Influences ℹ️ 📸

This gallery consists of a general assortment of images that have influenced us. Some of these pictures are old. Others are more recent. With some pictures, the link between the image and our imagery is obvious. With others, the link may seem more tenuous. Nevertheless, they all have one thing in common: they have all helped to shape and inform the way we think about our photography here at waist.it.

Of course these are just general images.We also have created dedicated galleries for certain key influences such as:- Bettie Page, Dita von Teese, Jane Mansfield, Katy Perry, Esther Williams not to mention a fairly large collection of lingerie ads, and many, many more

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Allison Hayes (1930-03-06 — 1977-02-27) was an American film and television actress and model. Born Mary Jane Hayes in Charleston, West Virginia, Hayes won the title of Miss District of Columbia. She went on to represent D.C. in the 1949 Miss America pageant. Although she did not win the competition, it provided her with the opportunity to work in local television before moving to Hollywood to work for Universal Pictures in 1954.

Sadly towards the end of the 1950's she began to experience severe health problems, and was unable to walk without a cane. In severe pain, her usually good-natured personality began to change and she became emotional and volatile, making it difficult for her to secure acting work. She was given a very minor role in the 1965 Elvis Presley film Tickle Me, making her final appearances in a guest role on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. in 1967.

Of course it is her classy pin-up images that have inspired us here at waist.it.

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Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg is a Swedish-American actress, model, and cult sex symbol. Born on 1931-09-29, in Malmö, Skåne, she was the eldest girl and the sixth of eight children. In her teens, she worked as a fashion model. In 1950, Ekberg entered the Miss Malmö competition at her mother's urging leading to the Miss Sweden contest which she won. She consequently went to the United States to compete for the Miss Universe title despite not speaking English.

Although she did not win Miss Universe, as one of six finalists she did earn a starlet's contract with Universal Studios, as was common at the time. In America, Ekberg met Howard Hughes, who at the time was producing films and wanted her to change her nose, teeth and name (Hughes said "Ekberg" was too difficult to pronounce). She refused to change her name, saying that if she became famous people would learn to pronounce it, and if she did not become famous it would not matter.

As a starlet at Universal, Ekberg received lessons in drama, elocution, dancing, horse riding and fencing. She is best known for her role as Sylvia in the 1960 Federico Fellini film La Dolce Vita, which features the legendary scene of her cavorting in Trevi Fountain alongside Marcello Mastroianni.

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Ann Marie Blyth (born 1928-08-16) is an American actress and singer, often cast in Hollywood musicals, but also successful in dramatic roles. Her performance as Veda Pierce in the 1945 film Mildred Pierce was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. More information:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Blyth

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Anne Lloyd Francis 1930-09-16 ~ 2011-01-02 was an American actress. Francis was best known for her role in the 1956 science fiction film classic Forbidden Planet and for having starred in the television series Honey West (1965~1966) which was the first TV series with a female detective character's name in the title. She won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy Award for her role in the series.

Her signature trademarks were her blonde hair, smouldering good-looks, stunning figure and a small mole just to the right of her lower lip.

She was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2007 and she kept her followers informed of her progress on her official website. Sadly, she died 2011-01-02, from complications due to pancreatic cancer at a retirement home in Santa Barbara, California, a little more than a month after the death of her Forbidden Planet co-star Leslie Nielsen. She is survived by her two daughters and one grandchild. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Francis

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Audrey Hepburn, born Audrey Kathleen Ruston, 1929-05-04 ~ 1993-01-20, was a British actress and humanitarian. Recognised as both a film and fashion icon, Hepburn was active during Hollywood's Golden Age. She has since been ranked as the third greatest female screen legend in the history of American cinema and been placed in the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame.

Born in Ixelles, a district of Brussels, Hepburn spent her childhood between Belgium, England and the Netherlands, including German-occupied Arnhem during the Second World War. In Amsterdam, she studied ballet with Sonia Gaskell before moving to London in 1948 to continue ballet training with Marie Rambert and perform as a chorus girl in West End musical theatre productions.

After appearing in several British films and starring in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi, Hepburn played the Academy Award-winning lead role in Roman Holiday (1953). Later performing in successful films like Sabrina (1954), The Nun's Story (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Charade (1963), My Fair Lady (1964) and Wait Until Dark (1967), Hepburn received Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations and accrued a Tony Award for her theatrical performance in the 1954 Broadway play Ondine. Hepburn remains one of few people who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards. Hepburn was the first actress to win an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for a single performance: Roman Holiday in 1954.

She appeared in fewer films as her life went on, devoting much of her later life to UNICEF. Although contributing to the organisation since 1954, she worked in some of the most profoundly disadvantaged communities of Africa, South America and Asia between 1988 and 1992. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in late 1992. A month later, Hepburn died of appendiceal cancer at her home in Switzerland in early 1993 at the age of 63.

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Ava Lavinia Gardner, 1922-12-24 ~ 1990-01-25 was an American actress. She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers (1946). She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in Mogambo (1953).

She appeared in several high-profile films from the 1950s to 1970s, including The Hucksters (1947), Show Boat (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956), On the Beach (1959), Seven Days in May (1964), The Night of the Iguana (1964), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Earthquake (1974), and The Cassandra Crossing (1976). Gardner continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death in London in 1990 at the age of 67.

She is listed 25th among the American Film Institute's Greatest female stars.

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Barbara Eden (born 1934-08-23) is an American film and television actress and singer who is best known for starring as the title role in the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie - along with the fabulous costumes she wore for the series. More information:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Eden

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Bayla Wegier, 1928-10-23 ~ 1971-09-11, better known as Bella Darvi, was a French and American actress of Polish-Jewish origins. Darvi was born Bayla Wegier to Chaym Wegier, a baker, and his wife, Chaya (née Zygelbaum). She had three brothers, Robert, Jacques, and Jean-Isidore, and a sister, Sura. Robert died in a concentration camp.

She was jailed by the Nazis during World War II and released in 1943. She married a businessman, Alban Cavalcade 1950-10-07 and travelled with him to Monaco. She was discovered in Paris by the wife of mogul Darryl F. Zanuck. In 1952, she divorced Cavalcade, and moved into the Zanuck home. In August 1953, she signed a contract with Zanuck, who changed her name to Bella Darvi, Darvi a combination of the first names of Zanuck and his wife, Virginia. Eventually, she became Zanuck's mistress, although she reportedly dated other men including Robert Stack and Brad Dexter.

Zanuck left his wife for Darvi, but left her when he discovered that she was a bisexual. She later very publicly dated women, as well as men. Despite liaisons with extremely wealthy men, she was unable to establish a permanent relationship or to curb her gambling habit. Zanuck was still paying off her debts as late as 1970. Darvi married Claude Rouas, a restaurant waiter, in Las Vegas, 1960-11-13 The marriage was annulled less than a year later.

Darvi committed suicide, after several failed attempts, in Monte Carlo by gas. Her body remained undiscovered for more than a week.

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Bettie Mae Page, born 1923-04-22 (Nashville, Tennessee, USA) ~ 2008-12-11 was an American model who became famous in the 1950s for her fetish modelling and pin-up photos. She has often been called the "Queen of Pinups". Her look, including her jet black hair, blue eyes and her concave waist has influenced many artists including us here at waist.it

When an interviewer asked how she obtained her classic hourglass shape during her modelling career, Bettie responded: “I never had very big breasts. I think mine were just average. I wish I had a little less on the bottom. I pulled in my stomach from force of habit, ever since I was a teenager. I always held my stomach in.”

She was "Miss January 1955", one of the earliest Playmates of the Month for Playboy magazine. "I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society," Playboy founder Hugh Hefner told the Associated Press.

In 1959, she converted to born-again Christianity, and later worked for Billy Graham. Sadly, Her later life was marred by depression, violent mood swings and several years in a state psychiatric hospital. After years of obscurity, she experienced a resurgence of popularity in the 1990s, largely due to the Internet.

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Betty Brosmer was an American fitness model with a fabulous hourglass figure and a naturally very tiny waist. Her vital statistics were claimed to be around: 95-45-90cm (37-18-36 inch), and that she shaped her figure by the exercises she developed! In the 1950's Betty Brosmer was the highest paid pinup-model in the USA, and was closely associated IFBB co-founder, Joe Weider.

More information:-

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Elizabeth Ruth "Betty" Grable, 1916-12-18 ~ 1973-07-02, was an American actress, dancer, and singer.

Grable was celebrated for having the most beautiful legs in Hollywood and studio publicity widely dispersed photos featuring them. Her iconic bathing suit poster made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the Life magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World". Hosiery specialists of the era often noted the ideal proportions of her legs as thigh 47cm (18.5"), calf 30.5cm (12"), and ankle 19cm (7.5"). Grable's legs were famously insured by her studio for $1,000,000 with Lloyds of London.

Grable appeared in several smash-hit musical films in the 1940s, most notable: Mother Wore Tights in 1947, with frequent co-star Dan Dailey. She came to prominence in 1939 when she signed with Twentieth Century-Fox and signed on to appear opposite Ethel Merman in the Broadway musical Du Barry Was a Lady. But it was not until she was called back to Hollywood to replace Fox's musical queen, Alice Faye, in Down Argentine Way, that she became a household name. Throughout her career, Grable was typecast in her stereotype-musical film roles, and when her career faltered in the 1950s, she found it hard to reinvent herself as a serious, trained actress. In 1958 she appeared as herself on The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour with then husband Harry James in an episode entitled "Lucy Wins A Racehorse".

She was known by several nicknames during her heyday in the '40s, including "the girl with the million dollar legs," "the quick-silver blonde," "the queen of the Hollywood musical," and "the darling of the forties." Grable died in 1973 at age 56 of lung cancer.

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Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter, née Beyoncé Giselle Knowles, born 1981-09-04 and known mononymously as Beyoncé, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, USA, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child. Knowles rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of the R&B girl group Destiny's Child, one of the world's best-selling girl groups of all time.

However it is her stunning stage costumes and fabulous figure that interest us here at waist.it, along with the recurrent retro themes that influence her costume design.

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Bianca Stéphanie Beauchamp, born 1977-10-14 is a Canadian fetish and adult model, known for her glamour and latex modelling.

Beauchamp was born in Montreal, Quebec to a French Canadian father and an Italian mother. She was named after Bianca Jagger. Growing up in the low-income neighbourhood, Beauchamp managed to pass the entrance exam for an exclusive private school. She realised that she was bisexual at the age of 15. After having difficulty at home, she moved away soon after graduating high school, and began a course in French literature at CEGEP, hoping to become a high-school French teacher. After achieving her certificate, she began studying French and teaching at the University of Quebec.

Beauchamp had met her future husband, aspiring photographer Martin Perreault at the age of 17. Perreault convinced her to pose for photographs as his muse, and she began modelling for him. She bought her first latex dress at the age of 18.

In 1998, Beauchamp and Perreault founded the website Latex Lair. During a teaching internship at her old high-school, one of the staff discovered the website and advised her to shut it down (although at the time it contained no nudity), which she did. However she re-opened the site after completing the internship, prompting the university to threaten to fail her if it remained on-line during her remaining internships. Beauchamp realised her passion for modelling outweighed that for teaching, therefore she left university at the age of 23 to pursue her modelling career.

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Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot, born 1934-09-28, is a French former actress, singer and fashion model, now an animal rights activist. She was one of the best known sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s. Starting in 1969, Bardot's features became the official face of Marianne (who had previously been anonymous) to represent the liberty of France.

Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer in early life. She started her acting career in 1952 and, after appearing in 16 obscure films, became world-famous in 1957 with the release of the controversial film And God Created Woman. She later starred in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film Le Mépris. Bardot was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress for her role in Louis Malle's 1965 film Viva Maria! Bardot caught the attention of French intellectuals. She was the subject of Simone de Beauvoir's 1959 essay, The Lolita Syndrome, which described Bardot as a "locomotive of women's history" and built upon existentialist themes to declare her the first and most liberated woman of post-war France.

Bardot retired from the entertainment industry in 1973. During her career in show business, she starred in 47 films, performed in several musical shows, and recorded over 50 songs. She was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1985, but refused to receive it. After her retirement, Bardot established herself as an animal rights activist. During the 1990s, she generated controversy by criticizing immigration, Islamization and Islam in France, and has been fined five times for "inciting racial hatred".

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Claudia Cardinale, born 1938-04-15, is an Italian actress, and appeared in some of the most prominent European films of the 1960s and 1970s. The majority of Cardinale's films have been either Italian or French.

Claudia Cardinale was born Claude Joséphine Rose Cardinale in La Goulette, a neighborhood of Tunis, French Tunisia. Her mother, Yolande Greco, was born in Tunisia to Sicilian emigrants from Trapani. Her father was a Sicilian railway worker, born in Gela. Her native languages were French, Tunisian Arabic, and the Sicilian language of her parents. She did not learn to speak Italian until she had already been cast for Italian films.

In 1957, Cardinale won the Italian embassy's 'Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia' contest. The contest included a trip to the Venice Film Festival, bringing Cardinale to the attention of the Italian movie industry. Her feature film debut was Goha (1957), a French-Tunisian co-production. After attending the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia of Rome for two months, she signed a seven-year contract with the Vides studios. In 1958, she had a role in the major international success I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street). Her early career was largely managed by studio producer Franco Cristaldi, to whom Cardinale was married from 1966 until 1975.

Cardinale has remained active through the decades. She has been honoured at nearly every major film festival. She was a tributee at the 2010 Telluride Film Festival and was the guest of honour at the 47th Antalya "Golden Orange" International Film Festival.[4] She won the Golden Orange Best Actress Award for the movie Signora Enrica (2010) from the Antalya Film Festival in Turkey. She has been given lifetime achievement awards from festivals in Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Armenia, Russia, Bulgaria, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Australia, the UK and US. The Los Angeles Times Magazine, in a February 2011 online feature, named Cardinale among the 50 most beautiful women in film history.

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Cleo Moore, born Cleouna Moore, 1924-10-31 ~ 1973-10-28 was an American actress, usually playing the role ofthe role of a blonde bombshell in Hollywood films of the 1950s. After being raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and moving to Hollywood in the late 1940s, Moore became a well-known pin-up girl. After breaking into minor films, Moore signed a brief contract with Warner Brothers in 1950. She then signed a two-year deal with RKO Radio Pictures (1950 ~ 1952), before signing a longer contract with Columbia Pictures in 1952.

At Columbia, Moore was molded as the studio's next resident film star, with the studio hoping to make her "their Marilyn Monroe" or the "new Rita Hayworth". During her time at Columbia, Moore starred in One Girl's Confession (1953), The Other Woman (1954), and Women's Prison (1955). However, Moore's career began to decline when the studio signed Kim Novak to a contract and started focusing on capitalizing her instead of Moore. Moore retired from acting in 1957 after starring in Hit and Run.

Moore died in her sleep at the age of 48 in 1973. Despite the fact she never obtained true film stardom, Moore has become a cult fan favourite, with several of her films being considered cult classics.

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Cyd Charisse (1922-03-08~2008-06-17) was an American actress, dancer. and pin-up After recovering from polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s. Her roles usually focused on her abilities as a dancer, and she was paired with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly; her films include Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953) and Silk Stockings (1957). She stopped dancing in films in the late 1950s, but continued acting in film and television, and in 1992 made her Broadway debut.

