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Dusty Anderson

Dusty Anderson – the life of a starlet

For a few brief years, dazzling, dusky, model-turned-starlet Dusty Anderson was up there in the public gaze – on magazine covers and the silver screen. But as a model her shelf-life was finite, while her acting talents were limited – she was never going to make it big as a movie star.

Her marriage to Jean Negulesco transformed her life and enabled her to pursue her interest in painting. It has also given us a window onto the life of a starlet who might otherwise have sunk into oblivion.

Dusty Anderson as Toni in Tonight and Every Night
1945. Dusty Anderson publicity shot for Tonight and Every Night. Photo by Ned Scott.

Dusty Anderson grows up

Like so many models and movie stars of the 1940s, “Dusty” is not Dusty Anderson’s real name. Born in 1918, she’s christened Ruth Anderson. Her mother is of Cherokee origin and has given up her career as an opera singer to marry a Swede who has settled in the US.

Dusty attends De-Vilbiss High School in Toledo, Ohio, where she becomes president of the dramatic association. She also studies for six years at the Museum of Art of Toledo. During her time at the University of Toledo and photography school, she scrimps and saves in order to buy a couple of expensive cameras. Unfortunately, during a canoe trip along the shores of Lake Erie, a sudden squall overturns her canoe, and the cameras sink to the bottom of the lake.

To earn the money she needs to replace her equipment, she does some part-time modelling for local artists and photographers. She proves so popular that she decides to make a career of it. When she wins a $400 jackpot on Bank Night at her local movie theatre, she heads for New York. There, she gets a contract with Harry Conover, who rechristens her Dusty and makes her a Conover cover girl. It’s in New York that she meets newspaperman Charles Mathieu, and in 1941 the couple get married.

In April 1943, with her husband overseas with the US Marines Corps, Dusty and 15 other models are cast in Columbia’s Cover Girl, one of Rita Hayworth’s triumphs. In Hollywood, Dusty goes on to land a contract with Columbia Pictures, and features in a handful of movies including Tonight and Every Night (another Rita Hayworth vehicle), A Thousand and One Nights (1945) and The Phantom Thief (1946). She also appears on the cover of the October 27 1944 and December 14 1945 issues of Yank, The Army Weekly.

Dusty Anderson becomes Dusty Negulesco

Dusty Anderson is doing okay if not spectacularly, but her career as an actress is about to take second place to her love life. In February I945, two months after her husband returns from the war with malaria, Dusty Anderson files for divorce. Apparently, in the course of an argument he’s given her a black eye.

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Dusty Anderson keeps fit

Dusty Anderson keeps fit

Around 1945. The angle at which this photo is taken makes it look like Dusty Anderson has freakishly short arms! Fortunately, she is in fact perfectly formed.

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Dusty Anderson with bicycle

Dusty Anderson with bicycle

1945. Love Dusty Anderson's bicycle with its cyclops headlight! This photo is reproduced at the Ned Scott Archive, where it is identified as a shot to promote Dusty in her role as Toni in Tonight and Every Night. Photo by Ned Scott.

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Dusty Anderson keeps fit

Dusty Anderson keeps fit

Around 1945. Looks like all that exercise pays off, judging by Dusty Anderson's awesomely flat tummy. But close inspection of the original print reveals traces of subtle retouching.

Soon after that, she finds herself at an auction in Beverly Hills. Attending the same auction is director Jean Negulesco, who spots:

…a tall shapely beauty, wearing a black hood, a black turtle-neck sweater, and black leather slacks. A tasteful blue turquoise Navajo necklace was dangling between her lovelies.

Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief
1946. Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief.

The girl in question is, you’ve guessed it, our Dusty. Her companion at the event, publicist Dorothy Campbell, obligingly makes an introduction. Dusty plays it cool and returns her attention to the auction to bid on an antique mirror. But she fails to win it because, you’ve guessed it again, she’s outbid by Jean, who plans to invite her round to his place for dinner and make a gift of it for her. But she’s vanished off the scene before he can make his move.

Jean is not the kind of guy who lets a small setback like that get in his way. He makes a few enquiries, discovers her phone number and asks her out. She says no, she’s in the middle of a divorce and her attorney has instructed her to keep a low profile so as not to complicate proceedings. But a few weeks later, she calls him back to accept his invitation.

What draws them to one another? Well, clearly she’s gorgeous and he fancies her – there’s no doubt he has an eye for the girls, as will become apparent. He, meanwhile, is arguably the most eligible bachelor director in Hollywood and therefore not without his attraction for any aspiring starlet. But perhaps there’s more to it than that simple, ages-old equation. They share a strong interest in fine art. Jean has come to Hollywood from Romania, where he was a successful painter. Dusty has studied for six years at the Museum of Art of Toledo and has tried her hand at both painting and photography.

