Steamy: The sexiest pinups of the 1950s
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Technically, the term pin up didn’t exist until 1941, but men have been pinning up pictures of beautiful women torn from magazines and advertisements since the Gibson Girl—Charles Dana Gibson’s illustrations of ideal American womanhood circa 1900.
Photography and the subsequent rise of the movie industry gave rise to a whole new crop of real live pin up girls. The pinup was as much a part of World War II as rationing. American GIs adorned their lockers with semi-revealing photos of movies stars like Rita Hayworth. Dorothy Lamour and Veronica Lake.
But the number one pinup girl of the war was Betty Grable. Her picture in swimsuit and high heels, taken by studio photographer Frank Powolny, outsold those of all her contemporaries. What was it about the blonde with the million dollar legs that was so popular? After all, Grable wasn’t as beautiful as Veronica Lake, as sultry as Dorothy Lamour or as sexy as Rita Hayworth.
The ideal pinup of the day was pretty but not beautiful, sexy but not scary and saucy without being salacious. Grable, the box office queen of the 1940s, fit the bill perfectly. She was as wholesome as her movies, frothy, light-hearted musicals that served as a distraction from the war.
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