In her later years, she discussed the history of the Hollywood musical in documentaries, and participated in That's Entertainment! III in 1994. She was awarded the National Medal of the Arts and Humanities in 2006. However it is her stunning modelling pictures and her fabulous figure that particularly interest us, here at waist.it. She was indeed a very beautiful woman.

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Dale Evans, 1912-10-31 ~ 2001-02-07, was an American writer, film star and singer-songwriter. She was the third wife of singing cowboy Roy Rogers. Born Lucille Wood Smith in Uvalde, Texas, she had a tumultuous early life. While still in infancy her name was changed to Frances Octavia Smith. At age 14, she eloped with her first husband, Thomas F. Fox with whom she bore one son, Thomas F. Fox, Jr., when she was 15. Divorced in 1929, she took the name Dale Evans in the early 1930s to promote her singing career.

In 1947 she married Roy Rogers. The marriage was his third and her third. Dale had a son from her first marriage, Tom Jr., while Roy had an adopted child, Cheryl, and two biological children, Linda and Roy (Dusty) Jr., from his second marriage. Evans and Rogers together had one child, Robin, who died before her second birthday, and adopted four others: Mimi, Dodie, Sandy, and Debbie. They were married for 51 years until Rogers' death.

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Daliah Lavi, born 1942-10-12, is an Israeli actress, singer and model. Lavi was born in Shavei Zion, British Mandate of Palestine, to Jewish parents from Germany and Russia. She studied ballet in Stockholm, Sweden, where she appeared in her first film Hemsöborna (1955). Returning to Israel, her career took off in 1960, when she started appearing in a large number of European and American productions. Fluent in several languages, she has also been in German-, French-, Italian-, Spanish- and English-language films.

Lavi's film appearances include Vincente Minnelli's Two Weeks in Another Town (1962), Mario Bava's gothic classic La Frusta e il corpo, aka The Whip and the Body (1963), the role of The Girl in Lord Jim and the first Matt Helm film, The Silencers (1966), opposite Dean Martin. However, her most famous role is probably as 'The Detainer/007' in Casino Royale (1967). With the decline of her film career, Lavi began a successful schlager singing career in Germany, with hits such as "Oh, wann kommst du?", "Willst du mit mir gehn?" and "C'est ça, la vie (So ist das Leben)". She recorded a German-language cover of Melanie Safka's Look What They've Done to My Song, Ma.

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Deborah Walley, 1941-08-12 ~ 2001-05-10, was an American actress. She was born in Bridgeport in southern Connecticut to Ice Capades skating stars and choreographers Nathan and Edith Walley. She attended Central High School in Bridgeport. At fourteen, she was playing summer-stock theatre. She studied acting at New York City's American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She began working on stage in the city and made her Hollywood film debut in 1961's Gidget Goes Hawaiian. From then until 1974 she appeared in fifteen feature length films, including several of the "Beach Party" films produced by American International Pictures. She also co-starred in the Elvis Presley film Spinout where she and Elvis bonded over a shared interest in spiritual matters. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Walley

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Born 1933-08-19, Debra Paget is an American actress and entertainer who rose to prominence in the 1950s and early 1960s in a variety of feature films including 20th Century Fox's epic Demetrius and the Gladiators. More info:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debra_Paget

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Denise Darcel, 1924-09-08 ~ 2011-12-23, was a French actress who also made films in Hollywood. Born as Denise Billecard in Paris, she was college educated. According to a friend, whom she met in Paris during World War II, she was a passenger in an L-5 Stinson light observation aircraft on VJ Day to see the celebration from the air. The pilot, James Helinger Sr., a US Army Air Corps glider pilot (the friend) was at the controls, while they flew under several bridges along the Seine and finally, under the Eiffel Tower, with the crowds cheering below. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denise_Darcel

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Diana Dors 1931-10-23 – 4 May 1984-05-04, was an English actress, born Diana Mary Fluck in Swindon, Wiltshire. Considered the English equivalent of the blonde bombshells of Hollywood, Dors described herself as "the only sex symbol Britain has produced since Lady Godiva." Dors was Educated at Colville House, like many children of the time Diana enjoyed the cinema. Her heroines from age 8 onwards were the Hollywood sirens Veronica Lake, Lana Turner and Jean Harlow. Having excelled in her elocution studies, after lying about her age, at age 14 she was offered a place to study at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), becoming the college's youngest ever student.

She lodged at the Earls Court YWCA, and supplemented her £2 per week allowance, most of which was spent on her lodgings, by posing for the London Camera Club for one guinea (£1.05) an hour. Signed to the Gordon Harbord Agency, in her first term she won a bronze medal, awarded by Peter Ustinov, and in her second won a silver with honours, awarded by casting director Eric L'Epine Smith. She had already acted in public theatre pieces for LAMDA productions; Smith got her into her first film part with a walk-on piece that developed into a speaking part in The Shop at Sly Corner, at a rate of £8 per day for three days. During the signing of contracts, in agreement with Diana and her father, Smith changed her contractual surname to Dors, the maiden name of her maternal grandmother, on the initial suggestion of her mother Mary. Dors later commented on her name:-

"They asked me to change my name. I suppose they were afraid that if my real name Diana Fluck was in lights and one of the lights blew ..."

Returning to LAMDA, two weeks later she was asked by her agent to audition to for Holiday Camp, by dancing a Jitterbug with fellow young actor John Blythe. Gainsborough Studios gave her the part at a pay rate of £10 per day for four days. Her next film was Dancing with Crime, shot at Twickenham Studios opposite Richard Attenborough during the coldest winter for nearly fifty years, for which she was paid £10 per day for fifteen days. Following her return to LAMDA, and having won over Principal Wilfred Foulis, she graduated in spring 1947 by winning the London Films Cup, awarded to LAMDA by Sir Alexander Korda. She timed her return to Swindon to visit her parents, with the local release of The Shop at Sly Corner.

Dors went on to make over sixty movies. She also made numerous Television appearances, including the part of Lily Rix in a 1978 episode of the Sweeney entitled "Messenger of the Gods". Sadly she died aged 52 from a recurrence of ovarian cancer, first diagnosed two years earlier.

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Dita Von Teese, born Heather Renée Sweet, 1972-09-28 in Rochester, Michigan, is an American burlesque dancer, model, costume designer, author and actress.

Von Teese is best known for her burlesque routines and is frequently dubbed "the Queen of Burlesque" in the press. Von Teese began performing burlesque in 1992 and, as a proponent of New Burlesque, has helped to popularize its revival. In her own words, she "puts the tease back into striptease" with long, elaborate dance shows with props and characters, often inspired by 1930s and 1940s musicals and films.

Her shapely figure and her fabulous pin-up imagery has made her one of our major influences, here at waist.it.

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Doris Day, born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff, 1924-04-03 is an American actress, singer and animal rights activist. Day began her career as a big band singer in 1939. Her popularity began to rise after her first hit recording, "Sentimental Journey", in 1945. After leaving Les Brown & His Band of Renown to try a solo career, she started her long-lasting partnership with Columbia Records, which would remain her only recording label. The contract lasted from 1947 to 1967, and included more than 650 recordings, making Day one of the most popular and acclaimed singers of the 20th century. In 1948, after being persuaded by Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne and her agent at the time, Al Levy, she auditioned for Michael Curtiz, which led to her being cast in the female lead role in Romance on the High Seas.

Over the course of her career, Day has appeared in 39 films. She was ranked the biggest box office star for four years (1960, 1962 1963 and 1964) and ranked in the top 10 for ten years (1951–1952; 1959–1966). She became the top-ranking female box office star of all time and is currently ranked sixth among the top 10 box office performers (male and female), as of 2012.She also received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in Pillow Talk, won three Henrietta Awards (World Film Favorite), the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Career Achievement Award and, in 1989, received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures. Day made her last film in 1968.

Day has also released 29 albums, and her songs have spent a total of 460 weeks in the Top 40 charts. She has been awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Legend Award from the Society of Singers. In 2011, she released her 29th studio album My Heart, which debuted at #9 on the UK Top 40 charts. Day is the oldest artist to score a UK Top 10 with an album featuring new material.

Her strong commitment to animal welfare began in 1971, when she co-founded "Actors and Others for Animals". She started her own non-profit organization in the late 1970s, the Doris Day Animal Foundation and, later, the Doris Day Animal League. Establishing the annual observance Spay Day USA in 1994, The Doris Day Animal League now partners with the Humane Society of the United States and continues to be a leading advocacy organization. In 2004, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush in recognition of her distinguished service to the country.

Day has since retired from acting and performing, but has continued her work in animal rights causes and animal welfare. She currently lives in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

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Dorothy Jean Dandridge (1922-11-09 ~ 1965-09-08) was an American film and theatre actress, singer, pinup and dancer. She is perhaps best known for being the first African-American actress to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1954 film Carmen Jones. Dandridge performed as a vocalist in venues such as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater. During her early career, she performed as a part of The Wonder Children, later The Dandridge Sisters and appeared in a succession of films, usually in uncredited roles. In 1959, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Porgy and Bess.

She is the subject of the 1999 HBO biographical film, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge. She has been recognised with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Dandridge was married and divorced twice, first to dancer Harold Nicholas (the father of her daughter, Harolyn Suzanne) and then to hotel owner Jack Denison. Dandridge died under mysterious circumstances at the age of 42.

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Dorothy Lamour, 1914-12-10 ~ September 22, 1996-09-22, was an American actress and singer. She is best remembered for appearing in the Road to... movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. Lamour began her career in the 1930s as a big band singer. In 1936, she moved to Hollywood where she signed with Paramount Pictures. Her appearance as "Ulah" in The Jungle Princess (1936) brought her fame and also marked the beginning of her image as the "Sarong Queen."

In 1940, Lamour made her first Road to... comedy film, Road to Singapore. The Road to... films were popular during the 1940s. The sixth film in the series, Road to Bali, was released in 1952. By that time, Lamour's screen career began to wane and she focused on stage and television work. In 1961, Crosby and Hope teamed up for one more, The Road to Hong Kong, but actress Joan Collins was cast as the female lead. Lamour made a brief appearance and sang a song near the end of that film.

In the 1970s, Lamour revived her nightclub act and, in 1980, released her autobiography My Side of the Road. She made her final onscreen appearance in 1987. Lamour married her second husband, William Ross Howard III, in 1943. They had two sons and remained married until Howard's death in 1978. Lamour died at her home, aged of 81.

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Dorothy Malone, born 1925-01-30, is an American actress. Her film career began in 1943, and in her early years she played small roles, mainly in B-movies. After a decade in films, she began to acquire a more glamorous image, particularly after her performance in Written on the Wind (1956), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her film career reached its peak by the beginning of the 1960s, and she achieved later success with her television role as Constance MacKenzie on Peyton Place from 1964 to 1968. Less active in her later years, Malone returned to films in 1992 as the friend of Sharon Stone's character in Basic Instinct. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Malone

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Dolores Moran, 1924-01-27 ~ 1982-05-05, was an American film actress and model. Moran's brief career as a film actress began in 1942 with some uncredited roles in such films as Yankee Doodle Dandy. By 1943 she had become a popular pin-up girl and appeared on the cover of such magazines as Yank. She was given supporting roles in films such as Old Acquaintance (1943) with Bette Davis and Warner Bros. attempted to increase interest in her, promoting her along with Lauren Bacall as a new screen personality when they co-starred with Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not (1944). The film made a star of Bacall, but Moran languished and her subsequent films did little to further her career, this probably had something to do with Howard Hawk's decision to marginalise Moran in order to boost the screen presence of Bacall, excising some of Moran's scenes.

The Horn Blows at Midnight gave her a leading role with Jack Benny and Alexis Smith but her film appearances after this were sporadic, and she suffered ill health that reduced her ability to work. Her film career ended in 1954 with a featured role in the John Payne and Lizabeth Scott western film Silver Lode.

She was married to the film producer Benedict E. Bogeaus in Salome, Arizona, in 1946. Their son, Brett Benedict, born August 30, 1948, in Hollywood, later became a successful businessman. They divorced in 1962, he died of a heart attack in 1968. Moran had an affair with director Howard Hawks while filming To Have and Have Not, which Hawks undertook mainly as revenge for his rejection by Bacall in favour of Bogart.

Dolores Moran died of cancer, aged 58.

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Dorothy Sebastian, 1903-04-26 ~ 1957-04-08, was an American film and stage actress. Sebastian was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. In her youth, she aspired to be a dancer and a film actress. Her family frowned on both ambitions, however, so she fled to New York at the age of 15. She followed around theatrical agents before returning at night to a $12-a-month room, after being consistently rejected.

Sebastian's first contact in Hollywood was Robert Kane, who gave her a film test at United Studios. She performed in George White's Scandals and later co-starred with Joan Crawford and Anita Page for a popular series of MGM romantic dramas including Our Dancing Daughters (1928) and Our Blushing Brides (1930). Sebastian also appeared in 1929's Spite Marriage, wherein she was cast opposite her then-lover Buster Keaton.

By the mid-1930s, Sebastian was semi-retired from acting after marrying Hopalong Cassidy star William Boyd. After their 1936 divorce, she returned to acting appearing in mostly bit parts. Her last onscreen appearance was in the 1948 film The Miracle of the Bells. Sebastian is also credited with co-writing the Moon Mullican blues ballad "The Leaves Mustn't Fall". Mullican recorded this in 1950 and 1958 and it has since become a bluegrass standard.

Sebastian married actor William Boyd in December 1930 in Las Vegas, Nevada. They began a relationship after meeting on the set of His First Command in 1929. They divorced in 1936. In 1947, Sebastian married Miami Beach businessman Harold Shapiro, to whom she remained married until her death. She died of cancer at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. She is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Sebastian has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6655 Hollywood Blvd, for her contribution to the motion picture industry.

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Edith Minturn "Edie" Sedgwick, 1943-04-20 ~ 1971-11-16, was an American actress, socialite, fashion model and heiress. She is best known for being one of Andy Warhol's superstars. Sedgwick became known as "The Girl of the Year" in 1965 after starring in several of Warhol's short films in the 1960s. She was dubbed an "It Girl", while Vogue magazine also named her a "Youthquaker"

Sedgwick died aged 28, the coroner ruling that her death was "undetermined/accident/suicide".

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Elaine Stewart, 1930-05-31 ~ 2011-06-27, was an American actress and model. Stewart was born in Montclair, New Jersey as Elsy Steinberg. She was one of five children born into a German Jewish family. In 1961, nearing the end of her television career, she married actor Bill Carter. After her divorce from Carter, she married television producer Merrill Heatter on 1964-12-31. They had a son, Stewart, and a daughter, Gabrielle.

Stewart made her debut by winning Miss See in See Magazine in 1952, with measurements 86cm~63cm~91cm (34"~25"~36"). She was in many magazines such as Playboy and Photoplay.

