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Cover Girl – fashion goes to the movies

2017-05-26 By aenigma

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 is an extraordinary lady. Currently she's a model, a movie star and an agent. But she’s ambitious and talented and will go...

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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 husband...

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

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.

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

Filming a scene from Cover Girl
1943. Susann Shaw, players Rose Mae Robson (hood), Dusty Anderson, Martha Outlaw, Lee Bowman, Rita Hayworth, Francine Counihan (striped dress) and Jean Colleran in a scene from the Columbia production “Cover Girl” starring Miss Hayworth. Photo by Ned Scott.

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.

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.

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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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Cover conversation

Cover conversation

1943. The two models look as if they're enjoying each other's company. But there must have been some interesting dynamics going on among the troupe...

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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:

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.

Rita Hayworth with magazines
1942. Rita Hayworth contemplates her cover girl status. Photo by George Hurrell.

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.

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.

The 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 by George Hurrell.
1944. Cecilia Meagher by George Hurrell.

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, Muriel King, Orson Welles, Peggy Lloyd, Rita Hayworth, Robert Coburn, Rosamond Bernier, Rudolph Maté, Stanley Donen, The Powers Girl, Travis Banton

Hazel Brooks – the human heat wave

2015-07-09 By aenigma

Hazel Brooks, model, pin-up and Hollywood star of the 1940s is all but forgotten now. Except for here…

‘Known among the wags of Hollywood as “The Human Heat Wave”’, as the caption of one of her publicity stills puts it, she was lucky in love but not in her career. Or perhaps, when push came to shove, her marriage was more important to her than her career.

Hazel Brooks’ MGM years and before

The story starts in 1941 and Hazel, age 17, is working as a model for New York’s two leading agencies of the period – Walter Thornton and Harry Conover. With her red hair, green eyes, high cheekbones and svelte figure she certainly has what it takes.

Hazel Brooks – dream girl dreaming
Hazel Brooks, 1944, ‘chosen by servicemen as the girl about whom they would like to dream’. Photo probably by Laszlo Willinger

So it’s not surprising that she’s ‘discovered’ by Arthur Freed, who has recently become head of his own unit at MGM and has quite a track record as a talent spotter. He is in the process of helping establish MGM as the leading Hollywood studio for musicals and will go on to produce An American in Paris, Singin’ in the Rain and Gigi. A couple of years after her arrival in Hollywood, he will cast Hazel as one of the 14 ‘glorified girls’ in Ziegfeld Follies.

When she arrives at MGM, the studio goes to work on her, one of the first steps being to send her for a photo session at the stills studio. An early sitting for Laszlo Willinger uses dramatic lighting and props to create some truly moody images, aspects of which seem almost to foreshadow Guy Bourdin. The three shots by Clarence Sinclair Bull a year or so later seem to be experimenting with different personas.

As with Ava Gardner, MGM can’t decide what to do with Hazel and she ends up with a series of bit-parts. But Alberto Vargas, pin-up painter extraordinaire, has no such doubts. In 1942 he uses her legs as inspiration for the perfect MGM glamour girl. The other features are Inez Cooper’s hands, Mary Jane French’s hair, Thea Coffman’s feet, Ruth Ownbey’s hips, Aileen Haley’s bust, Eve Whitney’s’ waist, Kay Williams’ arms, Kay Aldridge’s profile, Natalie Draper’s lips, Marilyn Maxwell’s ankles, and Georgia Carroll’s eyes.

In the meanwhile, though, Hazel meets Cedric Gibbons, head of MGM’s art department and the designer of the Oscar statue. Is it a coincidence that that the year she arrives, he divorces Dolores del Rio? Anyway, Hazel has a thing about older men and on 4 February 1943 the couple announce their engagement in Los Angeles Superior Court, where her $150-a-week MGM contract has to be approved by Judge Joseph W Vickers because she’s under legal age. He stipulates that one-tenth of her earnings be in vested in war bonds. The following year they marry. He’s 49, she’s 19 and eyebrows are raised.

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God’s gift to the sweater industry

God’s gift to the sweater industry

New York, 1941. The term sweater girl was made popular in the 1940s to describe Hollywood actresses such as Lana Turner, who wore tight sweaters...

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Bedroom eyes

Bedroom eyes

Hollywood, 1944. The tilted camera angle, the bed-head with its exaggerated padding (Guy Bourdin would have loved it!) and the deep shadows combine to give...

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Ghostly apparition

Ghostly apparition

Hollywood, 1944. Three years on from her sessions with Clarence Sinclair Bull, here’s another shot that’s high on drama with exaggerated perspective, a rather sinister...

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Girl next door

Girl next door

Hollywood, 1945. Brought to Tinseltown age 17 by MGM, Hazel Brooks poses for Clarence Sinclair Bull, head of the Studio’s stills department. She’s no longer...