Anyway, from that night on, the two become inseparable. The main obstacle blocking the path of true love at this point is Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures, to which Dusty Anderson is contracted . He disapproves of the relationship and reminds her repeatedly of Jean’s playboy reputation. He even suggests to her that Jean is bisexual. Dusty is devastated and ready to leave, but discovery that she’s pregnant puts paid to that.

Dusty Anderson’s divorce becomes final in June 1946, and on 21 July the couple tie the knot. Their wedding is an informal affair held in the back garden of the West Los Angeles home of director Howard Hawks, Jean’s best man. Dusty’s attendants are Howard’s wife Slim, Joan Perry (Harry Cohn’s wife) and Dorothy Campbell. Pianist Jose Iturbi gives the bride away. Because of Jean’s commitments at Warner Bros, the couple go on just a brief honeymoon to Laguna Beach. The plan is to have a longer honeymoon in Europe the following year

Dusty Anderson with her personal collection of magazines
1944. Two shots of Dusty Anderson with her personal collection of magazines

Dusty Anderson has a family

Jean and Dusty badly want to have children but they are out of luck. After five months of pregnancy, Dusty has a miscarriage, which makes her very ill. They try again and the same thing happens. At this point, their doctors advise them to give up their efforts so as not to endanger Dusty’s health.

So the couple turn their parental yearnings elsewhere, supporting orphans under the Foster Parents for War Children plan. On a visit to Italy in August 1953, they invite nine-year-old war-orphan Adelina Peluso from Naples to Rome to meet them. They have supported her for three years and on this occasion Dusty buys her a whole new wardrobe. Four years later, while in Greece, they meet 12-year-old Chryssoula Yannidaki, a fatherless Greek girl whom they have been supporting for two years.

Then, in 1959 while Jean is away in Hong Kong, Dusty hears about illegitimate children born during the American occupation in Germany after the War and abandoned by their mothers. She finds out that there’s a three-month-old girl in a hospital in Stuttgart and, after consulting with Jean, takes the next plane to Germany to adopt Christina. While she’s at it, she discovers another little girl, Gabrielle, whom she adopts to be Christina’s “sister.”

It’s not until May 1961 that all the paperwork is completed. Jean and Dusty are reunited in Rome with “’Tina” and “Gaby.” Their arrival at Rome’s airport is captured by the local press and shown in Italian newsreels.

Dusty Anderson asserts herself

A news snippet in the September 1949 issue of Screenland magazine, reveals that:

Mrs Negulesco, who is Dusty Anderson, has given up acting for painting. Had her first art show and we understand Greta Garbo has bought one she did of a whole flock of cats.

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Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

1946. Now that's what I call a catsuit! And that's Dusty Anderson larking about...

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Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

1946. It looks as if the success of Dusty Anderson's Hallowe'en shoot last year...

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Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

1946. Dusty Anderson is the subject of this typical mid-1940s kitschy cheesecake shot, with...

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Dusty Anderson as a broomstick-bearing witch

Dusty Anderson as a broomstick-bearing witch

1945. The first in a sequence of three pin-ups featuring Dusty Anderson as a...

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Dusty Anderson as a witch bestride her broomstick

Dusty Anderson as a witch bestride her broomstick

1945. The second in a sequence of three pin-ups featuring Dusty Anderson as a...

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Dusty Anderson as a broomstick-bearing witch

Dusty Anderson as a broomstick-bearing witch

1945. The third in a sequence of three pin-ups featuring Dusty Anderson as a...

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In October 1950, Dusty presents 15 of her latest paintings at a big show at the Drouant-David gallery in Paris. “Her pictures include scenes of London’s River Thames, conventional flowers and fruit, a study of her two Siamese cats, and a self-portrait.” She’s enjoying her new career as a painter and lets Jean know that she would like to go to Paris to study art and improve her technique. Jean is not in favour because he reckons it would require at least two years of study and practice.

This becomes a topic of ongoing friction between the couple. Another is Jean’s constant philandering. His bungalow on the 20th Century-Fox lot, where he invites stars and starlets for lunch, is known as “bangalow.” “Poor Dusty,” says producer Jerry Wald’s wife, Connie. “[She] had to put up with a lot.”

Dusty Anderson as a glamorous witch
1945. Dusty Anderson provides a touch of Hallowe’en glamour. Photo be Robert Coburn

The marriage goes downhill. In 1953, columnist Dorothy Kilgallen reports that the Negulescos “are writing the Unhappy Ending after all these years.” In May, Dusty Anderson ups and leaves for Paris with Dee Hartford, Howard Hawks’ latest wife.

