Betty Grable

For those born in and after the “Baby Boom” generation, Betty Grable is an iconic black and white set of legs in a pinup photo from the World War II era. The backward glance is now quaint, no longer seductive and alluring. Much like the woman herself, the photo is a relic of a different ideal of beauty, sexuality, and stardom. It most certainly is from a different America.
Few remember that Betty Grable was the biggest box office star in Hollywood during the 1940s, eclipsing the likes of Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Bob Hope, Judy Garland, Alice Faye, Joan Crawford, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Tyrone Power. Producer George Jessel summed it up best when he mused on others carrying home the awards that Grable was forever denied, “Every Oscar statuette should be inscribed- Betty Grable helped pay for this!”
A doctoral degree in sociology and/or human sexuality awaits the researcher who can calculate the amount of time, manpower, and male seed that GIs spent on that pinup photo. Farrah Fawcett’s swimsuit poster from the ‘70s would hardly come close.
Elizabeth Ruth Grable was born in St. Louis, Missouri on December 18th, 1916 to Conn and Lillian Grable, he, a clerk with the board of trade and she, a frustrated dancer and entertainment junkie. It was Lillian who would sacrifice her daughter’s childhood and press her into a life of show business with that detestable sort of unbridled ambition typical to most stage mothers. Betty, being an amenable child, acquiesced to the pushiness.
She took dance lessons from a very early age, also learning the saxophone, drums and ukulele. Her mother continually entered her in talent contests. She often won, but was verbally humiliated and sometimes struck when she did not. Her mother’s passive-aggressive approach would haunt her throughout her adult life, lending Betty a nagging sense of self-doubt that she never overcame. It limited her career and pigeonholed her into the small niche of musical comedy from which she was unable to branch out.
By thirteen, Betty and her mother had left St. Louis for Hollywood. Lillian arranged for her daughter to audition at a cattle call for chorines at Fox Studios. Claiming she was sixteen she landed the job, appearing in Happy Days and Let’s Go Places as a chorus girl (embarrassingly in black face for one).
It was enough to garner the attention of Samuel Goldwyn and he chose her for his famous chorus line, The Goldwyn Girls. She became the youngest member ever (especially at her real age of fourteen) and shared the stage with newcomers, Jane Wyman, Lucille Ball and Paulette Goddard.
Her star was rising. She appeared in some Busby Berkeley choreographed movies with Eddie Cantor where she had her first lines and singing opportunities but, when Goldwyn discovered her true age, she was dropped out of fear from newly enacted child labor laws.
Undaunted, she found work in a number of two-reelers using the name Frances Dean. Many of these shorts were directed by the wrongfully blacklisted Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, who made them under the pseudonym William Goodrich.
She continued to bounce around in small roles at MGM, Paramount and RKO when, in 1934, she caught another break with a highly talked about number named “Let’s K-knock K-knees” in the Astaire/Rodgers vehicle The Gay Divorcee.
Her “Coed” period followed (she was becoming despondent and tired) with such fare as Student Tour (1934), Collegiate (1936), Pigskin Parade (1936), College Swing (1938) and Campus Confessions (1938).
Paramount, not knowing how to mine her talent, released her and she was ready to quit show business altogether. Again, luck stepped in. She was offered a gig in a musical stage show with Eddie “Rochester” Anderson and Jack Haley at The Treasure Island Music Hall in San Francisco. It was a photo and review in a newspaper from this show that caught the eye of Fox Studio head Daryl F. Zanuck. He signed her immediately to a seven-year deal. Zanuck’s eagerness was not totally out of respect for her talents however. The mogul always liked having a backup in the wings in case one of his stars became too big for their britches. In this situation, it was recourse for Zanuck against possibly losing starlet Alice Faye. Who better than a new wholesome, blonde singer/dancer to keep his current wholesome, blonde singer/dancer honest and working?
Having no projects readily available for Grable, Zanuck convinced her to accept a role in producer Buddy DeSilva’s Broadway play Du Barry Was a Lady, starring Ethel Merman. It was a grand success and made Grable’s name on the east coast. Her face was on the cover of the December 1939 issue of Life magazine and Zanuck sensed she was ready to break out.
When Alice Faye claimed exhaustion and an upcoming operation in order to bow out of 1940’s Down Argentine Way, Zanuck’s plan had come to fruition. He plugged Grable into the role and she never looked back. Featuring Don Ameche and the screen debut of Carmen Miranda, the film was a major success. The trade magazines heralded Grable as an overnight sensation. She later joked that it must have been the longest night on record.
Zanuck coyly followed it up with a pairing of Grable and Faye in Tin Pan Alley that same year. He concocted a feud for the tabloids, pitting Faye and Grable against each other to foster gossip, publicity, and box office. The trumped up animosity was nonexistent, Faye and Grable became fast friends and remained so until Betty’s death in 1973.

