Betty Grable - Hollywood's glamorous "pin up" girl

BETTY GRABLE was the toast of Hollywood in the forties and her Technicolor musicals were a real tonic during the gloomy war years over here in the U.K. She was among the top ten box office female stars for 10 years. Her famous legs were insured with Lloyds of London. She had a long relationship with actor George Raft and was quite prepared to marry him but unfortunately he was already married and his wife refused to give him a divorce. Desperately unhappy with this situation Betty married former child star Jackie Coogan in 1937 but this did not last and she then married bandleader Harry James in 1943. In her 20th Century Fox musicals she was teamed with some of Hollywood's top leading men including Victor Mature, Robert Cummings, Cesar Romero, Don Ameche, George Montgomery, Robert Young, and Dick Haymes but my favourites were the films she starred in with John Payne or Dan Dailey. I was surprised to learn that she had been offered the lead roles in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and "Pick-up on South Street" but had turned them both down. It is interesting now to speculate how she would have fared in those films had she accepted them. "Coney Island" was a typical Grable musical with George Montgomery, Cesar Romero and Phil Silvers. Strangely enough 20th Century Fox decided to remake this film only a few years later in 1950 again with Betty Grable but with new leading men Victor Mature and Phil Harris. This new version was called "Wabash Avenue". My favourite Grable pictures include "Tin Pan Alley", "The Dolly Sisters", "Call Me Mister" and "How to Marry a Millionaire".

Clive "movie buff" Roberts