In order to try to win back his Dusty, Jean persuades Darryl Zanuck, his boss at 20th Century-Fox, to give him an assignment in Europe and chooses to work in Italy on Three Coins in the Fountain. Before leaving, he confides in columnist Harrison Carroll:

I don’t pretend she went to Paris with my blessing, I thought it was a stupid expense. But Dusty wanted to study painting, and when one of those Cherokee Indian girls makes up her mind, nothing is going to stop her.

En route to Rome to scout for locations, he stops off in Paris to talk Dusty into a reconciliation. The couple make up and a few days later Dusty joins Jean in Rome.

Jean’s love affairs are something Dusty Anderson has to cope with throughout their marriage but she goes some way to getting her revenge. When she suspects that he has a crush on Sophia Loren while making Boy On a Dolphin, she travels around the world on his credit card, expense no object (or perhaps even THE object). Jean will later remark: “I am still paying the bills. My weakness for my stars cost me a fortune.”

But, to return to Dusty’s career as an artist, in August 1955 it is reported that “Dusty Negulesco has made much progress as a painter and her pictures have received good notices from the art critics.” And her paintings appear in at least two of Jean’s movies: Daddy Long Legs and The Best of Everything.

Dusty Anderson gets around

Dusty Anderson’s first trip abroad is in May 1948, accompanying her husband who’s off to research his next film, Britannia Mews. This is presumably the pretext for their extended honeymoon. With the job complete, Jean takes her to Paris for some sightseeing, not least to visit the most important museums and art galleries. On their itinerary is Galerie Drouant-David in the fashionable rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where Jean buys all the paintings they have by then unknown expressionist painter Bernard Buffet.

In 1950, Jean gets a new, more lucrative contract with 20th Century-Fox, which means the couple can now afford a new home. After viewing a series of properties in and around Bel Air and Beverly Hills, they decide to buy the house that Greta Garbo has put on the market. Having lived there for 14 years, first with actor John Gilbert, then with conductor Leopold Stokowski, she’s decided to leave Hollywood and move to New York. Latterly, she’s been using only a part of the house, sharing it with a maid and a gardener, and leaving the remainder of the property empty. By the time the Negulescos get their hands on it, the huge, mostly abandoned living room is covered by such a thick layer of dried leaves that it takes seven people to clean it up. The house will be their home for 13 years.

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Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief

Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief

1946. Dramatically lit and wrapped in a cloak, Dusty Anderson is ready for the...

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Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief

Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief

1946. Dusty Anderson stars in The Phantom Thief (original title Boston Blackie's Private Ghost)...

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Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief

Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief

1946. The dramatic lighting, exaggerated eyelashes and exotic costume including two outré neck pieces,...

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In 1963, Jean and Dusty move to Madrid. It’s a joint decision, although partly the result of Jean’s desire to work in Europe, where there are opportunities to get involved with projects that are less commercially driven. Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Hedda Hopper reports that Dusty has told her that, having rented their Beverly Hills house:

We are traveling light to Madrid, with two small children, trunks full of photographs, records and paintings, one small Rolls, and a secretary with our casting files. The airplane couldn’t make it, and I am not sure we won’t sink the boat.

Jean brings his career to a close in 1970 with the release of Hello-Goodbye. It’s time to retire and enjoy the fruits of his efforts. At 71, he is a wealthy man with a fabulous art collection and a number of houses in different parts of the world as well as a beautiful wife. In the 1970s, the couple are living in Marbella, on the southern coast of Spain, in a house they have had built for themselves not far from the sea. The house is always full of friends visiting from all over the world.

Dusty Anderson’s last days

In 1993, Jean’s health suddenly deteriorates. On 18 July, three days before their 47th wedding anniversary, he dies at home of heart failure. Dusty is at his bedside. The last news we have of her comes in an email message from Malcolm Abbey to Michelangelo Capua, Jean’s biographer. He reports that she was “sent away” to a nursing home.

Last I heard, and this was 20 years ago, she was severely alcoholic and unable to remember from moment to moment who she was talking to. Very tragic.

But hold on. An article about Dusty Anderson’s 99th birthday published on Fabiosa in December 2017 suggests that she “is peacefully enjoying her advanced years.” Let’s hope so.

Want to know more about Dusty Anderson?

There’s not a whole lot of information about Dusty Anderson out there on the Internet. The most informative source is Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen. There are two books about Jean Negulesco though, which provide most of the material on which this piece is based:

  • Jean Negulesco: The Life and Films by Michelangelo Capua
  • Jean Negulesco’s autobiography – Things I Did … and Things I Think I Did – a good read but with disappointingly little about Dusty Anderson.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Hazel Brooks – the human heat wave
Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty
Hollywood Hallowe’en cheesecake
Marguerite Chapman – a real trooper

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Cover Girl, Darryl Zanuck, Dusty Anderson, Eddie Cronenweth, Halloween, Harry Cohn, Harry Conover, Howard Hawks, Jean Negulesco, Ned Scott, Robert Coburn, The Phantom Thief

Cover Girl – fashion goes to the movies

Cover Girl is a 1944 movie in which Hollywood embraces the business of fashion. It offers an opportunity to take a look at the modeling businesps, then burgeoning but still in its infancy. And it provides a showcase for the fashions of the day and the talents of Rita Hayworth and a bevy of models.