Zanuck couldn’t miss with her in the musical/comedy genre. Only two dramatic roles, 1941’s A Yank in the R.A.F. and I Wake Up Screaming, showed a slowdown in receipts. Moon Over Miami was a runaway hit (the story was later reworked for 1953’s How to Marry a Millionaire) as was Song of the Islands, Footlight Serenade, Springtime in the Rockies, Coney Island, and Sweet Rosie O’Grady. Footlight Serenade is of a particularly interesting note. A black and white film due to a shortage in color stock during the war, it provided for a clause in Grable’s new contract that all her films were to be shot only in Technicolor.

Zanuck, eager to please his reigning queen of the box office, was the one who suggested it.
Grable was catching on like wild fire across the nation. Her cheery wholesomeness, apple pie features, positive outlook and singing and dancing ability endeared her to millions of fans during the unstable times of war and hardship. Her fan mail began to increase to its peak of 90,000 per month and not just from lonely GIs and boys, but from girls, mothers, and grandmothers as well. She tirelessly entertained the troops at canteens and with special shows around the nation with the USO.
The famous pinup shot, from a publicity still taken by Frank Powolney for Sweet Rosie O’Grady (1943) became the most requested picture in film history. Two million copies were shipped to soldiers overseas during the war. Her figure was painted on the fuselages of allied aircraft. The British Royal Air Force named a squadron after her and even as late as 1993, over ten million copies of her pinup photo were dispensed at the Imperial War Museum in London for its “Forces’ Sweethearts” exhibit.
It was at this time in 1943 when she married celebrated bandleader Harry James (the “King of the Bobby-Socksers”) and started a family.
She worked a bit less in the last half of the decade, the war had ended, and her maternal demands took precedence over her ambitions as a star. She did The Dolly Sisters in 1945 with June Haver (one of the few times she did not get along with a co-star) and became increasingly angry with Zanuck for mismanaging her career. Zanuck would not buy her a hot Broadway property to adapt, refused to loan her out to other studios, continued putting her in the same roles with barely re-worked story lines from her previous hits, and denied her the right to make commercial recordings.
Despite these disagreements, she received a new seven-year deal in 1946 at $300,000 a year. She became the highest paid female entertainer in the world. She even got director choice for her projects. She was pulling in $40,000 a year more than Zanuck, although the studio boss’ income from bonuses, percentages on films and stockholdings made this fact little more than a publicity footnote.
But trouble was brewing. Her increased unhappiness at the studio was not all Zanuck’s fault. Her crews and co-stars began noticing changes in her usually affable on-set persona. She became prone to the occasional star fit, she secluded herself in her dressing room more often, and she joked far less with her coworkers. She began arguing with her directors and constantly visited Zanuck in his office, demanding better roles. In Zanuck’s defense, he did offer her some plum dramatic parts (the female lead in Gentlemen’s Agreement most notably) and even teamed her with Preston Sturges, hoping she would branch out into farce and screwball fare in the director’s The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (arguably the best film of her career).
Much of her frustration was from her own inhibitions. She never believed she had the acting talent for dramatic roles. She viewed herself as an adequate songstress and only a technically able dancer. The insecurities that her mother had instilled in her ultimately haunted her film career and limited its longevity. By now, Lillian was trying to convince her to seek out these different roles but Betty had found her comfort zone and refused to stray from it.