She had a supporting role in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), as Lila. She was featured as the love interest of Sgt Ryan played by Richard Widmark in Take the High Ground (1953) as Julie. She appeared in other films, such as Brigadoon, Night Passage, The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond, and The Adventures of Hajji Baba. In her last television appearance in 1964 she played actress Irene Grey in the Perry Mason episode, \"The Case of the Capering Camera,\" starring Raymond Burr. Stewart was also known as the co-hostess on two 1970s game shows, Gambit with Wink Martindale and the nighttime edition of High Rollers with Alex Trebek, which were both produced by her husband.

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Eleanor Jean Parker, born in Cedarville, Ohio, 1922-06-26, is an American actress. Her versatility led to her being dubbed Woman of a Thousand Faces, the title of her biography by Doug McClelland. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Parker

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Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery, 1933-04-15 ~ 1995-05-18, was an American film and television actress whose career spanned five decades. The daughter of Robert Montgomery, she began her career in the 1950s with a role on her father's television series Robert Montgomery Presents. In the 1960s, she rose to fame as Samantha Stephens on the ABC sitcom Bewitched. Her work on the series earned her five Primetime Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations. After Bewitched ended its run in 1972, Montgomery continued her career with roles in numerous television films. In 1974, she portrayed Ellen Harrod in A Case of Rape and Lizzie Borden in the 1975 television film The Legend of Lizzie Borden. Both roles earned her additional Emmy Award nominations.

Montgomery was married four times, most notably to actor Gig Young and producer/director William Asher with whom she had three children. Her fourth and final marriage was to actor Robert Foxworth, with whom she lived for twenty years before marrying in 1993. Montgomery died of colorectal cancer in May 1995, eight weeks after being diagnosed with the disease.

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Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE, 1932-02-27 ~ 2011-03-23 was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. As one of the world's most famous film stars, Taylor was recognized for her acting ability and for her glamorous lifestyle, beauty, and distinctive violet eyes.

National Velvet (1944) was Taylor's first success, and she starred in Father of the Bride (1950), A Place in the Sun (1951), Giant (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for BUtterfield 8 (1960), played the title role in Cleopatra (1963), and married her co-star Richard Burton. They appeared together in 11 films, including Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), for which Taylor won a second Academy Award. From the mid-1970s, she appeared less frequently in film, and made occasional appearances in television and theatre.

Her much-publicized personal life included eight marriages and several life-threatening illnesses. From the mid-1980s, Taylor championed HIV and AIDS programs; she co-founded the American Foundation for AIDS Research in 1985, and the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation in 1993. She received the Presidential Citizens Medal, the Legion of Honour, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and a Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute, who named her seventh on their list of the "Greatest American Screen Legends". Taylor died of congestive heart failure in March 2011 at the age of 79, having suffered many years of ill health.

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Elke Sommer, born Elke von Schletz, 1940-11-05 is a German actress, entertainer and artist. She was born in Berlin to a Lutheran minister and his wife. After World War II, the family was evacuated to Erlangen, a small university town in Southern Germany, where, despite their lack of money, she attended the prestigious Gymnasium (high school) in Erlangen. However her father's death when she was 14 precluded further formal education, and she moved to England to be an au pair, to perfect her English and earn a living.

She was spotted by film director Vittorio De Sica whilst on holiday in Italy, and started appearing in films there in the late 1950s. She quickly became a noted sex symbol and moved to Hollywood in the early 1960s. She also became one of the most popular pin-up girls of the time, and posed for several pictorials in Playboy Magazine.

She became one of the top film actresses of the 1960s and made 99 film and television appearances between 1959 and 2005. However it is her stunning figure and her often humorous take on her modelling that fascinates us here at waist.it

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Elyse Knox (1917-12-14 – 2012-02-16) was an American actress, model and fashion designer. She was the mother of actor Mark Harmon.

Born Elsie Lillian Kornbrath to Frederick and Elizabeth Kornbrath in Hartford, Connecticut, she studied at the Traphagen School of Fashion in Manhattan then embarked on a career in fashion design. Her good looks enabled her to model some of her own creations for Vogue magazine that led to a contract offer from Twentieth Century Fox film studio in 1937.

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Esther Jane Williams (1921-08-08 ~ 2013-06-06) was a retired American competitive swimmer and MGM movie star. Williams set multiple national and regional swimming records in her late teens as part of the Los Angeles Athletic Club swim team.

Unable to compete in the 1940 Summer Olympics due the outbreak of World War II, Williams joined Billy Rose's Aquacade, where she took on the role vacated by Eleanor Holm after the show's move from New York City to San Francisco. There, she spent five months swimming alongside Olympic swimmer and Tarzan star, Johnny Weissmuller.

Her slim but powerful figure together with her iconic swimsuit poses has become a major influence on the work we create here at waist.it

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Eva Jacqueline Longoria, born 1975-03-15 is an American actress, best known for portraying Gabrielle Solis on the ABC television series Desperate Housewives. Longoria received a nomination for the 2006 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series for her performance on Desperate Housewives.

Longoria first rose to fame on television for portraying Isabella Braña on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless from 2001 to 2003. She became nationally recognized in the 2000s after appearing in several high-profile advertising campaigns and numerous men's magazines, reaching #14 in the FHM "Sexiest Women 2008" poll, and having appeared on the cover of various international women's magazines including Vogue, Marie Claire and Harper's Bazaar.[4] Longoria has also starred in films such as Harsh Times (2005), The Sentinel (2006) and Over Her Dead Body (2008).

Here at waist.it, we particularly admire her stunning pin-ip style images.

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Evelyn Ankers, 1918-08-17 ~ 1985-08-29, was a Chilean-born British actress. She often played variations on the role of the cultured young leading lady in many American horror films during the 1940s, most notably The Wolf Man (1941) at age 23 opposite Lon Chaney, Jr., a frequent screen partner. Known as "the Queen of the Screamers", her other films include The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Captive Wild Woman (1943), Son of Dracula (1943), The Mad Ghoul (1943), Jungle Woman (1944), Weird Woman (1944), The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944) and The Frozen Ghost (1945).

Ankers also appeared in Hold That Ghost (1941), Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), His Butler's Sister (1943), The Pearl of Death (1944), Pardon My Rhythm (1944), Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949), and played Calamity Jane in The Texan Meets Calamity Jane (1950), for which she received top billing.In fact, she made over fifty films between 1936 and 1950, then retired from the movies to be a housewife. She occasionally played television roles and returned ten years later to make one more film, No Greater Love (1960), with her husband Richard Denning. Sadly, she died of ovarian cancer at the age of 67 in Maui, Hawaii.

Of course, it is her fabulous figure and her wonderful swimsuit pin-up shots that appeal to us here at waist.it and we have borrowed several of her poses in our various shoots.

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Gale Robbins, born Betty Gale Robbins, May 7, 1921-05-07 ~ 1980-02-18 was an American actress and singer. Born in Indiana, Robbins graduated from high school in June 1939 and began her career with the Phil Levant band in 1940. She married her high school sweetheart, Robert Olson, in November 1944 when he was in the Air Force.

Starting as a model and nightclub singer she made her film debut in In the Meantime, Darling in 1944 and appeared in several films, such as Calamity Jane and My Dear Secretary (1948). She later focused on TV, hosting Hollywood House from 1949 to 1950. She released the album I'm a Dreamer, backed by Eddie Cano and his orchestra, in 1958.

Robbins died of lung cancer at the age of 58.

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Gene Eliza Tierney, 1920-11-19 ~ 1991-11-06, was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, Tierney acted in the title role of Laura (1944) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Ellen Berent in Leave Her to Heaven (1945).

Other notable roles include Martha Strable Van Cleve in Heaven Can Wait (1943), Isabel Bradley Maturin in The Razor's Edge (1946), Lucy Muir in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Ann Sutton in Whirlpool (1949), Maggie Carleton McNulty in The Mating Season (1951) and Anne Scott in The Left Hand of God (1955).

Gene Tierney died in 1991 of emphysema in Houston, Texas. She had reportedly started smoking after a screening of her first movie to lower her voice because "I sound like an angry Minnie Mouse", and later became a heavy smoker. She is buried in Glenwood Cemetery in Houston, Texas. Tierney was survived by daughters Antoinette Daria Cassini and Christina Cassini. Daria died on September 11, 2010, a month before her 67th birthday, and was interred beside her mother.

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Gina Lollobrigida, born 1927-07-04 is an Italian actress, photojournalist and sculptor. She was one of the most popular European actresses of the 1950s and early 1960s. She was also an iconic sex symbol of the time. Today, she remains an active supporter of Italian and Italian American causes, particularly the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF). In 2008, she received the NIAF Lifetime Achievement Award at the Foundation's Anniversary Gala.

Born Luigina Lollobrigida in Subiaco, Italy, she was one of four daughters of a furniture manufacturer. In her youth, Gina did some modelling, and from there she went to participate successfully in several beauty contests. At around this time, she began appearing in Italian language films. In 1945, she played a part in the comedy Santarellina by Eduardo Scarpetta at the Teatro della Concordia of Monte Castello di Vibio. In 1947, Gina entered the Miss Italia pageant and came in 3rd place. The contest was won by Lucia Bosé and second place was Gianna Maria Canale – they would both go on to be actresses, though neither would come near subsequent Lollobrigida's success.

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Ginger Rogers, born Virginia Katherine McMath, 1911-07-16 ~ 1995-04-25 was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century. During her long career, she made a total of 73 films, and was best known as Fred Astaire's romantic interest and dancing partner in a series of ten Hollywood musical films that revolutionized the genre. She achieved great success on her own in a variety of film roles and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Kitty Foyle (1940).

Rogers' entertainment career was born one night when the traveling vaudeville act of Eddie Foy came to Fort Worth and needed a quick stand-in. She then entered and won a Charleston dance contest which allowed her to tour for six months, at one point in 1926 performing at an 18-month-old theater called The Craterian in Medford, Oregon. This theater honored her many years later by changing its name to the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater. Since then, she made over seventy movies.

She continued making public appearances (chiefly at award shows) until suffering a stroke that left her partially paralyzed and dependent on a wheelchair. Despite her stroke, Rogers never saw a doctor or went to a hospital. Rogers died at her Rancho Mirage home on April 25, 1995, at the age of 83. An autopsy concluded that the cause of death was a heart attack. She was cremated and her ashes interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California, with her mother's remains.

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Gloria Grahame, 1923-11-28 ~ 1981-10-05, was an American stage, film and television actress. Grahame began her acting career in theatre, and in 1944 she made her first film for MGM. Despite a featured role in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), MGM did not believe she had the potential for major success, and sold her contract to RKO Studios. Often cast in film noir projects, Grahame received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Crossfire (1947), and she won this award for her work in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). She achieved her highest profile with Sudden Fear (1952), Human Desire (1953), The Big Heat (1953), and Oklahoma! (1955), but her film career began to wane soon afterwards.

She returned to work on the stage, but continued to appear in films and television productions, usually in supporting roles. In 1974, Grahame was diagnosed with breast cancer. It went into remission less than a year later and Grahame returned to work. It returned in 1980 but she refused to accept the diagnosis or seek treatment. She chose to continue working and travelled to England to appear in a play. Her health rapidly declined. She developed peritonitis after undergoing a procedure to remove fluid from her abdomen in September 1981. She returned to New York City, where she died in October 1981.

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Gloria Talbott, 1931-02-07 ~ 2000-09-19, was an American film and television actress. She grew up in Glendale in Los Angeles County, California, a city co-founded by one of her grandfathers. Her sister, Lori Talbott, also became an actress. Talbott began her career as a child actor in such films as Maytime (1937) Sweet and Lowdown (1943) and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1945).

After leaving school, Talbott formed a dramatic group and played "arena"-style shows at various clubs. She stopped acting following her first marriage, and resumed after her divorce, having worked extensively in film and television. She worked on a regular basis during the 1950s, having appeared in Crashout (1955), the Humphrey Bogart comedy We're No Angels (1955), Lucy Gallant (1955), and All That Heaven Allows (1955). In that same year, Talbott appeared in TV Reader's Digest episode America's First Great Lady as Pocahontas.

She later became known as a 'scream queen' after appearing in a number of horror films including The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957), The Cyclops (1957), and I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958).

Talbott married four times and eventually died from kidney failure.

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Goldie Jeanne Hawn, born 1945-11-21, is an American actress, film director, producer, and occasionally a singer. Hawn is known for her roles in Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Private Benjamin, Foul Play, Shampoo, Overboard, Bird on a Wire, Death Becomes Her, The First Wives Club, and Cactus Flower, for which she won the 1969 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She is the mother of actors Oliver and Kate Hudson. Hawn has maintained a relationship with actor Kurt Russell since 1983.

However, it is her striking resemblance to our own regular model Carlie that intrigues us. Consequently we have borrowed quite a few Hawnisms for our various shoots with Carlie.

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Grace Bradley, 1913-09-21 ~ 2010-09-21, was an American film actress, active in Hollywood during the 1930s. Bradley was born in Brooklyn. As a child she took piano lessons and by the age of six she gave her first recital. After winning a scholarship, she attended the Eastman School of Music near Rochester, New York, aged twelve, Originally she had wanted to become a professional pianist. While in school she took dance lessons and played piano. Her grandfather wanted her to be educated in Berlin, so that she could receive more formal education but a Broadway producer discovered her during one of her dance recitals and hired her for a professional show.

During her career she co-starred opposite such notable figures as Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, Alice Faye, Bruce Cabot, William Bendix, Fred MacMurray, Harold Lloyd, Claudette Colbert, and W.C. Fields. In May 1937, Bradley agreed to a blind date and met Hopalong Cassidy star William Boyd. The two of them got along so well that they were married in June 1937.

Grace Bradley Boyd died on her 97th birthday. Two days later, private services were held at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. She was buried with her husband there in the Great Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Sacred Promise.

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Gypsy Rose Lee, 1911-01-08 ~ 1970-04-26, was an American burlesque entertainer famous for her striptease act. She was also an actress, author, and playwright whose 1957 memoir was made into the stage musical and film Gypsy. Gypsy Rose Lee was born Ellen June Hovick in Seattle, Washington, in 1911, although her mother later shaved three years off both of her daughters' ages. Her name was changed to Rose Louise when her sister was born and given her name, Ellen. She was initially known by her middle name, Louise. Her mother, Rose Hovick (née Rose Evangeline Thompson), was a teenage bride fresh from a convent school when she married Norwegian-American John Olaf Hovick, who was a newspaper advertising salesman and a reporter at The Seattle Times. Louise's sister, Ellen Evangeline (better known as actress June Havoc), was born in 1913.

After their parents divorced, the girls supported the family by appearing in vaudeville, where June's talent shone while Louise remained in the background. At the age of 15 in December 1928, June eloped with Bobby Reed, a dancer in the act, much to her mother's displeasure, going on to a brief career in marathon dancing, which was more profitable than tap dancing at the time.

Louise discovered that she could make money in burlesque, which earned her legendary status as a classy and witty striptease artist. Initially, her act was propelled forward when a shoulder strap on one of her gowns gave way, causing her dress to fall to her feet, despite her efforts to cover herself Encouraged by the audience response, she went on to make the trick the focus of her performance. Her innovations were an almost casual strip style compared to the herky-jerky styles of most burlesque strippers (she emphasized the "tease" in "striptease"), and she brought a sharp sense of humour into her act as well. She became as famous for her onstage wit as for her strip style, and – changing her stage name to Gypsy Rose Lee – she became one of the biggest stars of Minsky's Burlesque, where she performed for four years. She was frequently arrested in raids on the Minsky brothers' shows.