It’s a bright spectacle with songs by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin, costumes by Travis Banton, Muriel King and Gwen Wakeling, choreography by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, and that special early-Technicolor lushness. Donen would go on to direct Funny Face, another musical about the world of fashion, with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn as its stars. Funny Face would help to cement the reputation of Paris after World War II as the world capital of fashion.

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Anita Colby

Anita Colby

1943. Anita Colby – "the most beautiful face this side of heaven and the sharpest tongue this side of hell," according to Valdemar Vetlugen, editor...

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Cecilia Meagher

Cecilia Meagher

1943. Cecilia Meagher began modeling in 1936 when she was barely 17 years old. In the early 1940s she signed with Conover models. In 1942,...

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Leslie Brooks

Leslie Brooks

1943. Leslie Brooks started her career around 1940 as a model. In 1941 she signed with Columbia and had a makeover: she changed her name...

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Peggy Lloyd

Peggy Lloyd

1943. Peggy was adopted age five by Harold Lloyd, a famous comedian, a shrewd investor and the richest man in Hollywood. Despite the family’s wealth,...

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Eileen McClory

Eileen McClory

1943. Eileen McClory is a vivacious, cute, girl-next-door type, so has just the kind of looks and personality that Harry Conover likes. So when she...

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Betty Jane Hess

Betty Jane Hess

1943. Betty Jane Hess began modeling in 1938, when she was barely 17 years old. Like many aspiring models, she competed in various pageants and...

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Dusty Anderson

Dusty Anderson

1943. Dusty started out as Ruth Anderson from Toledo, Ohio. Harry Conover spotted her in New York “doing some designing”, decided that the name Ruth...

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Jinx Falkenburg

Jinx Falkenburg

1943. With her hazel eyes and lithe figure, Jinx Falkenburg is one of America’s highest-paid cover-girl models during World War II and, with her...

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The plot of Cover Girl is both pure fantasy and pretty banal. A Brooklyn nightclub owner loves his principal dancing girl. The dancing girl loves the nightclub owner. But the dancing girl has a driving ambition to become a famous cover girl… Bear in mind that while the world of Cover Girl might feel like it has nothing to do with reality, former Vogue editor Rosamond Bernier would recall:

Vogue was something in those days. I came in my first morning and saw all the editors at the typewriters wearing hats with veils and big rhinestone chokers and earrings. I looked with absolute wonder!

To give you a flavour, here are three extracts from the movie

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put me to the test

1. Put Me To The Test

Set to Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin’s Put Me To The Test, this number is one of the movie’s highlights: two phenomenally athletic and graceful dancers, a treacherous set (different levels, stairs, a ramp) and no quick cutting to mask mistakes. The supporting girls and the costumes are the icing on the cake.

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the shoot

2. The shoot

So they’ve hammed it up for the movie, but this scene offers a light-hearted insight into the art behind the stills photography that is such a focus for aenigma. We see the make-up artist (remember Perc Westmore – the makeup king of Hollywood?), the hairdresser, the dapper photographer and his assistant, and the final product – the magazine itself.

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the cover girls

3. The cover girls and round the mountain

We’re in the Wheaton Theatre. The curtain goes up and an enormous lens is lowered onto a podium in the middle of the stage. Through the lens we see each cover girl in turn enter from the left and watch her pose full-length and close-up. Her session ends with a glimpse of the magazine cover on which she appears. The whole thing has a nice pace and wit.

It's followed by the wonderful "round the mountain" scene in which Rita Hayworth dances down and back up a cloud-shrouded Art Deco mountain peak. In this version, the original soundtrack has been replaced by a Madonna mash-up with Victor Cheng.

Cover Girl – the business of modeling

In 1944, the modeling business in the US is dominated by two agencies.

Andrea Johnson, John Robert Powers model.
Mid-1940s. Andrea Johnson, John Robert Powers model. Read more.

John Robert Powers has blazed the trail. In the 1920s as an out-of-work actor he finds himself using his network to help photographers find models. He spots a business opportunity and sets up shop. As he later recalls, he:

…had their pictures taken, made up a catalogue containing their descriptions and measurements, and sent it to anyone in New York who might be a prospective client – commercial photographers, advertisers, department stores, artists.

