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:24:32</time>
It really was fun for me.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:24:33</time>
It was super fun.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:24:36</time>
And that's the story of these incredible women who share shaped pop culture and entertainment as we know it today.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:24:42</time>
From Bettie Page's iconic pinup photos that defined an era to Betty Grable's million dollar legs that inspired World War II soldiers, we covered Marilyn Monroe's enduring legacy as Hollywood's brightest star and Dorothy Lamour's sarong clad South Seas adventures.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:24:59</time>
Each of these trailblazers left their mark on American culture.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:25:03</time>
While visiting their final registration places in Hollywood, we were struck by how these groundbreaking women challenged the social norms of their time and paved the way for future generations.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:25:12</time>
They may have been known for their beauty, but they took control of their careers and images in an era when that was rare for women in entertainment.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:25:20</time>
Their influence can still be felt today in fashion, film, photography and pop culture.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:25:25</time>
These weren't just pretty faces, they were pioneers who helped reshape American attitude about femininity, sexuality and female empowerment.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:25:34</time>
We hope this episode gave you a deeper appreciation for these remarkable women beyond just the famous photos and film roles.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:25:40</time>
Their stories remind us that behind every iconic image is a real person who lived, loved, struggled, and ultimately left their own unique legacy.
<cite>Jen</cite>
<time>00:25:52</time>
Thank you.
<cite>Scott Benny</cite>
<time>00:25:57</time>
This is Walk With History production.
<cite>Scott Benny</cite>
<time>00:25:59</time>
Talk with History is created and hosted by me, Scott Benny.
<cite>Scott Benny</cite>
<time>00:26:02</time>
Episode researched by Jennifer Benny.
<cite>Scott Benny</cite>
<time>00:26:04</time>
Check out the show notes for links and references mentioned in this episode.
<cite>Scott Benny</cite>
<time>00:26:08</time>
Talk with History is supported by our [email protected] our eternal thanks to those providing funding to help keep us going.
<cite>Scott</cite>
<time>00:26:17</time>
Thank you to Doug McLiverty, Larry Myers, and Patrick Benny.
<cite>Scott Benny</cite>
<time>00:26:21</time>
Make sure you hit that follow button in your podcast player and we'll talk to you next time.

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