In 1937 and 1938, billed as Louise Hovick, she made 5 films in Hollywood. But her acting was generally panned, so she returned to New York City where she had an affair with film producer Michael Todd and co-produced and appeared in his 1942 musical revue "Star and Garter".

Trying to describe what Gypsy was (a "high-class" stripper), H. L. Mencken coined the term ecdysiast. Her style of intellectual recitation while stripping was spoofed in the number "Zip!" from Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey, a play in which her sister June appeared. Gypsy can be seen performing an abbreviated version of her act (intellectual recitation and all) in the 1943 film Stage Door Canteen.

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Hazel Brooks, 1924-09-08 ~ September 18, 2002-09-18, was an American actress. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, she grew up in the U.S. and by 1943, at age 18, had been signed by M.G.M. Billed under her real name, Hazel Brooks, she made a series of pictures at the studio during the 1940s, culminating with a lead role in 1947 Body and Soul with John Garfield.

She had captured almost as much attention three years earlier in 1944 when, at age 19, she married the long-time head of her studio's fabled art department, Cedric Gibbons, then 51. Although the age difference inspired a certain amount of winking in the gossip columns at the time, the marriage proved a strong one and lasted until Gibbons' death in 1960. Brooks subsequently married Dr. Rex Ross, a surgeon and founder of the Non-invasive Vascular Clinic at Hollywood Hospital. Dr. Ross predeceased her in 1999.

Following early minor roles in a half-dozen MGM movies, Brooks played the cynical nightclub singer who distracts John Garfield from boxing and from Lilli Palmer in Body and Soul. She had subsequent roles in Arch of Triumph and Sleep, My Love in 1948, as well as The Basketball Fix (1951) and The I Don't Care Girl (1953).

She died in 2002, aged 78, in Bel Air, California.

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Hedy Lamarr, born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, 1913-11-09 ~ 2000-01-19, was an Austro-American actress and mathematician, celebrated for her great beauty, who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age." A talented mathemetician, Lamarr and composer George Antheil invented an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, used for wireless communication from the pre-computer age to the present day.

When she worked with Max Reinhardt in Berlin, he called her the "most beautiful woman in Europe" due to her "strikingly dark exotic looks," a sentiment widely shared by her audiences and critics. She gained fame after starring in Gustav Machatý's Ecstasy, a film which featured closeups of her character during orgasm in one scene, as well as full frontal nude shots of her in another scene, both very unusual for the socially conservative period in which the bulk of her career took place.

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Honor Blackman, born 1925-08-22, is a British actress, known for the roles of Cathy Gale in The Avengers (1962~64) and Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger (1964). She is also famous for her role as the vengeful goddess Hera in the Ray Harryhausen, Charles H. Schneer, production of Jason and the Argonauts. Blackman was born in Plaistow, Newham, London. Her father Frederick was a statistician. She attended North Ealing Primary School and Ealing County School for Girls. She then trained as an actress at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, after her father on her fifteenth birthday thought that an appropriate birthday gift would be acting lessons. While attending the Guildhall School she also worked as a clerical assistant for the Home Office.

Blackman's film debut was a nonspeaking part in Fame is the Spur (1947). Other films include Quartet (1948) and So Long at the Fair (1950) with Dirk Bogarde, the RMS Titanic true story A Night to Remember (1958), the comedy The Square Peg (1958), Life at the Top (1965) with Laurence Harvey, The Virgin and the Gypsy (1970), and the Western films Shalako (1968) with Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot and Something Big (1971) with Dean Martin. She played the role of Hera in Jason and the Argonauts (1963). She also did an overdub for an actress in the same film providing the voice for the character of Medea. More recently, she has had small roles in the films Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) and Jack Brown and the Curse of the Crown (also 2001).

Bond film producer Albert R. Broccoli admitted that Blackman had been cast on the back of her success in The Avengers, despite the fact that the American audience had never even seen the programme. Broccoli said, "The Brits would love her because they knew her as Mrs. Gale, the Yanks would like her because she was so good, it was a perfect combination". Blackman was the first of two "Bond girls" older than the actor playing James Bond, and she was the oldest actress ever to play a Bond girl.

In 1981, she was in the London revival of The Sound of Music opposite Petula Clark, which opened to rave reviews with, at that time, the largest advance sale in British theatre history. She spent most of 1987 at the Fortune Theatre starring as the Mother Superior in the West End production of Nunsense. From 2005 to 2006, she toured the country as Mrs Higgins in My Fair Lady. Her show Word Of Honor premiered in October 2006. In April 2007, she took over the role of Fraulein Schneider from Olivier Award-winning actress Sheila Hancock, in Cabaret at the Lyric Theatre in London's West End. She left the show at the end of September 2007.

One of her earliest appearances on TV was in a recurring role as Nichole, secretary/assistant to Dan Dailey's character of Tim Collier in the 1959 series The Four Just Men. In a 1965 episode of The Avengers, titled "Too Many Christmas Trees", John Steed received his Christmas cards, one of which was from Cathy. "A card from Mrs Gale!", Steed exclaims in delight. Then, reading the inscription, he says in a puzzled voice, "Whatever can she be doing at Fort Knox?". It was an inside joke, as Blackman was filming Goldfinger at the time.

Blackman co-starred with Richard Basehart as a married pair of Shakespearean actors who commit a homicide in the Columbo episode "Dagger of the Mind" with Peter Falk. Blackman was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions, in December 1969 when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews in a TV studio dressing room, and in February 1993, when she was caught out by Michael Aspel during a ‘mock’ television interview.

In 1986, she had a role in "Terror of the Vervoids", a segment of the Doctor Who serial The Trial of a Time Lord. From 1990 to 1996 she appeared as Laura West on The Upper Hand. Blackman took a guest role on Midsomer Murders as ex-racing driver Isobel Hewitt in the episode "A Talent for Life". In September 2004, she briefly joined the Coronation Street cast in a storyline about wife swapping. In 2007, she participated in the BBC TV project The Verdict, as one of 12 well-known figures forming a jury to hear a fictional rape case. The series was designed to explore the jury system. She was sworn in as a juror as "Honor Kaufmann".

A song she recorded with Patrick Macnee during 1964, "Kinky Boots", was a surprise hit, peaking at No.5 in 1990 after it was played incessantly by BBC Radio 1 breakfast show presenter Simon Mayo. After her appearance in Goldfinger, she recorded a full album of songs, entitled "Everything I've Got". In 1983, she appeared as Juno in a special TV production of Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld. On 6 July 2009, Blackman released a new single, "The Star Who Fell from Grace", composed by Jeff Chegwin and Adrian Munsey and compered a James Bond Prom as part of the "Welsh Proms" concert series.

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Ida Lupino, 1918-02-04 ~ 1995-08-05, was an English-American film actress and director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers. In her forty-eight year career she appeared in fifty-nine films and directed seven others, mostly in the United States, where she became a citizen in 1948. She co-wrote and co-produced some of her own films as well. She appeared in serial television programmes fifty-eight times and directed fifty other episodes. Additionally, she contributed as a writer to five films and four TV episodes. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_Lupino

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Nellie Elizabeth "Irish" McCalla, 1928-12-25 ~ 2002-02-01, was an American actress and artist best known as the title star of the 1950s television series Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Sheena co-starred actor Chris Drake. McCalla was also a "Varga Girl" model for pinup girl artist Alberto Vargas. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_McCalla

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Betty Jane Bierce, better known by her stage name Jane "Poni" Adams, born August 7, 1921-08-07, was an American actress in radio, films, and television in the 1940s and 1950s.

Adams was born in San Antonio, Texas, and received a full scholarship to Juilliard, which she turned down to spend years studying at the Pasadena Playhouse. From there, she got her start on Lux Radio Theatre and then with the Harry Conover Modeling Agency, where she was given her nickname "Poni". (This was supposedly due to her love of horses, but in reality it was to provide her with a more memorable stage name.) She returned to using her real name in 1945. She is best known for her role as Nina in 1945's House of Dracula, but she also has the distinction of acting in early adaptations of both major DC Comics franchises: Batman, where she played Vicki Vale in the second Batman serial, Batman and Robin, and also a character in the first Superman television series.

Her first husband was a United States Navy pilot who died during World War II. In 1945 she married Thomas K. Turnage, a decorated Major General with the Army who served in the Korean War and earned the Distinguished Service Medal and Bronze Star. He later served as the last administrator for the Veterans Administration before the VA became a cabinet department during Ronald Reagan's presidential term. They had two children.

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Jane Fonda, born Lady Jayne Seymour Fonda, 1937-12-21, is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an actress. After 15 years of retirement, she returned to film in 2005 with Monster-in-Law, followed by Georgia Rule two years later. She also produced and starred in over 20 exercise videos released between 1982 and 1995, and once again in 2010.

Fonda has been an activist for many political causes. Her opposition to the Vietnam War and associated activities were controversial. She has also protested the Iraq War and violence against women. She describes herself as a liberal and a feminist. In 2005, Fonda worked alongside Robin Morgan and Gloria Steinem to co-found the Women's Media Center, an organization that works to amplify the voices of women in the media through advocacy, media and leadership training, and the creation of original content. Fonda currently serves on the board of the organization. Since 2001, Fonda has been a Christian. She published an autobiography in 2005, and in 2011, she published a second memoir, Prime Time.

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Jane Greer, 1924-09-09 ~ 2001-08-24, was an American film and television actress who was perhaps best known for her role as femme fatale Kathie Moffat in the 1947 film noir Out of the Past. Greer was born Bettejane Greer in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Bettie and Charles D. McClellan Greer, Jr. In 1940, at age 15, Greer suffered from a facial palsy, which paralyzed the left side of her face. She recovered, but it is speculated that the condition contributed to her "patented look" and "a calm, quizzical gaze and an enigmatic expression that would later lead RKO to promote her as 'the woman with the Mona Lisa smile'." She claimed that the facial exercises used to overcome the paralysis taught her how to convey human emotion. A beauty-contest winner and professional model from her teens, Greer began her show business career as a big band singer.

Howard Hughes spotted Greer modeling in the June 8, 1942, issue of Life magazine and sent her to Hollywood to become an actress. She married Rudy Vallee, her senior by 22 years, in 1943. Hughes lent out the actress to RKO to star in many films, including Dick Tracy (1945), Out of the Past (1947), They Won't Believe Me (1947), and the comedy/suspense film The Big Steal (1949), alongside Out of the Past co-star Robert Mitchum. Hughes refused to let her work for a time; when she finally began film acting again, she appeared in You're in the Navy Now (1951), The Prisoner of Zenda (1952), Run for the Sun (1956), and The Man of a Thousand Faces (1957). In 1984, she was cast in Against All Odds, a remake of Out of the Past, as the mother of the character she had played in 1947.

Noteworthy roles in television included guest appearances on episodes of numerous shows over the decades, such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Bonanza, Quincy, M.E., Murder, She Wrote, and a 1975 gig with Peter Falk and Robert Vaughn in an episode of Columbo titled Troubled Waters. She even got to make fun of Out of the Past in a parody with Robert Mitchum on TV's Saturday Night Live in 1987. Greer joined the casts of Falcon Crest in 1984, and Twin Peaks in 1990, in recurring roles.

Jane Greer married Rudy Vallee in 1943, but they divorced the following year. She remarried in 1947, to Edward Lasker (1912–1997), a Los Angeles lawyer and businessman, with whom she had three children; they divorced in 1963. Her son Lawrence Lasker is a movie producer who has co-produced several films, including WarGames (1983) and Sneakers (1992). Frank London was her domestic partner from 1965. He predeceased her by six months. Greer died of cancer at the age of 76 in 2001 and was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

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Jane Powell, born Suzanne Lorraine Burce, 1929-04-01, is an American singer, dancer and actress. After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens. Once there, the studio utilized her vocal, dancing and acting talents, casting her in such musicals as Royal Wedding, with Fred Astaire, A Date with Judy, with friend Elizabeth Taylor, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, with Howard Keel. In the late 1950s, her film career slowed, only to be replaced with a busy theatre and television career. As of 2010, Powell lives with her fifth husband, former child star Dickie Moore, in New York City and Connecticut, and is still active in television and theatre. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Powell

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Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell, 1921-06-21 ~ 2011-02-28 was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s. Russell moved from the Midwest to California, where she had her first film role in 1943 with The Outlaw. In 1947 Russell delved into music before returning to films. After starring in multiple films in the 1950s, Russell again returned to music while completing several other films in the 1960s. She starred in more than 20 films throughout her career.

Russell married three times, adopted three children, and in 1955 founded the World Adoption International Fund. She received several accolades for her achievements in films, including having her hand- and foot-prints immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and having a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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Janet Blair (1921-04-23 – 2007-02-19) was an American film and television actress. Born as Martha Jane Lafferty (she took her acting surname from Blair County, Pennsylvania) in Altoona, Pennsylvania, she began her acting career on film in 1942, being placed under contract to Columbia Pictures. During World War II, she made a string of successful pictures, although she is today best remembered for playing Rosalind Russell's sister in My Sister Eileen (1942) and Rita Hayworth's best friend in Tonight and Every Night (1945). In the late 1940s, she was dropped by Columbia and did not return to pictures for several years.

Instead, she took the lead role of Nellie Forbush in a production of the stage musical South Pacific, making more than 1,200 performances in three years. "[I] never missed a performance", she noted proudly. During the tour, she also got married to second husband, producer-director Nick Mayo, and they became parents of Amanda and Andrew.

She appeared on television on various variety shows and was also a summer replacement for Dinah Shore. She recorded an album entitled Flame Out for the Dico label. It was a collection of ballads like "Don't Explain" and "Then You've Never Been Blue" She made a rare dramatic appearance in the 1962 British horror film Night of the Eagle. Her last performance was on television in a 1991 episode of Murder, She Wrote, starring Angela Lansbury.

Of course, here at waist.it we remember her for the stunning pin-up pictures taken near the beginning of her career.

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Jeanette Helen Morrison, 1927-07-06 ~ 2004-10-03, known professionally as Janet Leigh, was an American actress and author. Discovered by actress Norma Shearer, Leigh secured a contract with MGM and made her film debut with a starring role in The Romance of Rosy Ridge in 1947. Over the following years, she appeared in several popular films of a wide variety of genres, including Act of Violence (1948), Little Women (1949), Holiday Affair (1949), Angels in the Outfield (1951), Scaramouche (1952), The Naked Spur (1953), Walking My Baby Back Home (1953) and Living It Up (1954).

After two brief marriages at a young age, Leigh married actor Tony Curtis in 1951. The couple received significant media attention and starred in five films together: Houdini (1953), The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), The Vikings (1958), The Perfect Furlough (1958) and Who Was That Lady? (1960). Leigh played mostly dramatic roles during the latter half of the 1950s, in films such as Safari (1955), Touch of Evil (1958), and Psycho (1960), for which she was awarded the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She continued to appear occasionally in films and television, including The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and two films with her daughter Jamie Lee Curtis: The Fog (1980) and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998).