The depression that follows the 1929 stock market crash enables him to broaden his talent pool by attracting debutantes whose families are on their uppers. At the same time he works hard to make the business respectable. His success changes the social status of models. Society hostess extaordinaire Elsa Maxwell says that she might give a party without debutantes but she wouldn’t dream of doing so without inviting a few Powers Girls.

The 1940s see Powers basking in the light of success and publicity and expanding his business portfolio. He has a radio show and writes a regular syndicated newspaper column, Secrets of Charm. Warner Bros release The Powers Girl (1943), a movie about two sisters living in New York and aspiring to become high-profile models. And Powers Girls are hired by the Hollywood studios and go out with and marry the rich and famous.

In 1941 Powers publishes the first of many books, The Powers Girls. Promising “The story of models and modeling and the natural steps by which attractive girls are created,” it’s partly a behind-the-scenes look at the agency, partly a beauty and grooming guide, and partly a marketing piece. In 1943 he launches a correspondence course, including “practical hints about what men really do and don’t like.” Meanwhile, his wife begins teaching charm courses covering grooming, diction and coiffure, the first step along the road to a nationwide chain of John Robert Powers Schools. But Powers has taken his eye off his core modeling business and this provides an opening for a new competitor.

Anita Colby
Mid-1940s. Anita Colby, model, agent and businesswoman extraordinaire. Read more.

Harry Conover begins his career in the modeling business as a model and works for John Robert Powers before deciding to set up in competition. He’s handsome, suave and unscrupulous, taking with him models Anita Colby, Phyllis Brown and her boyfriend, who agrees to invest in the start-up. The boyfriend is Gerald Ford and in 1974 he will become President of the US.

Harry differentiates his agency from that of his erstwhile employer by promoting a different kind of model. He mocks the Powers Girls as “Adenoid Annies, rattling bundles of skin and bones.” Focusing on preppies and campus queens, he pioneers a new type of model – “the windblown outdoor girl”, in the words of Bob Fertig his head of promotion. Conover calls these recruits Conover Coeds, then Cover Girls – and that’s where Columbia’s Cover Girl gets it inspiration and title. While, taking his cue from Hollywood, Conover develops a habit of rechristening his models – including his future wife.

In 1941, the winner of a Miss Atlantic City contest turns up at the agency. She introduces herself to Conover: “I’m Jessica Wilcox.” “You’re Candy Johnson,” he replies. “And your rate is $5 an hour.” He later shortens her name from Johnson to Jones because she has trouble remembering the longer version. By 1943, thanks to her looks and his promotion – including candy-striped outfits and calling cards – she is a top model. And in 1946 Conover marries her.

But the marriage is fated from the start. Conover is always chasing skirt – seemingly out with a different model night after night. He is also less concerned than Powers about respectability – he has a much more laissez-faire attitude when playboys approach him for dates with his models. “Right in my own office we have the very thing that every man looks for, works for, fights for and dies for,” Conover says, just before being excommunicated by the Catholic Church.

In 1952, having dropped out of the agency business and franchised his schools, Powers will move to Beverly Hills, where he will settle until he dies, age 84. Conover, by contrast, will die age 53, having succumbed to a classic combo of booze, lechery and profligacy. The modeling business, like the movie business, is unforgiving. It has a habit of chewing up its practitioners and spitting them out.

Cover Girl – behind the scenes

Rita Hayworth and co-stars on the set of Cover Girl
1943. Filming a scene for Cover Girl. Photo by Ned Scott. Read more.

Cover Girl has more in common with Gilda than their very different plots and styles might lead you to expect. Both are Columbia productions commissioned by Harry Cohn. Both are directed by Charles Vidor with cinematography by Rudolph Maté. And both have scripts by Virginia Van Upp.

Cohn is known to be tightfisted but he makes an exception for Cover Girl. He sets aside no less than a million dollars for the production and accepts it going US $600,000 over budget, with the lavish dance numbers devised by Kelly in no small part to blame for the overspend.

The movie is quite a coup for the Conover agency – a massive riposte to (and possibly inspired by) The Powers Girl, released the previous year. Harry Conover and Anita Colby are both employed by the studio as “technical consultants”. The latter is in charge of a troupe of Conover models who travel west from New York in a special railway carriage – a great publicity stunt that’s lapped up by the press.

The girls are all excited about what lies in store for them in Tinseltown but they’re in for a nasty surprise. Harry Cohn has made arrangements to ensure that they stay out of trouble. Francine Counihan, one of the models and also Anita Colby’s sister remembers:

Cover Girl was produced by Harry Cohn. Oh, he was a monster. He decided to put us all in one house together where he could see that nobody could get out. So we stayed in Marion Davies’ home in California. He only let us out to go shopping.

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Rita and the gang

Rita and the gang

1943. On a lawn, presumably outside the studio, Rita Hayworth poses with the cover girls. It looks like the photographer must be perched in a...

