Betty Grable

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December 18, 1916(1916-12-18)

July 2, 1973

Elizabeth Ruth Grable

Spouses:

Jackie Coogan (m. 1937–1939) (divorced)

Harry James (divorced) 2 children

Partner: Bob Remick

Actress:

"Shower of Stars" (3 episodes, 1954-1958)

"Ford Star Jubilee" (1 episode, 1956)

"Star Stage" (1 episode, 1956)

How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955)

Three for the Show (1955)

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

The Farmer Takes a Wife (1953)

Meet Me After the Show (1951)

Call Me Mister (1951)

My Blue Heaven (1950)

Wabash Avenue (1950)

The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend (1949)

When My Baby Smiles at Me (1948)

That Lady in Ermine (1948)

Mother Wore Tights (1947)

The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947)

Do You Love Me (1946) (uncredited)

The Dolly Sisters (1945)

Diamond Horseshoe (1945)

Pin Up Girl (1944)

Sweet Rosie O'Grady (1943)

Coney Island (1943)

Springtime in the Rockies (1942)

Footlight Serenade (1942)

Song of the Islands (1942)

I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

A Yank in the R.A.F. (1941)

Moon Over Miami (1941)

Tin Pan Alley (1940)

Down Argentine Way (1940)

The Day the Bookies Wept (1939)

Million Dollar Legs (1939)

Man About Town (1939)

Campus Confessions (1938)

Give Me a Sailor (1938)

College Swing (1938)

Thrill of a Lifetime (1937)

This Way Please (1937)

Pigskin Parade (1936)

Don't Turn 'em Loose (1936)

Follow the Fleet (1936)

Collegiate (1936)

A Quiet Fourth (1935)

Old Man Rhythm (1935)

Drawing Rumors (1935)

A Night at the Biltmore Bowl (1935)

The Nitwits (1935)

The Spirit of 1976 (1935)

This Band Age (1935)

Ferry-Go-Round (1934)

By Your Leave (1934)

Student Tour (1934)

The Gay Divorcee (1934)

Susie's Affairs (1934)

Business Is a Pleasure (1934)

Love Detectives (1934)

Elmer Steps Out (1934)

School for Romance (1934)

Air Tonic (1933)

The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi (1933)

What Price Innocence? (1933)

Melody Cruise (1933) (uncredited)

Child of Manhattan (1933)

Cavalcade (1933) (uncredited)

The Kid from Spain (1932)

Over the Counter (1932)

Hold 'Em Jail (1932)

The Age of Consent (1932)

Hollywood Lights (1932)

The Flirty Sleepwalker (1932)

Probation (1932)

Hollywood Luck (1932)

Lady! Please! (1932)

The Greeks Had a Word for Them (1932) (uncredited)

Once a Hero (1931)

Palmy Days (1931) (uncredited)

Ex-Sweeties (1931) (uncredited)

Crashing Hollywood (1931)

Kiki (1931) (uncredited)

Whoopee! (1930) (uncredited)

New Movietone Follies of 1930 (1930) (uncredited)

Let's Go Places (1930) (uncredited)

Happy Days (1929)

Appearances

"The Hollywood Squares" (6 episodes, 1969-1973)

The 44th Annual Academy Awards 1972 (TV)

"Password All-Stars" (1 episode, 1972)

The Carol Burnett Show (1 episode, 1968)

What's My Line? (2 episodes, 1965-1967)

"The Hollywood Palace" (1 episode, 1964)

"The Andy Williams Show" (1 episode, 1962)

"Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall" (1 episode, 1960)

"The Dinah Shore Chevy Show" (4 episodes, 1956-1960)

Some of Manie's Friends (1959) (TV)

The 30th Annual Academy Awards 1958 (TV)

The Jerry Lewis Show (1958) (TV)

"The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour" (1 episode, 1958)

"The Eddie Fisher Show" (1 episode, 1957)

The Ed Sullivan Show (2 episodes, 1956-1957)

"The Bob Hope Show" (2 episodes, 1956-1957)

Screen Snapshots Series 34, No. 6: Hollywood Shower of Stars (1955)

"Shower of Stars" (1 episode, 1954)

Hollywood Park (1946)

Four Jills in a Jeep (1944)

Hedda Hopper's Hollywood No. 2 (1941) (uncredited)

Screen Snapshots Series 18, No. 4 (1938)

Screen Snapshots Series 16, No. 10 (1937)

Screen Snapshots Series 16, No. 7 (1937)

Sunkist Stars at Palm Springs (1936)

Screen Snapshots Series 15, No. 11 (1936)

Walk of Fame

Star on the Walk of Fame Motion Picture At 6525 Hollywood Blvd.

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Since the rigid implementation of the Hays Code in 1934, the goddess model typified by Greta Garbo had replaced earlier, franker depictions of female sexuality. World War II brought with it a need for a freer, less monumental kind of glamour, but the Hays Code still regulated how much blatant eroticism was permitted. The solution was the "sweater girl": healthy, fresh-scrubbed girls-next-door whose sportiness incidentally meant that they were often seen in tight sweaters and shorts. Betty Grable's good fortune was to personify this new archetype more wholly and entirely than any other star.

A performer since aged only thirteen, Grable could sing and dance and - an asset in the atmosphere of wartime gloom - project optimism. Careful gimmicks such as insuring her legs with Lloyd's of London for a million dollars, and hailing her as the favorite pinup of forces overseas, all meant that she swiftly became a totemic figure, whose actual films were of secondary importance. She was Hollywood's top draw in 1943, and was reported to be the highest paid woman in the United States, earning $300,000 a year. Ironically, her famous bathing suit pinup photo - in which she had her back to the camera, and glanced back over one shoulder - was posed in such a way out of necessity rather than sauciness, because she was several months' pregnant when the picture was taken. Her movies included a number of 1940s hits such as Moon Over Miami (1941), Springtime in the Rockies (1942), and Coney Island (1943). After the war she was no longer of vital importance, but Twentieth Century Fox kept her busy to the point of working her to exhaustion. In her last major role, she was as good as her costars, Lauren Bacall and Marilyn Monroe, in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953).

The woman's vision is deep-reaching, the man's far-reaching. With the man the world is his heart, with the woman the heart is her world.

You're better off betting on a horse than betting on a man. A horse may not be able to hold you tight, but he doesn't wanna wander from the stable at night.

There are two reasons why I am successful in show business and I am standing on both of them.

It's loud, it's cheap, it's gaudy. It's like everything I've ever done - I LOVE IT!

I'm strictly an enlisted man's girl.

I'm a song-and-dance girl. I can act enough to get by. But that's the limit of my talents.

The practice of putting women on pedestals began to die out when it was discovered that they could give orders better from there.

In the late 1940s, Fox studio insured her legs with Lloyds of London for a quarter million dollars.

She suffered from "demophobia" (fear of crowds) and she Was a somnambulist (sleep-walker).

She passed away on July 2, 1973 in Santa Monica, California

Betty is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California, USA.