Leigh died in 2004 at the age of 77, following a year-long battle with vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels. She was survived by her fourth husband of 42 years, Robert Brandt, and her two daughters by actor Tony Curtis: Jamie Lee Curtis and Kelly Curtis.

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Janis Carter, 1913-10-10 ~ 1994-07-30, was a film and television actress working in the 1940s and 1950s. After attending Mather College in Cleveland, Ohio, Carter headed to New York in an attempt to start an opera career. Although unsuccessful in opera, she was working on Broadway when she was spotted on stage by Darryl F. Zanuck, who signed her to a movie deal. After moving to Hollywood, she appeared in over 30 films beginning in 1941 for 20th Century Fox, MGM, Columbia, and RKO. She appeared in the films Night Editor (1946) and Framed (1947) with Glenn Ford and Flying Leathernecks (1951) with John Wayne. After leaving Los Angeles, Carter returned to New York and found work in television in comedies and dramas and as hostess for the quiz show Feather Your Nest opposite Bud Collyer. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janis Carter

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Fifties bombshell Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer) 1933-04-19 ~1967-06-27 was famous for her tiny waist and exaggerated bust. She was also rather good at that tightly-belted look that waist.it's Chiara does so well.

At the time, the world's media were quick to condemn Mansfield's stunts, and one editorial columnist wrote, "We are amused when Miss Mansfield strains to pull in her stomach to fill out her bikini better."

But here at waist.it, we like concave waisted ladies. We prefer to shoot a model that pulls in her tummy too much, rather than one that lets it all hang out! Needless to say, we emulate a lot of Mansfield's poses here at waist.it!

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Jeanne Elizabeth Crain, 1925-05-25 ~ 2003-12-14, was an American actress whose career spanned three decades from 1943 to 1975. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in the 1949 film Pinky in which she played the leading role. She was also noted for her ability as an ice skater. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Crain

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Jill Adams, 1930-07-22 ~ 2008-05-13, was an English actress artist and fashion model. She featured or starred in over 25 films during the 1950s and 1960s. Jill Adams began life as Jill Siggins. She started modelling, only to be 'discovered' and begin an acting career that spanned two decades. Her most notable films were comedies, at which she excelled, such as Doctor at Sea, Brothers in Law, and The Green Man, in which she starred with Alastair Sim and George Cole. She also did some stage and radio work.

She had a brief marriage to Jim Adams, a young American sailor, which resulted in the birth of a daughter, Tina. However, the union did not last and Jill pursued her acting in Europe, the USA, and Australia. In 1957 she married the well-known BBC TV and radio personality Peter Haigh, and had a second daughter, Peta Louise. In the early 1970s, the whole family moved to the Algarve, in southern Portugal, where they ran a small hotel for several years in the village of Albufeira.

When her second marriage ended, she continued with a restaurant career, accompanied by her partner Mike. Some years later she retired from the business and with her new partner, Buster, an accountant, went to live just outside Lisbon. They later moved to Spain, where they enjoyed homes close to Alicante, then Barcelona, and eventually in the Costa del Sol. After Buster died in 1996, she moved back to Portugal, to be with her granddaughter, Emma, and her great-granddaughter, Tania, and began painting again. She battled cancer from 2005 until her death.

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Jill St. John, born Jill Arlyn Oppenheim, 1940-08-19, is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Tiffany Case, the Bond girl in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). St. John was born Jill Arlyn Oppenheim in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Betty (née Goldberg, 1913-1998) and Edward Oppenheim, a prosperous restaurant owner. As a young girl, St. John was a member of the Children's Ballet Company with Natalie Wood and Stefanie Powers. She attended Powers Professional School and received her high school diploma from Hollywood Professional School in the spring of 1955 at age 14. At 15, St. John enrolled at UCLA's Extension School.

A stage mother, Betty Oppenheim changed Jill's last name to the more Hollywood-sounding St. John during her childhood. St. John began acting on radio at age six, and in December 1949, at age nine, she made her screen debut in the first full-length made-for-TV movie, a production of A Christmas Carol. At age eleven, she appeared in two episodes of The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show. In 1957, at age 16, Universal Pictures signed St. John to a contract. Her major studio film debut was in Summer Love (1958) starring John Saxon. She went on to appear in The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker (1959), Holiday for Lovers (1959), The Lost World (1960), The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961), Tender Is the Night (1962), Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963) and Honeymoon Hotel (1964).

St. John received a Golden Globe Award nomination as Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her performance in the 1963 film Come Blow Your Horn, where she starred opposite Frank Sinatra. She would later co-star with Sinatra in the 1967 detective drama Tony Rome. Other films from this period in her career included Who's Minding the Store? with Jerry Lewis, The Liquidator (1965) with Rod Taylor, and The Oscar (1966) with Stephen Boyd.

St. John's most famous role was as Tiffany Case, the Bond girl in the 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, where she starred opposite Sean Connery. The following year, she starred in the crime thriller Sitting Target (1972) with Oliver Reed. During 1983-1984, she starred with Dennis Weaver on the short-lived CBS soap opera, Emerald Point N.A.S., in which she played "Deanna Kinkaid," "Thomas Mallory's" conniving former sister-in-law. Her other television credits include guest roles on Magnum, P.I., The Love Boat, Hart to Hart, Burke's Law, The Big Valley, Vega$, and Fantasy Island.

St. John has worked on five movies with her husband Robert Wagner: Banning (1967); How I Spent My Summer Vacation (1967); Around the World in 80 Days (1989); Something to Believe In (1998); and The Calling (2002). They made brief cameo apperances as themselves in Robert Altman's 1992 Hollywood satire The Player. In 1997, the couple appeared together at the end of "The Yada Yada" episode of the popular television sitcom Seinfeld.

St. John has not acted since 2002.

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Rose Joan Blondell, 1906-08-30 ~ 1979-12-25, was an American actress who performed in movies and on television for five decades as Joan Blondell. After winning a beauty pageant, Blondell embarked upon a film career. Establishing herself as a sexy wisecracking blonde, she was a pre-Code staple of Warner Brothers and appeared in more than 100 movies and television productions. She was most active in films during the 1930s, and during this time she co-starred with Glenda Farrell in nine films, in which the duo portrayed gold-diggers. Blondell continued acting for the rest of her life, often in small character roles or supporting television roles. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Blue Veil (1951). Blondell was seen in featured roles in two films released shortly before her death from leukaemia, Grease (1978) and the remake of The Champ (1979). More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Blondell

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Joan Caulfield, 1922-06-01 ~ 1991-06-18, was an American actress and former fashion model. After being discovered by Broadway producers, she began a stage career in 1943 that eventually led to signing as an actress with Paramount Pictures. Born while her family resided in East Orange, New Jersey, she moved to West Orange during childhood but continued attending Miss Beard's School in Orange, New Jersey. During her teenage years, the family moved to New York City where Joan eventually attended Columbia University.

One of her most memorable roles was when she was lent out to Warner Bros. to appear in The Unsuspected (1947) alongside Claude Rains and Audrey Totter. Later in life she appeared mostly on television, appearing on programs such as Cheyenne, Baretta, and Murder, She Wrote, with Angela Lansbury. In the 1957~1958 season, Caulfield starred in her own short-lived NBC situation comedy, Sally in the role of a traveling companion to an elderly widow, played by Marion Lorne. At midseason, Gale Gordon and Arte Johnson joined the cast.

In 1967 she starred in the western T.V. series The High Chaparral as Annalee Cannon on the pilot episode of the series. She was murdered in the series and that was the premise for the whole plot.

In 1950, she married the film producer Frank Ross, with whom she had a son, Caulfield Kevin Ross. She and Ross were divorced in 1960. She later married Robert Peterson, a dentist, with whom she had her second son, John Caulfield Peterson. Her second marriage ended in divorce as well. She died, aged 69, from cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and had lived in Beverly Hills, California.

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Joan Henrietta Collins, OBE, born 1933-05-23, is a British actress, author and columnist. Born in Paddington and brought up in Maida Vale, Collins grew up during the Second World War. After making her stage debut in A Doll's House at the age of 9, she was trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. After eighteen months at the drama school, she was signed to an exclusive contract by the Rank Organisation and appeared in various British films.

At the age of 22, Collins headed to Hollywood and landed sultry roles in several popular films, including The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955) and Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys! (1958). While she continued to make films in the US and the UK throughout the 1960s, her career languished in the 1970s, where she appeared in a number of horror flicks. Near the end of the decade, she starred in two films based on best-selling novels by her younger sister Jackie Collins: The Stud (1978) and its sequel The Bitch (1979). Returning to her theatrical roots, she played the title role in the 1980 British revival of The Last of Mrs. Cheyney and later had a lead role in the 1990 revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives. In 1981, Collins landed Alexis Carrington Colby, the role for which she is perhaps best known, in the long-running 1980s television soap opera Dynasty.

By the time the soap opera had been cancelled, Collins followed in her sister's footsteps and published her first novel Prime Time (1988) which became a bestseller despite critical pans. Despite a protracted legal battle with Random House in 1996, she has since published many books: both fictional, non-fictional and autobiographical. Flamboyant in her personal life and in roles she pursues, Collins continues to act in theatre, film and television in a career that has spanned more than 60 years.

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Joan Agnes Theresa Sadie Brodel, born 1925-01-26 in Detroit, Michigan, known professionally as Joan Leslie, is a retired American film and television actress. She began performing as a singer at the age of nine as part of a vaudeville act with her two sisters; Betty and Mae Brodel. She later began her Hollywood acting career while still a child, performing under her real name in several movies, beginning with her debut in the MGM movie Camille (1936) with Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor.

The young actress soon signed a contract with Warner Brothers. In 1941, Leslie got her first major role in the thriller High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart, playing a crippled girl under her new billing as "Joan Leslie". She also starred in Sergeant York and The Wagons Roll at Night in that same year. Later in 1942 she appeared as James Cagney's wife in Yankee Doodle Dandy, and at the age of 18 in 1943, she starred in The Sky's the Limit with Fred Astaire. In 1946 exhibitors voted her the most promising "star of tomorrow".

She starred in many more movies until 1950, when she married Dr. William Caldwell. Her last movie role was in The Revolt of Mamie Stover in 1956, and she eventually retired from acting altogether to look after her identical twin daughters Patrice and Ellen. She has appeared in several television commercials since then, and also made guest appearances in the TV shows Murder, She Wrote and Charlie's Angels. She also provided commentary as extras on the Yankee Doodle Dandy, Sergeant York, and High Sierra DVDs.

Joan was a regular volunteer at the Hollywood Canteen where she danced with the servicemen and granted hundreds of autographs. In 1944, she starred with Robert Hutton in the Warner Bros. film, Hollywood Canteen. Joan Leslie has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street.

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Joanne Dru, 1922-01-31 ~ 1996-09-10, was an American film and television actress, known for such films as Red River and All the King's Men. Born as Joan Letitia LaCock in Logan, West Virginia, Dru came to New York City in 1940 at the age of eighteen. After finding employment as a model, she was chosen by Al Jolson to appear in the cast of his Broadway show Hold Onto Your Hats. When she moved to Hollywood, she found work in the theater. Dru was spotted by a talent scout and made her first film appearance in Abie's Irish Rose (1946). Over the next decade, Dru appeared frequently in films and on television. She was cast often in western films such as Howard Hawks's Red River (1948), and John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Wagon Master (1950).

She gave a well-received performance in the dramatic film All the King's Men (1949) and co-starred with Dan Dailey in The Pride of St. Louis (1952) about major-league baseball pitcher Jerome "Dizzy" Dean. She appeared in the James Stewart drama Thunder Bay in 1953 and then a Martin and Lewis comedy 3 Ring Circus (1954). Her film career petered out by the end of the 1950s, but she continued working frequently in television, most notably as "Babs Wooten" on the 1960-61 sitcom, Guestward, Ho!

After Guestward, Ho!, she appeared sporadically for the rest of the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s, with one feature film appearance, in Sylvia (1965), and eight television appearances. Dru was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to the television industry.

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Joi Lansing, 1928-04-06 ~ 1972-08-07, was an American model, film and television actress, as well as a nightclub singer. She was noted for her pin-up photos and minor roles in B-movies. Lansing was born Joy Brown in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1928 to Jack Glenn Brown, a shoe salesman, and Virginia Grace (née Shupe) Brown, a housewife. She would later be known as Joyce Wassmansdorff, which was the surname of her stepfather. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1940. She began modeling in her teens, and at age 14 was signed to a contract at MGM. She completed high school on the studio lot. A model and actress, Lansing often was cast in roles similar to those played by her contemporaries, Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren. She frequently was clad in skimpy costumes and bikinis that accentuated her attractive figure, but she never posed nude. Lansing practiced yoga for relaxation, and as a devout Mormon, she did not drink or smoke.

Lansing's film career began in 1948, and in 1952 she played an uncredited role in MGM's Singin' in the Rain. She received top billing in Hot Cars (1956). In the opening sequence of Orson Welles's Touch of Evil (1958), she appeared as Zita, the dancer who dies at the end of the famous first tracking shot, during which her character exclaims to a border guard, "I keep hearing this ticking noise inside my head!" Lansing had a brief role as an astronaut's girlfriend in the 1958 sci-fi classic Queen of Outer Space. During the 1960s, she starred in short musical films for the Scopitone video-jukebox system. Her songs included "The Web of Love" and "The Silencers".

In 1964 producer Stanley Todd discussed a film project with Lansing, tentatively titled Project 22, with location shooting planned in Yugoslavia, and George Hamilton and Geraldine Chaplin named to the cast. The movie was never made. Lansing played "Lola" in Marriage on the Rocks (1965) with a cast that included Frank Sinatra, Deborah Kerr, and Dean Martin. She previously had appeared in Sinatra's film A Hole in the Head and in Martin's comedy Who Was That Lady?. She turned down the chance to replace Jayne Mansfield in The Ice House (a horror film), and instead appeared in Hillbillys in a Haunted House, as Mamie Van Doren's replacement. Her last film was Bigfoot (1970).

Lansing appeared in The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, It's a Great Life, I Love Lucy, Where's Raymond?, Noah's Ark, State Trooper, The People's Choice, Richard Diamond, Private Detective, Sugarfoot, Bat Masterson, This Man Dawson, Maverick, Petticoat Junction, The Mothers-in-Law, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and had a recurring role in The Beverly Hillbillies.

In 1957 she played Vera Payson in the Perry Mason episode, "The Case of the Crimson Kiss." She is best known perhaps as Shirley Swanson in The Bob Cummings Show or Love That Bob (1956~1959). She appeared in several episodes as a busty model who was the foil for photographer Bob Collins, Cummings' series name. The series ran for 173 episodes. She also appeared as the title character in Superman's Wife, a 1958 episode of The Adventures of Superman.

What was possibly Lansing's best role may ironically have been her least-seen—as the leading lady in The Fountain of Youth, a Peabody Award-winning unsold television pilot directed by Orson Welles for Desilu in 1956 and broadcast once for the Colgate Theatre two years later. The half-hour film remains available for public viewing at the Paley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles.