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Lucky man!

Lucky man!

1943. Some people have all the luck. Rita Hayworth gives Tech Sergeant Gordon L Smith a peck on the cheek. A caption on the back...

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Tea time

Tea time

1943. The stars relax in the hot California sunshine during a break in filming. The maid (as usual) is uncredited. A caption on the back...

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Susann Shaw and Jinx Falkenburg, cover girls

Susann Shaw and Jinx Falkenburg, cover girls

1944. Two of the era's supermodels pose on the set of Cover Girl. Susann Shaw is taken with the fashion sketch she's holding, while Jinx...

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And there they stay for months while Harry Cohn apparently searches for an actress to play the lead role. Surely he’s known all along that this is to be a vehicle for his studio’s leading star, Rita Hayworth? Perhaps he just likes the feeling of power over the girls.

Anyway, whatever the reason, there’s a great story about how all the girls sneak out one night to go to a party. They have to return at intervals, one by one, to get past the security guards. To the guards’ growing consternation, each in turn announces herself as Anita Colby, who is the only member of the troupe allowed out. Inevitably, the last one back is the real Anita Colby.

Meanwhile, Anita Colby, who also acts as the girls’ agent, makes the most of the stay by managing to book three magazine covers each for the girls. Her success with the press doesn’t go unnoticed and she’s appointed “Feminine Director” of the David O Selznick studio.

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Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

1943. Photo probably by Ned Scott.

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Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

1943. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth in a scene from Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth in a scene from Cover Girl

1943. Photo by Ned Scott.

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Rita Hayworth in a scene from Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth in a scene from Cover Girl

1943. Photo by Ned Scott.

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Rita Hayworth in a scene from Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth in a scene from Cover Girl

1943. Photo by Ned Scott.

One of those most closely involved with the way Rita looks in Cover Girl is Robert Coburn, head of Columbia’s Photo Gallery. In John Kobal’s biography of Rita Hayworth, Coburn talks about photographing Columbia’s biggest star:

1943. Martha Outlaw by Robert Coburn. Read more.

The contract I signed put me in complete charge of the studio’s stills department. Mind you, if I ever relaxed and let a bad picture of Hayworth or any other star out, Cohn would call me on the carpet immediately.

In those days we had the Johnson Office, and if we had any cleavage showing the pictures would be sent back. The Code was very strict. Any sign of breasts, even the shadow between, had to disappear. A woman wasn’t supposed to have any. We spent all our time touching photos up.

Hayworth didn’t need touching up. She didn’t treat herself badly, she wasn’t an all-night carouser, although naturally we had to watch for wrinkles under the eyes and around the neck. Of course, any skin marks, small pimples, we would take them out. I don’t remember Hayworth ever looking at a picture, I don’t think she ever cared how she looked in a picture. She’d come in once in a while and ask how they looked but she didn’t bother checking or approving them. That’s rare for women. Whereas Cohn was interested in her every minute of the day. He’d call whenever he knew from the call sheet that I was shooting her. They fought a lot. I told Cohn a million times that if he stopped picking on her I’d get what I wanted but he kept needling her and fitting in more hours.

I’d usually talk to her all the time when I was photographing her, getting her in the mood. Then, I’d catch her at her peak. She had the famous Hayworth look, looking over the shoulder, and after doing three of those she’d had it. She’d say, “What do you want that for? Get something else.” She didn’t realize that she didn’t have that come-and-get-me look except in that one pose.

Cover girl Rita Hayworth with magazines
1941. Rita Hayworth contemplates her cover girl status. Photo by George Hurrell. Read more.

Cover Girl – Rita learns new role

“Cover Girl” – Rita learns new role is the title of an article that appears in the 18 January 1943 issue of LIFE magazine.

Rita Hayworth is just a little bit bigger in the bust and in the hips than the average top-notch photographer’s model. The movie star is 35 in. around bust and hips whereas the average model is, at best. only 34.

These extra inches, which look fine on Rita Hayworth, did not worry Columbia Pictures at all when they cast her for the lead part in their forthcoming movie, The Cover Girl. The movie, which goes into production soon, will tell about photographers’ models who appear on the covers of national magazines. In it Miss Hayworth will combine her looks, figure and talents with Technicolor, some songs and a complicated story about two cover girls, one of 30 years ago and the other of today. The second cover girl will be the first one’s daughter. Miss Hayworth will play both of them.

When Miss Hayworth was in New York City recently, it occurred to Columbia Pictures that she ought to go through a model’s routine to see how a photographer’s model really worked. Miss Hayworth, who is a game girl, spent a full day working out of Harry Conover’s model agency, making believe she was a real cover girl. She learned that beauty is not enough.