This led to the impertinent behavior that would result in a series of suspensions from 20th Century Fox.
Blame for the rift lies on both sides. Grable and Zanuck, like a sparring married couple, both went to gossip hag Hedda Hopper and spilled their side of the story. Both became infuriated over what the other said. Grable had wanted a vacation. Zanuck wanted her for The Girl Next Door. She took her vacation instead. Zanuck insidiously desired this outcome as he had Jean Haver, Mitzi Gaynor, and a new, hot Hollywood property in Marilyn Monroe waiting to usurp Betty’s throne.
She eased out a few more feel-good musicals with co-star Dan Dailey, Mother Wore Tights (1947), When My Baby Smiles at Me (1948), My Blue Heaven (1950) and Call Me Mister in 1951 that remained popular with her die-hard fan base, but the box office and her magical hold over audiences was slipping. Dailey, a closeted homosexual, use to perform a drag act of Betty for his fellow queens on the Fox lot until Betty got wind of it. She only stayed mad briefly, realizing a compliment when she saw one.
The brewing imbroglio with Zanuck however, saw Grable lose the lead for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to Monroe. She was then offered a role as a call girl in Sam Fuller’s Pickup on South Street but refused it as an insult. An unwise move, it was a good film and would have given her range. Jean Peters became a star in the role. Another suspension followed.
Maturing American film audiences were growing weary of the fluff and saccharine of the musical genre. Film noir, a new overt sexuality, and a more liberal acceptance of the shifting social mores had sharpened their tastes. Grable’s innocent brand of bubble gum and lollipop entertainment was on the way out.
She played ball with Zanuck and Monroe for How to Marry a Millionaire in 1953 and the Studio Head finally agreed to loan her out to Columbia for Three for the Show in 1955. A very embarrassing turn that same year in How to Be Very, Very Popular was the final straw.
After fourteen years, over twenty-five pictures and countless millions of dollars in receipts, Betty Grable walked into Daryl F. Zanuck’s office for the last time, ripped up her contract and never did another movie.
The remainder of her show business career was filled with success. She and husband Harry James and former co-star Dan Dailey performed together in revues across the nation. There were myriads of television appearances on variety hours, sitcoms, game shows and celebrity specials. She also had a long Broadway and international run replacing Carol Channing as Dolly Levi in Hello Dolly (over 900 shows).
The wholesome, groomed, apple pie image belied her off screen persona. She had picked up a few habits detrimental to her health. Midway through the ‘40s, drinking, gambling and smoking (as much as three packs per day) became staples in her lifestyle. She died of lung cancer in 1973 at the age of 56.
Despite unprecedented fame, money and adoration, critical acclaim and industry awards always eluded her, though not to her bewilderment. She was always a humble, thankful star and performer. Through her natural charm, professionalism, and hard work, she became an inspiration for all Americans during a time of great insecurity and trouble.
She also put the newly formed 20th Century Fox Studios on the map.
She was many things to many people, “The Girl with the Million Dollar Legs”, “The Pinup”, a cash cow, a beloved entertainer, a dutiful wife and mother, and a fun loving co-worker.
She was “the dirtiest-mouth dame I’ve ever known”, remembered choreographer Charles Walters who worked with her on Du Barry Was a Lady.
“But”, he added, “on her it was adorable.”

Comments

[Lance Lyle]

This article is awesome! You are the greatest writer since Joe Queenan.

[C. Adolph Moores]

I aspire, My Friend. I aspire.

[R. Fernandez]

She was one of a kind! I hope one day hey will issue a postage stamp in her honor.