In the 1960–1961 season of the NBC Western Klondike, Lansing appeared as Goldie with Ralph Taeger, James Coburn, and Mari Blanchard. In May 1963, Lansing appeared in Falcon Frolics '63. The broadcast honored the men stationed at the Vandenberg Air Force Base. By 1956, she had appeared in more than 200 television shows. She appeared in five episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies in the role of "Gladys Flatt," the unlikely glamorous wife of bluegrass musician Lester Flatt.

In 1972 Joi Lansing died from breast cancer at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California where she had initially been treated surgically for the disease earlier the same year.

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Julie Frances Christie, born 1941-04-14, is a British actress. A pop icon of the "swinging London" era of the 1960s, she has won the Academy, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild Awards. Christie's first big-screen roles were in Crooks Anonymous and The Fast Lady (both 1962), and her breakthrough was in 1963's Billy Liar. In 1965, she won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Diana Scott in Darling. That same year, she starred as Lara Antipova in Doctor Zhivago, the eighth highest grossing film of all time after adjustment for inflation.[1] In the following years, she starred in Fahrenheit 451 (1966), Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Petulia (1968), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), and Heaven Can Wait (1978).

Christie's acting work became low-key in the 1980s. Her late career includes Oscar-nominated performances in the independent films Afterglow (1997) and Away from Her (2006).

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Julie Newmar, born 1933-08-16, is an American actress, dancer and singer. Her most famous role is Catwoman in the Batman television series. She was born in Los Angeles as Julia Chalene Newmeyer, the eldest of three children born to Don and Helen (née Jesmer) Newmeyer. Her father was head of the Physical Education Department at Los Angeles City College and had played American football professionally in the 1920s with the Los Angeles Buccaneers of the first American Football League. Her brother is John Newmeyer, Harvard Ph.D, a San Francisco-based epidemiologist, author, and Napa Valley winemaker.

Newmar was a "dancer-assassin" in Slaves of Babylon (1953) and the "gilded girl" in Serpent of the Nile (1953), in which she was clad in gold paint. She danced in several other films, including The Band Wagon and Demetrius and the Gladiators, and was a ballerina with the Los Angeles Opera. She also worked as a choreographer and dancer for Universal Studios.

Here at waist.it we admire her for the stunning pin-up images that she posed for. These have influenced and inspired quite a few of our images. More information:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Newmar

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June Haver, 1926-06-10 ~ 2005-07-04, was an American film actress. She is best remembered as a popular alternative to the musical film stars Betty Grable and Alice Faye in several musicals in the 1940s. Haver's second husband was the actor Fred MacMurray, whom she married after she retired from show business. Born June Stovenour, Haver was born in Rock Island, Illinois. She later took the last name of her stepfather Bert Haver. After the family moved to Ohio, seven-year-old Haver entered and won a contest of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. At age 10, she moved back to Rock Island, where she began performing for Rudy Vallee. Her mother being an actress and her father being a musician, Haver often doubted who she - careerwise - wanted to follow. At age eight, she won a film test by imitating famous actresses including Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn and Helen Hayes. Haver's mother, however, prohibited her daughter from becoming a child actress in the film industry, feeling she was too young.

Working regularly as a band singer by her teens, she performed with the Ted Fio Rito Orchestra for $75 a week. Other bandleaders she worked for were Dick Jurgens and Freddy Martin. Furthermore, she became a well-known child star on the radio. In the summer of 1942, Haver moved to Hollywood, where she finished high school. She acted in plays in her spare time and during a performance as a southern belle, she was discovered by a scout from 20th Century Fox. In 1943, Haver signed a $3,500 a week contract with the studio and made her film debut playing an uncredited role in The Gang's All Here. She was dropped shortly after, because the studio executives felt that she looked too young, but was later re-signed, after her costume and hairstyle were changed.

20th Century Fox had plans to mold Haver as a glamour girl stand-in for the studio's two biggest stars, Betty Grable and Alice Faye. She debuted on screen in a supporting role as Cri-Cri in Home in Indiana (1944). According to the actress, she had just turned seventeen years old when her scenes were filmed. Even before Home in Indiana was released, she was assigned to replace Alice Faye in the Technicolor-musical, Irish Eyes Are Smiling. Later that year she co-starred with future husband, Fred MacMurray, in Where Do We Go From Here?, which was the only time the pair appeared together in a film.

During her career at Fox, Haver was originally groomed to be the next Betty Grable (she was known as "Pocket Grable"). She even co-starred with Grable in the 1945 film, The Dolly Sisters, a film for which she had to put on weight. While filming, there were a lot of rumors about a possible clash between the two actresses, mostly because of their frequent comparison, but Haver refuted this with: "Betty is a big star and I'm just starting. I try to be nice to her, and she reciprocated by being just as nice to me. It's silly to think two girls can't work together without quarreling. You see, I've two sisters. I'm the ham between the bread and butter — the middle sister — and I understand girls pretty well. Betty likes to talk about her baby, so we talk about her baby."

In 1946, she starred and received first-billing in Wake Up and Dream and Three Little Girls in Blue; both of which were well received and brought moderate success. The following year, the role of Katie was written into the film I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now just for Haver. Possibly best known for her roles in optimistic musicals, Haver's comedy star-turn in 1948's Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! was a major success. The same year, she starred as Marilyn Miller in the musical Look for the Silver Lining (1949). To resemble the actress as much as possible, Haver had to drive to the studio an hour earlier for make-up.

The following year, she would star in The Daughter of Rosie O'Grady and I'll Get By. In 1951, Haver was teamed with Fox's newest asset, Marilyn Monroe, and previous co-star William Lundigan (her co-star from I'll Get By), in the low-budget comedy, Love Nest. Even though Haver was the lead and received top-billing, most of the film's publicity centered around Monroe who had a minor role and garnered under-the-title billing. Love Nest was June Haver's only full-length film in black and white. Her other 15 releases between 1943 and 1953 were shot in three-strip Technicolor, something of a record for a Hollywood Golden Age actress.

Following her marriage to Fred MacMurray, Haver remained largely retired from acting (her last appearances were as herself on The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour in 1958 and Disneyland '59); she later found some success as an interior decorator. June Haver's final film appearance would be in 1953's The Girl Next Door. Haver and MacMurray would adopt two daughters and remained together until MacMurray's death in 1991.

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Katy Perry, was born 1984-10-24, Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson. She is American singer, songwriter and actress. Perry grew up with gospel music, and during her first year of high school she pursued a music career as Katy Hudson, releasing her first studio album called Katy Hudson which failed to chart. She recorded a solo album later, which was never released. After signing with Capitol Music Group in 2007, her fourth record label in seven years, she adopted the stage name Katy Perry.

Perry is known for her unconventional style of dress. It is often humorous, bright in colour, and reminiscent of earlier decades. Perry's transformation into an artist began with fashion, inspired by American film actress Dominique Swain's portrayal in the 1997 film Lolita. She describes her fashion style as "a bit of a concoction of different things". As far as we are concerned here at waist.it, Katy Perry is something of a modern marvel, photographically speaking. She captures that retro feel with a bit of the "girl next door" thrown in.

Like many "retro" style models, Perry is keen on figure control. She famously once said: "I'm really critical of my posture. It makes a big difference and I try to suck my belly in. Everyone should do that whether you are on a red carpet or not."

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Kim Novak, born 1933-02-13, is an American actress. She began her career in 1954 at age 21, and came to prominence almost immediately with a leading role in the film Picnic (1955). Other films from this early time in her career include Pal Joey (1957), the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo (1958), Middle of the Night (1959), The Notorious Landlady (1962), and Of Human Bondage (1964). After a promising start, however, Novak withdrew from the public eye in 1965 and appeared in films only sporadically until 1991, when she prematurely retired from the industry following a tempestuous experience with director Mike Figgis on the set of Liebestraum, her last film to date.

Novak has been married to equine veterinarian Robert Malloy since 1976. The couple resides on a ranch in Eagle Point, Oregon where they raise horses and llamas. Novak is also an accomplished artist, and has exhibited several of her oil paintings in art galleries since retiring from acting

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Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE, born 1968-05-28, often known mononymously as Kylie, is an Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter and actress. After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role as Charlene, in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing her career as a recording artist in 1987.

Minogue has sold more than 68 million ecords worldwide, and has received notable music awards, including multiple ARIA and Brit Awards and a Grammy Award. She has mounted several successful and critically acclaimed concert world tours and received a Mo Award for "Australian Entertainer of the Year" for her live performances. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2008 "for services to music". In the same year she was appointed by the French Government as a Chevalier (knight) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the junior grade of France's highest cultural honour, for her contribution to the enrichment of French culture. In 2011 her hit single "I Should Be So Lucky" was added to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia's Sounds of Australia registry. The same year, Minogue was awarded an honorary Doctor of Health Science (D.H.Sc.) degree by Anglia Ruskin University in the United Kingdom of for her work in raising awareness for breast cancer. In November 2011, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ARIA Music Awards, Minogue was inducted by the Australian Recording Industry Association into the ARIA Hall of Fame.

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Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, born 1986-03-28, known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, activist, businesswoman, fashion designer and actress. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to focus on her musical career. She soon began performing in the rock music scene of Manhattan's Lower East Side. By the end of 2007, record executive and producer Vincent Herbert signed her to his label Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records. Initially working as a songwriter at Interscope Records, her vocal abilities captured the attention of recording artist Akon, who also signed her to Kon Live Distribution, his own label under Interscope.

However, it is her amazing costumes, particularly the ones featuring girdles and corsets worn as outerwear, that particularly appeal to us here at waist.it.

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Lee Ann Meriwether, born 1935-05-27, is an American actress, former model, and the winner of the 1955 Miss America pageant. She is perhaps best known for her role as Betty Jones, Buddy Ebsen's secretary and daughter-in-law in the long-running 1970s crime drama, Barnaby Jones. The role earned her two Golden Globe Award nominations in 1975 and 1976, and an Emmy Award nomination in 1977. She is also known for her role as John Schuck's long-haired wife, Lily Munster, in the 1980s sitcom The Munsters Today, as well as for her portrayal of Catwoman in the 1966 film version of Batman. Meriwether had a recurring role as Ruth Martin on the daytime soap opera All My Children until the end of the series in September 2011. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Ann_Meriwether

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Leslie Claire Margaret Caron, born 1 July 1931-07-01, is a French film actress and dancer who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series. Her autobiography Thank Heaven, was published in 2010 in the UK and US, and in 2011 in a French version.

Caron is best known for the musical films An American in Paris (1951), Lili (1953), Daddy Long Legs (1955), Gigi (1958), and for the non-musical films Fanny (1961), The L-Shaped Room (1962), and Father Goose (1964). She received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. She speaks French, English, and Italian. She is one of the few dancers or actresses who have danced with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev.

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Linda Christian, 1923-11-13 ~ 2011-07-22, was a Mexican-born, United States-based film actress, who appeared in Mexican and Hollywood films. Her career reached its peak in the 1940s and 1950s. She played Mara in the last Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan film, Tarzan and The Mermaids (1948). She is also noted for being the first Bond girl, appearing in a 1954 television adaptation of the James Bond novel Casino Royale. In 1963 she starred in an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, "An Out for Oscar". More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Christian

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Lola Jean Albright, born 1925-07-20, Akron, Ohio, is an American singer and actress. Albright worked as a model before moving to Hollywood. She began her motion picture career with a bit part in the 1947 film The Unfinished Dance, and followed it (after several unbilled parts) with an important role in the acclaimed 1949 hit Champion. For the next several years, she appeared in secondary roles in over twenty films, including several 'B' Westerns. Albright also acted in guest roles in several television series, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The People's Choice, My Three Sons, The Beverly Hillbillies, Bonanza, Medical Center, McMillan & Wife, Columbo. The Incredible Hulk, The Dick Van Dyke Show (in which she played the petulant and manipulative actress, "Paula Marshall") and Quincy, M.E.

In 1958, she won the role of Edie Hart on Peter Gunn, a television detective series produced by Blake Edwards and with the theme music that made Henry Mancini famous. Albright played a nightclub singer who was the romantic interest of Peter Gunn, played by Craig Stevens. In 1959 she was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Continuing Character) in a Dramatic Series. Her role required singing and led to the 1957 release of her music album Lola Wants You, as well as her album 1959 Dreamsville, in which her songs were accompanied by Henry Mancini and his orchestra.

Albright's popularity led to several major film roles, including Elvis Presley's 1962 film, Kid Galahad; the 1964 French film Les Felins by director René Clément; and the epic western The Way West. In 1964, she appeared as Duff Daniels in the episode "Sticks and Stones Can Break My Bones" with her former Peter Gunn co-star Craig Stevens in his short-lived CBS drama Mr. Broadway. In 1966, she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award at the 16th Berlin International Film Festival for her role in Lord Love a Duck.

Albright temporarily replaced Dorothy Malone as Constance Mackenzie on the hit primetime soap opera Peyton Place, when Malone had to undergo emergency surgery. Albright continued to perform both in films and as a television guest actor until her retirement in the mid 1980s.

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Loretta Young, 1913-01-06 ~ 2000-08-12, was an American actress. Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953. She won the 1948 best actress Academy Award for her role in the 1947 film The Farmer's Daughter, and received an Oscar nomination for her role in Come to the Stable, in 1949. Young moved to the relatively new medium of television, where she had a dramatic anthology series, The Loretta Young Show, from 1953 to 1961. The series earned three Emmy Awards, and reran successfully on daytime TV and later in syndication. In the 1980's Young returned to the small screen and won a Golden Globe in Christmas Eve in 1989. Young, a devout Roman Catholic, worked with various Catholic charities after her acting career. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loretta_Young

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Lynda Jean Carter (born 1951-07-24) is an American actress and singer, best known for being Miss World USA 1972 and as the star of the 1970s television series The New Original Wonder Woman (1975–77) and The New Adventures of Wonder Woman (1977–79).

It is her amazing waist-shaping outfit that really inspires us here at waist.it - though so far, we have never got round to doing a Wonder Woman shoot yet.

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Mary Ellen "Mala" Powers, 1931-12-20 ~ 2007-06-11, was an American film actress. She was born in San Francisco, California. In 1940, her family moved to Los Angeles. Her father was an executive with United Press. In the summer of her relocation, Powers attended the Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop where she enjoyed her first role in a play before a live audience. She continued with her drama lessons, and a year later she auditioned and won a part in the 1942 Dead End Kids film Tough as They Come.

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Mamie Van Doren, born Joan Lucille Olander, 1931-02-06, is an American actress, model, singer and sex symbol that is known for being one of the first actresses to imitate or "clone" the look of Marilyn Monroe. Van Doren is perhaps best remembered for bringing the rock 'n' roll-style of music alive in the B-musical Untamed Youth (1957), and for many other films of this exotic nature. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamie_van_Doren

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Mara Corday, born Marilyn Joan Watts, 1930-03-03 is a showgirl, model, actress, Playboy Playmate and a 1950s cult figure. Corday was born in Santa Monica, California. Wanting a career in films, she came to Hollywood while still in her teens and found work as a showgirl at the Earl Carroll Theatre on Sunset Boulevard. Her physical beauty brought jobs as a photographer's model that led to a bit part as a showgirl in the 1951 film Two Tickets to Broadway. She signed on as a Universal International Pictures (UI) contract player where she met actor Clint Eastwood with whom she would remain lifelong friends. With UI, Corday was given small roles in various B-movies and television series. In 1954 on the set of Playgirl she met actor Richard Long. Following the death of Long's wife, the two began dating and married in 1957.