For $3 an hour – $10 an hour if in great demand – models work exhausting hours in front of hot lights and fussy photographers, always trying to be charming and intelligent. To get work they have to be on time for appointments, be well-groomed and sweet-tempered. They spend days tramping around from client to client just to keep up their contacts. They are on their feet so much, in fact, that after being a model for a few months a girl’s feet invariably grow a whole shoe-size bigger.

The girls with Rita are Conover models, each chosen by a national magazine to play its cover girl in The Cover Girl. Being the star, Miss Hayworth will not represent any single magazine. This week, however, she is LIFE’s own cover girl.

Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth get hitched
9 September 1943. Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth get hitched. Read more.

In fact during the shooting of Cover Girl it turns out that Rita has two new roles. The second is as the wife of Orson Welles. It’s no secret that the couple have been dating. Even so, when it happens on 7 September 1943 their marriage takes everyone by surprise. According to Lee Bowman, the day the teams are shooting the film’s wedding scene, Rita arrives on the set.

She looked very lovely sitting there in her wedding dress [for the movie] while the crew were setting up. Rita sat there with her hands in her lap, her eyes very big and a lovely big pussy smile on her face. When any of us asked, “What is it, Rita?” she’d just shake her head and say, “Mmm, I’ve got a secret.” Wouldn’t say anything else. The first we knew what it was came during the lunch break when somebody brought us the papers with the headlines.”

While Rita is on cloud nine, director Charles Vidor is anything but. According to the film’s producer, Arthur Schwartz:

And you know who was terribly jealous and unhappy? The director. He had fallen in love with her. He came and cried on my shoulder and didn’t want to go on. He had to continue shooting every day and she was now married and looking more radiant all the time. She had a tremendous empathy, tremendous sex appeal. All those fifteen or so Cover Girls together didn’t have what she had.

Cover Girl – just a piece of fluff?

Cover Girl wins the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ annual award for Scoring of a Musical Picture. It is also nominated for Color Cinematography, Color Art Direction, Sound Recording and Best Song.

Bosley Crowther, the influential film critic of The New York Times from 1940 to 1967, says in his review:

The script is so frankly familiar that it must have come from the public domain. And the characters are as sleekly mechanical as only musical comedy characters dare to be. But it rainbows the screen with dazzling décor. It has Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth to sing and dance. And virtually every nook and corner is draped with beautiful girls. Further, this gaudy obeisance to divine femininity has some rather nice music in it from the tune-shop of Jerome Kern.

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Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

1943. Photographer unknown.

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At the office

At the office

1943. Rita Hayworth and models pose at the offices of Vanity magazine. This is just the epitome of mid-1940s chic in terms of both the...

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Heavenly sight

Heavenly sight

1943. In this ravishing fantasy sequence, Rita Hayworth appears at the top of a stylized Art Deco mountain down which she dances into the arms...

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Round the mountain

Round the mountain

1943. Having indulged her admirers, Rita Hayworth dances back up to the mountain peak in a rain of golden snowflakes. The caption on the back...

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Later on, Arthur Schwartz, whom Harry Cohn brought in to produce Cover Girl, recalls:

In spite of everything people have said about Harry Cohn, his vulgarity, his lack of education, neither of which was a unique characteristic among the men in his position – he had an instinct for quality. Cover Girl, as I made it, couldn’t have been made at WB: Jack Warner wouldn’t have had the taste somehow, while at Metro they would have overproduced it – too many girls and too many of everything.

Cover Girl magazines and models
The magazines and models: Cosmopolitan, Betty Jane Hess; McCall’s, Betty Jane Graham; Vogue, Susann Shaw; Harper’s Bazaar, Cornelia B Von Hessert; Woman’s Home Companion, Rose May Robson; The American Home, Francine Counihan (Anita Colby’s sister); Mademoiselle, Peggy Lloyd; Glamour, Eileen McClory; Coronet, Cecilia Meagher; Liberty, Karen Gaylord; Redbook, Martha Outlaw; The American, Jean Colleran; Farm Journal, Dusty Anderson; Look, Cheryl (Archibald) Archer; Collier’s, Helen Mueller; Rita Hayworth. Collage copyright and courtesy of Blonde at the Film.

In his programme notes for the BFI, director Karel Reisz observes:

In Cover Girl we can see the transition from the old to the new taking place. Though its story has the usual backstage background, many of its numbers are staged in the open air and characters dance in it for the joy of dancing and as an expression of mood, not simply as professional performers. The design of costumes and sets moreover, is notably above the usual standard of the routine product. Cover Girl also saw the emergence of Gene Kelly as a choreographer playing the role which he has since played many times: he dances pieces of the ‘plot’ instead of interpolating numbers, and his style is that of a ballet dancer, not a ‘hoofer’.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

Cover Girl – want to know more?