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Drama queen

Drama queen

Hollywood, 1945. Clarence Sinclair Bull, head of MGM’s stills studio, uses dramatic lighting, a striking pose and mysterious foreground sculpture to create a striking portrait...

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Glamour puss

Glamour puss

Hollywood 1945. The gold lamé dress, the textured background, the subtle lighting – a totally fabulous example of Hollywood image-making by Clarence Sinclair Bull. And...

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A bit of a mystery

A bit of a mystery

Hollywood, around 1944. This slightly old-fashioned but very romantic portrait with its soft focus is a bit of a mystery. It’s by Max Munn Autrey,...

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Relaxing at home

Relaxing at home

Around 1945. Hazel Brooks in a printed floral dress reclines on a banquette sofa as light filters through the the picture window behind her. A...

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Posing in the garden

Posing in the garden

Hollywood, around 1945. You can almost feel the heat of the California sun in the picture. Hazel poses, hands on hips, very much the mistress...

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Body and Soul – Hazel Brooks’ greatest movie

In 1945 Hazel Brooks obtains her release from MGM and tests for Selznick. 18 months or so later, she gets her big break – she will be groomed as a star by The Enterprise Studios, a new independent production company co-founded by actor John Garfield alongside producers David Loew and Charles Einfeld. You can read the story, including some comments from Hazel herself, in The million dollar gamble.

The studio goes into marketing overdrive for the release of Body and Soul. By way of illustration, here’s an extract from an article in Showmen’s Trade Review, November 22, 1947.

The News Post ran a contest on the question, “What Type of Girl Do You Prefer,” using portraits of Hazel Brooks as the “body” type and Lilli Palmer as representative of the “soul” type. Two radio stations also ran contests, with theatre tickets as prizes. The “Body and Soul” records were exploited through window displays in 23 music shops. Department stores also came through with fashion windows. The campaign was one of the most widespread Saxton has staged in some time, and the results at the box-office were ample proof of its effectiveness.

Body and Soul is one of the all-time-great boxing movies, with Hazel cast as Alice, a ‘gold-digging tramp’, as Bosley Crowther characterizes her in his New York Times review. Bud Graybill, the stills photographer for the movie, captures some great noir shots in which she seems to relish letting her hair down and vamping it up for the camera – her modelling background coming to the fore perhaps.

Regardless, it sounds like Hazel enjoys flaunting what she’s got. In May 1947, vacationing in Hawaii she…

Took with her for the edification of the islanders, all of the top-revealing dresses and swim-suits that the Johnston Office prevented her wearing in Body and Soul…

And the following year, Cobina Wright in an article for Modern Screen called Banned in Hollywood reports that…

Along the French Riviera, the ladies are wearing what they call “diaper suits” for swimming. The suit consists of a trifle of material on the top, a trifle of material on the bottom, and an almost unbelievable amount of girl in between.

Incidentally, just because I’ve said Hollywood’s pretty conservative, and we don’t go for the diaper suit, doesn’t mean we don’t have our own exotic fringe. Take Hazel Brooks (the Body and Soul menace). I saw her lounging near Mr. Kent’s pool, all covered by a flesh-colored clinging leotard covered with skin-tight black lace.

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Femme fatale

Femme fatale

1947. Hazel Brooks in full-on, femme-fatale mode with smouldering gaze and décolleté black dress decorated with an eye-popping baroque ornament. You just know there’s trouble...

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Centre of attention

Centre of attention

1947. The room is crowded, the lighting moody, the atmosphere hot and sultry, the stakes high. And there's no doubting the centre of attention: Hazel...

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Close up

Close up

1947. Another publicity shot for Body and Soul using natural rather than studio light. Hazel Brooks has a great complexion – there’s little sign of...

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Unfazed

Unfazed

1947. Hazel Brooks, as Alice in Body and Soul, recline behind an extraordinary piece of coral that looks all set to embrace her. The shadow...

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Hollywood’s latest heat wave

Hollywood’s latest heat wave

1947. This photo by Bud Graybill speaks for itself. But just in case you’re not getting the message, here’s what the caption on the back...

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Relaxing by the pool

Relaxing by the pool

1947. After a hard day's work filming Body and Soul, what better way to recuperate than lounge in front of the swimming pool in a...

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‘Retouch as indicated’

‘Retouch as indicated’

1947. Stamped on the back of this photo is ‘APPROVED / ADVERTISING COUNCIL / SEP 24 1947 / HOLLYWOOD’ and ‘RETOUCH AS INDICATED’. The indications...

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Vital statistics

Vital statistics

1947. Everything we need to know about Hazel Brooks… But what are those strange lesions on her left forearm? They're traces of the potted palm...

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More body than soul

More body than soul

1947. Femmes don’t come more fatale than this. Smouldering in a fitted, black-satin dress and perched on a white-sheepskin rug, Hazel Brooks gives the camera...