Her roles were small until 1955 when she was cast opposite John Agar in Tarantula, a Sci-Fi B-movie that proved a modest success (with Eastwood in an un-credited role). She had another successful co-starring role in that genre (The Black Scorpion) as well as in a number of Western films. Respected film critic Leonard Maltin said that Mara Corday had "more acting ability than she was permitted to exhibit."

Mara Corday appeared as a pinup girl in numerous men's magazines during the 1950s and was the Playmate of the October 1958 issue of Playboy, together with famous model and showgirl Pat Sheehan. In 1956, she had a recurring role in the ABC television series Combat Sergeant. From 1959 to early 1961, Corday worked exclusively doing guest spots on various television series. She then gave up her career to devote her time to raising a family. During her seventeen-year marriage to Richard Long she had three children (Valerie, Carey and Gregory).

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Marge Champion, born 1919-09-02, is an American dancer, choreographer, and actress. Champion was born Marjorie Celeste Belcher in Los Angeles, California, to Hollywood dance director Ernest Belcher and Gladys Lee Baskette. She began dancing at an early age and became a ballet instructor at her father's studio at twelve. She was hired by Walt Disney Studios as a dance model for their animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Her movements were copied to enhance the realism of Snow White's movements. She later modelled for the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio and the Dancing Hippo in Fantasia. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marge_Champion

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Marguerite Chapman, 1918-03-09 ~ 1999-08-31, was an American actress and model. Born in Chatham, New York, she was working as a telephone switchboard operator in White Plains, New York when her good looks brought about the opportunity to pursue a career in modelling. Signed by the prestigious John Robert Powers Agency in New York City, the publicity she earned modelling brought an offer from 20th Century Fox film studios in Hollywood.

She made her film debut in 1940, working for the next two years in small roles. In 1942, her big break came with Republic Pictures when she was cast in the leading female role in the twelve-part adventure film serial Spy Smasher, a production that is considered by many as one of the best serials ever made. As a result, Chapman soon began receiving offers for more leading roles and appeared opposite important stars such as Edward G. Robinson and George Sanders. With America's entry in World War II, she entertained the troops, worked for the War bond drive and at the Hollywood Canteen.

During the 1950s Chapman continued to perform mostly in secondary film roles, notably in Marilyn Monroe's 1955 hit The Seven Year Itch. However, with the advent of television she kept busy into the early 1960s with guest appearances in a number different shows including Rawhide, Perry Mason, and Four Star Playhouse.

Chapman was reportedly initially selected to play the role of "Old Rose" Dawson-Calvert in the 1997 James Cameron epic Titanic but poor health prevented her from accepting the offer. Marguerite Chapman has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6290 Hollywood Blvd, for her contribution to the motion picture industry.

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Mari Blanchard, 1927-04-13 ~ 1970-05-10, was an American actress, known for her roles as a B movie femme fatale in American films of the 1950s and early 1960s. In the late 1940s, Blanchard was a successful print model and film extra. Blanchard began appearing in films after she was seen by a producer in an advertisement for bubble bath in 1950.

Blanchard soon found success as an actress. From 1951 to 1952, she took small roles in a number of films at MGM, RKO, and Paramount, until she was signed by Universal-International in 1952. Her first film at the studio was Back at the Front (1952). One of her most memorable roles was the Venusian queen, Allura, in the 1953 comedy Abbott and Costello Go to Mars. She starred in Destry (1954), a western with Audie Murphy. In 1955, she starred in "Escape From Fear", an episode of the television series Climax! Her hottest and most glamorous film was The She Devil in 1957.

In the 1960–1961 television season, Blanchard starred as Kathy O'Hara in the NBC Western series Klondike with Ralph Taeger, James Coburn, and Joi Lansing. She also appeared as Margarita Colinas with Cesar Romero in the Rawhide episode "Incident of the Stalking Death". In 1963 she had a small but flamboyant role in the John Wayne film, McLintock!

After abandoning her film career upon the release of her final film, McLintock! in 1963, Blanchard retired, acting in just a few TV programs afterward. She was diagnosed with cancer in the 1960s. Following a long struggle she died at the age of 43.

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Marie McDonald, 1923-07-06 ~ 1965-10-21 was an American singer and actress known as "The Body Beautiful" and later nicknamed "The Body". Born Cora Marie Frye in Burgin, Kentucky, she was the daughter of a Ziegfeld Follies girl. After her parents divorced, she eventually moved with her mother and stepfather to Yonkers, New York. At the age of 15, McDonald began modeling and competed in many beauty pageants. At 17, she landed a showgirl role in a 1940 Broadway production at the Earl Carroll Theatre called Earl Carroll's Vanities. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Hollywood hoping to develop a career in show business. She continued to work for the owner of the Broadway theatre as a showgirl at his Sunset Boulevard nightclub. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_McDonald

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Katherine Elisabeth White, 1916-08-19 ~ 1972-11-23, better known by her stage name, Marie Wilson, was an American radio, film, and television actress. She may be best remembered as the title character in My Friend Irma. Born in Anaheim, California, Wilson began her career in New York City as a dancer on the Broadway stage. She gained national prominence with My Friend Irma on radio, television and film. The show made her a star but typecast her almost interminably as the quintessential dumb blonde, which she played in numerous comedies and in Ken Murray's famous Hollywood "Blackouts". During World War II, she was a volunteer performer at the Hollywood Canteen. She was also a popular wartime pin-up.

Wilson's performance in Satan Met a Lady, the second film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's detective novel The Maltese Falcon, is a virtual template for Marilyn Monroe's later onscreen persona. Wilson appeared in more than 40 films and was a guest on The Ed Sullivan Show on four occasions. She was a television performer during the 1960s, working until her untimely death.

Wilson's talents have been recognized with three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame: for radio at 6301 Hollywood Boulevard, for television at 6765 Hollywood Boulevard and for movies at 6601 Hollywood Boulevard.

She died of cancer in 1972 at age 56 and was interred in the Columbarium of Remembrance at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Hollywood Hills.

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Marilyn Maxwell, 1921-08-03 ~ 1972-03-20, born Marvel Marilyn Maxwell, was an American actress and entertainer. Noted for her blonde hair and sexually alluring persona, she appeared in several films and radio programs, and entertained the troops during World War II and the Korean War on USO tours with Bob Hope. She started her professional entertaining career as a radio singer while still a teenager before signing with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1942 as a contract player. Among the programs in which she appeared was The Abbott and Costello Show.

The head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer, insisted she change the "Marvel" part of her real name. She dropped her first name and kept the middle. Some of her film roles included Lost in a Harem (1944), Champion (1949), The Lemon Drop Kid (1951) and Rock-A-Bye Baby (1958). The song "Silver Bells" made its debut in The Lemon Drop Kid, sung by Maxwell and Hope.

Maxwell appeared twice as a singer in the second season (1955–1956) of NBC's The Jimmy Durante Show. On May 16, 1957, she guest starred on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. In the 1961-1962 television season, Maxwell played Grace Sherwood, owner of the diner on ABC's 26-episode Bus Stop, a drama about travelers passing through the fictitious town of Sunrise, Colorado.

According to Arthur Marx's Bob Hope biography The Secret Life of Bob Hope, Hope's long-term affair with Maxwell was so open that the Hollywood community routinely referred to her as "Mrs. Bob Hope." In 1972, Maxwell's 15-year-old son arrived home from school and found her dead at the age of fifty of an apparent heart attack, after she had been treated for hypertension and pulmonary disease. Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Jack Benny were honorary pallbearers at her funeral.

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Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jeane Mortenson, 1926-06-01 ~ 1962-08-05 was an American actress, model, and singer, who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s and early 1960s.

After spending much of her childhood in foster homes, Monroe began a career as a model, which led to a film contract in 1946 with Twentieth Century-Fox. Her early film appearances were minor, but her performances in The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve (both 1950), drew attention. By 1952 she had her first leading role in Don't Bother to Knock and 1953 brought a lead in Niagara, a melodramatic film noir that dwelt on her seductiveness. Her "dumb blonde" persona was used to comic effect in subsequent films such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and The Seven Year Itch (1955).

Limited by typecasting, Monroe studied at the Actors Studio to broaden her range. Her dramatic performance in Bus Stop (1956) was hailed by critics and garnered a Golden Globe nomination. Her production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, released The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), for which she received a BAFTA Award nomination and won a David di Donatello award. She received a Golden Globe Award for her performance in Some Like It Hot (1959). Monroe's last completed film was The Misfits (1961), co-starring Clark Gable with screenplay by her then-husband, Arthur Miller.

The final years of Monroe's life were marked by illness, personal problems, and a reputation for unreliability and being difficult to work with. The circumstances of her death, from an overdose of barbiturates, have been the subject of conjecture. Though officially classified as a "probable suicide", the possibility of an accidental overdose, as well as of homicide, have not been ruled out. In 1999, Monroe was ranked as the sixth-greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. In the decades following her death, she has often been cited as both a pop and a cultural icon as well as the quintessential American sex symbol. In 2009, TV Guide Network named her No. 1 in Film's Sexiest Women of All Time.

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Martha Hyer, born 1924-08-10, is a retired American film actress. Born in Fort Worth, Texas, she attended Northwestern University where she was a member of Pi Beta Phi fraternity for women. After completing her education, her first film appearance was an uncredited part in The Locket (1946). She had roles in So Big (1953), Sabrina (1954), The Delicate Delinquent (1956) (Jerry Lewis' first film without Dean Martin), Houseboat (1958) and Once Upon a Horse, also in 1958 with Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. During these years she was considered (by some) the best replacement for Grace Kelly, who retired, after marrying Rainier III, Prince of Monaco.

In the 1960s, Hyer would play in films like The Best of Everything (1959), Ice Palace (1960), Desire in the Dust (1960), The Carpetbaggers (1964), First Men in the Moon (1964), Blood on the Arrow (1964) and The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Night of the Grizzly (1966), among many others. She co-starred with Keenan Wynn in Bikini Beach (1964), one of the Beach Party movies with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello.

On television, Hyer played the part of "Hannah Haley" in the episode "Incident West of Lano" on the Western series Rawhide. Her most significant role came as the love interest of Frank Sinatra in Some Came Running for director Vincente Minnelli in 1958, for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Hyer was one of the actresses considered for the Janet Leigh role of the doomed Marion Crane in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Psycho. Her last film was Day of the Wolves, in role of Maggie Anderson in 1971 and her last television appearance was as Peggy Hamilton in the McCloud episode "A Cowboy in Paradise" in 1974.

Hyer married producer Hal B. Wallis in 1966, and the couple remained together until his death in 1986. Her autobiography, Finding My Way: A Hollywood Memoir, was published in 1990.

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Martine Carol, 1920-05-16 ~ 1967-02-06 was a French film actress. Born Marie-Louise Jeanne Nicolle Mourer in Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne, France, she studied acting under René Simon (1898~1966), making her stage debut in 1940 and her first motion picture in 1943. One of the most beautiful women in film, she was frequently cast as an elegant blonde seductress. During the late 1940s and early 1950s she was the leading sex symbol and a top box office draw of French cinema, and was considered a French version of America's Marilyn Monroe. One of her most famous roles was as the title character in Lola Montès (1955), directed by Max Ophüls, in a role which necessitated dark hair. However, by the late-1950s, roles for Carol had become fewer, due to the introductory of newcomer Brigitte Bardot.

Despite her fame and fortune, Martine Carol's personal life was filled with turmoil that included a suicide attempt and drug abuse, and four marriages. She was also kidnapped by gangster Pierre Loutrel (aka Pierrot le Fou or Crazy Pete), albeit briefly and received roses the next day as an apology. She died unexpectedly of a heart attack in a Monte Carlo hotel room at the age of only forty-six.

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Mary Virginia Martin, 1913-12-01 ~ 1990-11-03 was an American actress, singer and Broadway star. A muse of Rodgers and Hammerstein she originated many leading roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989. She was also the mother of actor Larry Hagman.

She received the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual honor for career achievements, in 1989. She received the Donaldson Award and the New York Film Critics Circle Award in 1943 for One Touch of Venus. A special Tony was presented to her in 1948 for "spreading theatre to the rest of the country while the originals perform in New York." In 1955 and 1956, she received, first, a Tony Award for Peter Pan, and then an Emmy for appearing in the same role on television. She also received Tony Awards for South Pacific, and, in 1959, for The Sound of Music.

Mary Martin died a month before her 77th birthday from colorectal cancer at her home in Rancho Mirage, California on November 3, 1990. She is buried in City Greenwood Cemetery in Weatherford, Texas.

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Mitzi Gaynor, born 1931-09-04, is an American actress, singer and dancer. Gaynor was born as Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago to Pauline Fisher, a dancer, and Henry von Gerber, a violinist, cellist, and music director. Her family first moved to Detroit and when she was eleven to Hollywood. She trained as a ballerina as a child and began her career as a chorus dancer. At 13 she was singing and dancing with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera company. She lied about her address so she could attend Hollywood High School, and signed a seven-year contract with Twentieth Century-Fox at age 17. She sang, acted and danced in a number of film musicals, often paired with some of the biggest male musical stars of the day. A Fox Studio executive thought that Mitzi Gerber sounded like the name of a delicatessen and they came up with a name that used the same initials.

Notable films included There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), which featured Irving Berlin's music and also starred Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Marilyn Monroe, Donald O'Connor, and Johnnie Ray; and South Pacific, the 1958 motion picture adaptation of the stage musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

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Olga San Juan, 1927-03-16 ~ January 3, 2009-01-03, was an American actress, dancer and comedian, mainly active in films during the 1940s. She was born in Brooklyn, New York to Puerto Rican parents. When she was three years old, her family moved back to Puerto Rico, then moved back to the United States a few years later. She was dubbed the "Puerto Rican Pepperpot" for singing and dancing roles alongside Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire and others. In 1951, she starred on Broadway in the Lerner & Loewe musical, Paint Your Wagon.

She was married to actor Edmond O'Brien. They met at a publicity luncheon for Fox studios, and married in 1948. San Juan retired in the 1950s to raise her children. They had four children: television producer Bridget O'Brien and actors Brendan O'Brien, Maria O'Brien, and Bridget O'Brien, whose married to Barry Adelman, executive producer of the Golden Globe Awards. O'Brien and San Juan were married 28 years, until their divorce in 1976.

San Juan's health began to fail after a stroke in the 1970s, but lived to enjoy her family for decades to come. She died on January 3, 2009, of kidney failure stemming from a long-term illness, at age 81, at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, in Burbank, California. She was buried at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills, Los Angeles, California.

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Olivia Mary de Havilland, born 1916-07-01, is a British American actress known for her early ingenue roles, as well as her later more substantial roles. Born in Japan to British parents, de Havilland and her younger sister Joan Fontaine moved to California in 1919. She is best known for her performance in Gone with the Wind (1939), and her eight co-starring roles opposite Errol Flynn, including The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Dodge City (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), and They Died with Their Boots On (1941).