Apart from the LIFE article, key sources are Michael Gross’ book, Model – the ugly business of beautiful women, and John Kobal’s biography of Rita Hayworth. You can find my favourite online article at Blonde at the Film. Other articles worth reading are at The Vintage Cameo and moviediva. And there’s also Caren Roberts-Frenzel’s beautifully illustrated Rita Hayworth: A Photographic Retrospective. For biographies of some of the cover girls, take a look at Those obscure objects of desire.

Cecilia Meagher
1944. Cecilia Meagher by George Hurrell. Read more.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford in a passionate embrace
Gilda – the movie that made Rita Hayworth into a bombshell
Ludmilla Tchérina – a throbbing, pulsating dynamo
The Lady from Shanghai – the weirdest great movie ever made

Filed Under: Fashion, Films, Stars Tagged With: Andrea Johnson, Anita Colby, Arthur Schwartz, Betty Jane Hess, Bosley Crowther, Candy Jones, Cecilia Meagher, Charles Vidor, Columbia Pictures, Cover Girl, Dusty Anderson, Eileen McClory, Francine Counihan, Gene Kelly, George Hurrell, Gwen Wakeling, Harry Cohn, Harry Conover, Jinx Falkenburg, John Robert Powers, Karel Reisz, Leslie Brooks, Martha Outlaw, Muriel King, Orson Welles, Peggy Lloyd, Rita Hayworth, Robert Coburn, Rosamond Bernier, Rudolph Maté, Stanley Donen, The Powers Girl, Travis Banton

Hollywood Hallowe’en cheesecake

1947. Lillian Wells in the shadow of a suggestive Hallowe’en cat. Read more.

Anyone fancy a slice of Hollywood Hallowe’en cheesecake? It’s not for all tastes and some might find it a bit sickly. But if you’re not feeling too straight-laced, it should bring a smile to your face.

For the Hollywood studios, never shy about using sex to sell their movies, from the 1920s and into the 1950s, Hallowe’en, is a great opportunity to get their (female) stars into the press.

The result is a welter of truly trashy shots, some of which are simultaneously coy and suggestive while at the same time retaining a certain period charm.

In an article for LIFE magazine, Ben Cosgrove reminds us that:

Many Hollywood studios put their faith in photographs of their comeliest stars striking what, in retrospect, were perfectly absurd poses, wearing perfectly absurd outfits. The creation of these “pinup” shots — often referred to by the catchall term “cheesecake” — was a miniature industry all its own, with stylists, makeup artists, electricians, grips and other behind-the-scenes experts working with photographers and, of course, the actresses themselves to produce publicity stills.

But look just beneath the surface of these superficial images, and you’ll find some remarkable achievements and moving stories of the real women in front of the cameras. They’re putting on a show here just as they do in the movies.

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A model witch

A model witch

1945. I first came across Dusty Anderson as the cover girl for Farm Journal in Cover Girl, a must-see movie for anyone who's into...

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Bubble bubble, toil and trouble

Bubble bubble, toil and trouble

1945. You'd never guess it, but Dusty Anderson's life is in turmoil as she poses for this shot. She's announced her divorce from Captain...

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Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

1946. It looks as if the success of Dusty Anderson's Hallowe'en shoot last year as a witch with her broomstick has persuaded Columbia to reprise...

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Silent Halloween

Silent Halloween

Around 1925. Bebe Daniels is one of the most popular stars of the silent era. Cecil B DeMille has pestered her into signing with Paramount...

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Bewitching

Bewitching

1948. Adele Jergens takes time off from playing brassy platinum-blond bombshells and film-noir femmes fatales to embrace an enamoured Mr Pumpkin. The cat's silhouette in...

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Halloween preparations

Halloween preparations

1943. Nan Wynn (holding the candle) has come to Hollywood on the back of her singing success on the vaudeville circuit and the wireless. Having...

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A Halloween travesty

A Halloween travesty

1947. The things studios do to promote movies! Here is Jane Greer, starring in Out of the Past as Kathie Moffat, who turns out as...

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Halloween confrontation

Halloween confrontation

1938. Rita Johnson, at the start of her Hollywood career, fearlessly confronts Mr Pumpkin.

She will go on to star in a string of movies...

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Other topics you may be interested in…

Movie stars of the 1940s – talent, savvy, looks and luck
Shooting for the stars – insights from four leading Hollywood cinematographers
Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) cools off in the Trevi Fountain in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita
Short stories – for a quick break

Filed Under: Events, Stars Tagged With: Adele Jergens, Anita Louise, Bebe Daniels, cheesecake, Dusty Anderson, Eddie Cronenweth, Halloween, Jane Greer, Lillian Wells, Nan Wynn, Robert Coburn

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