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In the sunshine

In the sunshine

1947. As a femme fatale in Body and Soul, Hazel is of course a creature of the night and spends most of her time indoors....

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Most provocative still of 1947

Most provocative still of 1947

1947. Caressed by ostrich feathers, eyes half-closed in ecstasy, Hazel Brooks is in a world of her own. And who wouldn’t want to join her...

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After the shoot

After the shoot

1947. Hazel Brooks faces the camera, head in hands and with a spaced expression. And there to the right is that extraordinary piece of coral...

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Mixed messages

Mixed messages

1947. So here’s Hazel Brooks in the gown she wears as a nightclub singer in Body and Soul. If the lacy bodice says ‘Come and...

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Perfect housewife

Perfect housewife

1947. Hazel Brooks might have been typecast as a heartless vamp by Enterprise Studios, but that doesn't mean she's like that in real life. She's...

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Making a meal of it

Making a meal of it

1947. . Hazel Brooks looks all set to devour John Garfield. Here’s what the caption on the back of the photo has to say.

THE...

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Sleep, My Love – Hazel Brooks’ follow-up movie

In 1948 Hazel Brooks stars as Daphne in Sleep, My Love, a Douglas Sirk melodrama that in terms of plot is a bit of a Gaslight rip-off. It is her only other major starring role. As Daphne, she’s another scheming bitch and in this case she likes to parade around in diaphanous garments. MGM might have struggled to figure out how to cast her but Triangle have no such problems.

One of the aspects that makes Sleep, My Love interesting is the way in which it illustrates the Hollywood studios’ attempts to push the boundaries of what is acceptable in 1940s America. According to IMDb:

In 1947, an amendment was made to the Production Code that cleared the way for the production and release of films dealing with drugs, and Hollywood wasted no time driving through the “drug” door. (Drugs still couldn’t be smoked or used free-will or for recreation, though.) While not the first film to take advantage of the drugs-can-be-used-when-essential-to-the-plot loophole, this Mary Pickford production for Triangle Productions made certain the use of a drug was most essential to the story of “Sleep, My Love.”

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More of the same, please

More of the same, please

1948. Hazel Brooks' performance in Body and Soul goes down a treat. So for her next movie, Sleep, My Love, Triangle Productions want more of...

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Illicit lovers

Illicit lovers

1948. It's a hot night in every sense as eyes meet and hands clasp. But all is not well, as the caption on the back...

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Dreaming

Dreaming

1948. Hazel Brooks lies back on a slightly-rumpled bed, and there’s a suspicion that she’s not wearing anything under that fur. But what’s on her...

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Filming a scene

Filming a scene

1948. Hazel Brooks and crew filming a scene for Sleep, My Love. Note the chalk lines on the floor indicating where to stand.

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Preparing to shoot

Preparing to shoot

1948. Hazel Brooks and George Coulouris getting ready to film a scene for Sleep, My Love. He had been a member of Orson Welles’ famed...

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Take it from me…

Take it from me…

1948. On the set of Sleep, My Love, Hazel Brooks discusses the scene she’s about to film with director, Douglas Sirk. He is one of...

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Haughty look

Haughty look

1948. Hazel Brooks casts a disdainful glance towards George Coulouris, which typifies her attitude towards his character in Sleep, My Love. He is taking instructions...

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Mistress and slave

Mistress and slave

1948. It's not difficult to see who wears the trousers here. Hazel Brooks can scarcely be bothered to conceal her contempt as she looks down...

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Dressed to kill

Dressed to kill

1948. Hazel Brooks, dressed to kill in a diaphanous outfit, makes an eye-popping entrance. The angular staircase, raking light and deep shadows add to the...

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And afterwards…

Hazel Brooks appears in a couple more films before leaving the movie industry.  So why does her career stall? One factor is that though she looks terrific and is a competent actress, she doesn’t have the on-screen electricity or charisma of the likes of Lauren Bacall and Ava Gardner. But it could also have been down to the politics of Hollywood, to personal motivation and to luck.

According to long-time friend Maria Cooper Janis, Gary Cooper’s daughter, in the years after her retirement from films Hazel becomes a skilled stills photographer and works actively for a number of children’s charities.

In 1960, Cedric Gibbons dies. In 1967 history repeats itself.  Hazel marries Rex Ross, Jr., a Beverly Hills surgeon and founder of the Non-invasive Vascular Clinic at Hollywood Hospital – he’s 58, she’s 40.

He will die in 1999, she in 2002 after a long illness.

Want to know more and Hazel Brooks?

Apart from the captions on the backs of some of the photos, my two main sources of information have been:

  • Oscars obituary page
  • Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen

Filed Under: Films, Stars, Studios Tagged With: Alberto Vargas, Bud Graybill, Cedric Gibbons, Clarence Sinclair Bull, Harry Conover, Hazel Brooks, Laszlo Willinger, MGM, Walter Thornton

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