De Havilland won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949). De Havilland and sister Fontaine are the only siblings to have won lead acting Academy Awards. She also received the National Board of Review Award, the New York Film Critics Circle Award, the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon, and the Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup for her performance in The Snake Pit (1948). She was awarded the Golden Globe Award for her performance in The Heiress in 1950 and for Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna in 1987. In 1960, de Havilland was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work in motion pictures. In 2008, she was presented with the National Medal of Arts by President George W. Bush.

De Havilland was lifelong best friends with Bette Davis with whom she starred in Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), It\'s Love I\'m After (1937), and In This Our Life (1942). She remained a close friend of actress Gloria Stuart until Stuart\'s death in 2010, at the age of 100. In April 2008, she attended the Los Angeles funeral of Charlton Heston. In 2008, she was a surprise guest at the Centennial Tribute to Bette Davis.

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Paula Prentiss, born Paula Ragusa, 1938-04-03, is an American actress best-known for her film roles in Where the Boys Are, Man's Favorite Sport?, The Stepford Wives, What's New Pussycat?, The Black Marble, and The Parallax View. Prentiss was born in San Antonio, Texas, the daughter of Paulene (née Gardner) and Thomas J. Ragusa, a Social Sciences professor at San Antonio's University of the Incarnate Word, who was of Sicilian descent.

Before high school, Paula, who grew to 1.79 metres (5'10") tall, always was the tallest person in class. She attended Lamar High School in Houston, Texas. In 1958 while studying drama at Northwestern University, she met future husband, Richard Benjamin, who impressed her with his sophistication and height (he was taller than she was). While attending Northwestern she was discovered by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was offered a film contract.

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Pier Angeli, 19 June 1932-06-19 ~ 1971-09-10, was an Italian-born television and film actress. Her American cinematographic debut was in the starring role of the 1951 film Teresa, for which she won a Golden Globe Award. Twenty years later, she had been chosen to play a part in The Godfather, but died before filming began. She had romantic relationships with actors Kirk Douglas and James Dean before going on to marry Vic Damone.

At the age of 39, despondent and lonely, Angeli was found dead in her home at 355 S. McCarty Dr. in West Los Angeles, of an accidental barbiturate overdose. She is buried in the Cimetière des Bulvis, in Rueil-Malmaison, Hauts-de-Seine, France.

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Raquel Torres, born Paula Marie Osterman, 1908-11-11 ~ 1987-08-10, was a Mexican-born American film actress. Her sister was actress Renee Torres. A half-German half-Mexican woman born in Hermosillo, Mexico, she grew up in Hollywood. She played a Polynesian beauty in White Shadows in the South Seas (1928), a silent film shot in Tahiti which was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's first feature fully synchronized with music and effects. Torres is probably best remembered today for her appearance as Vera Marcal in the Marx Brothers film Duck Soup (1933).

Raquel Torres died from a heart attack on August 10, 1987 in Los Angeles, California. She was 78 years old.

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Jo Raquel Tejada born 1940-09-05, better known as Raquel Welch, is an American actress and sex symbol. Welch came to attention as a new star on the 20th Century Fox lot in the mid-1960s. She posed iconically in an animal skin bikini for the British-release One Million Years B.C. in 1966, for which she may be best known. She later starred with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Bedazzled in 1967.

However it is her tall shapely figure and superb pin-up photos the we particularly admire, here at waist.it.

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Rhonda Fleming, born Marilyn Louis in Hollywood, California, 1923-08-10, is an American film and television actress. She acted in more than forty films, mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, and became renowned as one of the most beautiful and glamorous actresses of her day. She was nicknamed the "Queen of Technicolor" because her fair complexion and flaming red hair photographed exceptionally well in Technicolor.

Fleming began working as a film actress while attending Beverly Hills High School, from which she was graduated in 1941. After appearing uncredited in a several films, she received her first substantial role in the thriller Spellbound (1945), produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. She followed this with supporting roles in another thriller, The Spiral Staircase (1946), directed by Robert Siodmak, the Randolph Scott western Abilene Town (1946), and the film noir classic Out of the Past (1947) with Robert Mitchum. Her first leading role came in Adventure Island (1947), a low-budget action film made in the two-color Cinecolor process and co-starring Rory Calhoun.

The actress then co-starred with Bing Crosby in her first Technicolor film, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949), a musical loosely based on the story by Mark Twain. Fleming exhibited her singing ability, dueting with Crosby on “Once and For Always” and soloing with “When Is Sometime.” She and Crosby recorded these songs for a 78 rpm Decca soundtrack album. She also sang on NBC's Colgate Comedy Hour during the same live telecast that featured Errol Flynn, on September 30, 1951, from the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood.

Following her film career, Fleming has worked for several charities, especially in the field of cancer care, and has served on the committees of many related organizations. In 1991, she and her late fifth husband, Ted Mann, established the Rhonda Fleming Mann Clinic For Women's Comprehensive Care at the UCLA Medical Center.

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Rita Hayworth, born Margarita Carmen Cansino, 1918-10-17 ~ 1987-05-14, was an American dancer and film actress who achieved fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars. Appearing first as Rita Cansino, she agreed to change her name to Rita Hayworth and her natural dark brown hair color to dark red to attract a greater range of roles. Her appeal led to her being featured on the cover of Life magazine five times, beginning in 1940.

Hayworth appeared in a total of 61 films over 37 years. She is one of six women who has the distinction of having danced on screen with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. She is listed by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 Greatest Stars of All Time.

Rita Hayworth lapsed into a semicoma in February 1987. She died at age 68 from Alzheimer's disease a few months later on May 14, 1987. A funeral service was held on May 19, 1987, at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Beverly Hills. Pallbearers included actors Ricardo Montalbán, Glenn Ford, Don Ameche, agent Budd Burton Moss, and the choreographer Hermes Pan. She was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City. Her headstone includes the inscription: "To yesterday's companionship and tomorrow's reunion."

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Rita Moreno, born 1931-12-11, is a Puerto Rican singer, dancer and actress. She is the only Hispanic and one of the few performers to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony, and was the second Puerto Rican to win an Academy Award.

Moreno was born Rosa Dolores Alverío in Humacao, Puerto Rico, to Rosa María, a seamstress, and Paco Alverío, a farmer. She moved with her mother to New York City at the age of five, and took the surname of her stepfather, Edward Moreno. She began her first dancing lessons soon after arriving in New York from a friend of her mother, a Spanish dancer called Paco Cansino, who was the uncle of Rita Hayworth. When she was 11 years old, she lent her voice to Spanish language versions of American films.

She had her first Broadway role — as "Angelina" in Skydrift — by the time she was 13, which caught the attention of Hollywood talent scouts. She appeared in small roles in The Toast of New Orleans and Singin' in the Rain, in which she played Zelda Zanners.

In March 1954, Moreno was featured on the cover of Life Magazine with a caption “Rita Moreno: An Actresses' Catalog of Sex and Innocence.” In 1956, she had a supporting role in the film version of The King and I as Tuptim, but disliked most of her other work during this period.

In 1961, Moreno landed the role of Anita in Robert Wise's and Jerome Robbins' film adaptation of Leonard Bernstein's and Stephen Sondheim's groundbreaking Broadway musical, West Side Story, which was played by Chita Rivera on Broadway. Moreno won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for that role. Moreno went on to be the first Hispanic to win an Emmy (1977), a Grammy (1972), an Oscar (1962) and a Tony (1975). In 1985, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago.

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Robyn Rihanna Fenty, born 1988-02-20, known mononymously as Rihanna, is a Barbadian recording artist and actress. Born in Saint Michael, Barbados, Rihanna moved to the United States at age 16 to pursue a recording career.

Her stunning stage costumes often mix striking retro and fetish themes. Interestingly, she cites Madonna as her idol and biggest influence. Consequently we have borrowed a few ideas from her.

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Senta Berger, born 1941-05-13, is an Austrian film, stage and television actress, producer and author. Regarded by critics as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, and frequently named as one of the leading German-speaking actresses in polls, Berger has received many award nominations for her acting in theatre, film and television; her awards include three Bambi Awards, two Romys, an Adolf Grimme Award, both a Deutscher and a Bayerischer Fernsehpreis, and a Goldene Kamera. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senta_Berger

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Shelley Winters, 1920-08-18 ~ 2006-01-14 was an American actress who appeared in dozens of films, as well as on stage and television; her career spanned over 50 years. Winters won Academy Awards for her acting in The Diary of Anne Frank and A Patch of Blue, and is also remembered for her roles in A Place in the Sun (Oscar-nominated for Best Actress), The Big Knife, Lolita, The Night of the Hunter, Alfie, and The Poseidon Adventure (Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actress).

Winters died at the aged 85, of heart failure at the Rehabilitation Centre of Beverly Hills. She had suffered a heart attack on October 14, 2005-10-14. Her third ex-husband Anthony Franciosa had a stroke on the day she died and, himself, died five days later.

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Dawn Shirley Crang Bethel (1932-01-17 ~ 2005-11-04), better known as Sheree North, was an American film and television actress, dancer and occasionally, a singer.

She is probably best-known for being Twentieth Century-Fox's girl-next-door alternative to Marilyn Monroe during the 1950s. She starred in films such as: How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955) and The Lieutenant Wore Skirts (1956), before the studio lost interest in her and released her in 1958. As her leading film career faltered, North went on to appear on Broadway, on television, and have supporting roles in both A-movies and B-movies.

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Shirley Eaton is an English actress, born 1937-01-12. She appeared regularly in British films and TV programmes throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and achieved notability for her performance as Bond Girl Jill Masterson in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. Preferring to devote herself to bringing up a family, Eaton retired from acting in 1969. More information:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Eaton

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Sophia Loren, is an Italian actress and former pin-up. She was born Sofia Villani Scicolone, 1934-09-20. After being credited professionally as Sofia Lazzaro, she began using her current stage name in 1952, in the film La Favorita. Her first starring role was in Aida (1953), for which she received critical acclaim

In 1962, Loren, among 21 other awards, won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance. Loren has won several international awards, including one Golden Globe Award, a Grammy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Laurel Award. Her other films include: Houseboat (1958), El Cid (1961), Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963), Marriage Italian-Style (1964), and A Special Day (1977). She has received critical and commercial success in TV movies such as Courage (1986) and in American blockbusters such as Grumpier Old Men (1995), and Nine (2009). In 1994 she starred in Robert Altman's Ready to Wear, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination the same year. In 1995 she received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievements. In 2011 she dubbed one of the characters of Pixar blockbuster Cars 2 for non-English speaking markets.

In her younger days she was also an amazingly shapely and talented pin-up with a particularly tiny waist. Consequently, we have emulated many of her poses and styles here on waist.it

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Stefanie Powers, born November 2, 1942-11-02 is an American film and television actress best known for her role as Jennifer Hart in the 1980s television series Hart to Hart. Powers was born Stefanie Zofya Paul in Hollywood, California. Her parents divorced during her childhood. Powers was estranged from her father, whom she barely references and whose name is never mentioned in her memoir, One from the Hart [sic], in which she refers to the "tension and unhappiness created by my father's presence". She remained extremely close throughout her life to her mother, Julianna Dimitria "Julie" (nèe Golan; 1912 ~ 2009), who was of Polish descent. She has a brother and a half-sister. Powers was a cheerleader at Hollywood High School. Nancy Sinatra was one of her classmates. In 1965, using the alias Taffy Paul, she made an obscure independent film, The Young Sinner, with future Billy Jack star Tom Laughlin.

Powers appeared in several motion pictures in the early 1960s in secondary roles such as the thriller Experiment in Terror with Glenn Ford and Lee Remick, the comedy If a Man Answers with Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin, and as the daughter of John Wayne in the lighthearted comedy-Western McLintock! (1963). She played a schoolgirl in Tammy Tell Me True (1961) and Bunny, the police chief's daughter in Palm Springs Weekend (1963). She appeared in the 1962 hospital melodrama The Interns and its sequel The New Interns in 1964. In 1965 she had a more substantial role playing opposite veteran actress Tallulah Bankhead in the Hammer horror film Die! Die! My Darling (originally released in England as Fanatic). Her early television work included Route 66 and Bonanza (both in 1963).

In 1966 her "tempestuous" good looks led to a starring role as April Dancer in the short-lived NBC television spy thriller series The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.. This was a spin-off of the popular The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Powers' linguistic skills, dance training, and interest in bullfighting were written into several episodes of the series. She also learned how to fence for a five-minute fight sequence with sabres.

Shortly after the series' debut, she was featured on the cover of TV Guide (December 31, 1966 – January 6, 1967). The article mentions her "117-pound frame is kept supple with 11 minutes of Royal Canadian Air Force exercises every morning... Unlike her fellow U.N.C.L.E. agents, the ladylike April is not required to kill the bad guys. Her feminine charms serve as the bait, while her partner Noel Harrison provides the fireworks." Dancer was written as a demure, passive figure instead of an action heroine like The Avengers' Emma Peel. The show's reliance on self-parody and camp humor instead of dramatic action and suspense was not a success. The series lasted for only one season (29 one-hour episodes) airing from September 16, 1966 to April 11, 1967. In 1967 she appeared in Warning Shot with David Janssen. Her 1970s films include The Boatniks (1970) and Herbie Rides Again (sequel to The Love Bug).

She was a guest star on the Robert Wagner series It Takes a Thief in 1970. The two would go on to co-star in the popular Hart to Hart series nine years later. Stefanie Powers has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6778 Hollywood Boulevard.

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Susan Hayward (1917-06-30 ~ 1975-03-14) was an American model and actress. After working as a fashion model in New York, Hayward travelled to Hollywood in 1937 when open auditions were held for the leading role in Gone with the Wind (1939). Although she was not selected, she secured a film contract, and played several small supporting roles over the next few years. By the late 1940s, the quality of her film roles had improved, and she achieved recognition for her dramatic abilities with the first of five Academy Award nominations for Best Actress for her performance as an alcoholic in Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman (1947). Her career continued successfully through the 1950s and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of death row inmate Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958).

Hayward married and lived in Georgia and following her Oscar-winning performance, her film appearances became infrequent, although she continued acting in film and television until 1972. However it is her stunning still photographs that really interest us here at waist.it. Her long legs and slim, elegant figure have been a great influence on our images. Sadly, she died in 1975 of brain cancer.

t.A.T.u., Russian: Тату́, pronounced tɐˈtu was a Russian music duo that consisted of Lena Katina and Yulia Volkova. The duo was managed by Russian television producer Ivan Shapovalov while in the group Neposedi. The duo were signed to their own production company T.A. Music, following the split with Universal Music Russia, and their sub-labels Interscope Records and Neformat.

The duo established their success with their debut single "All the Things She Said", which gained acclaim from music journalists and critics, who deemed it one of the best singles in early 2000s. The video of the single, however generated controversy worldwide, showing the girls kissing in the rain in school uniforms. Along with the number-one single, the following records "Not Gonna Get Us" and "All About Us" gained success and also charted at No. 1 on other contemporary music charts.

The duo released six studio albums; three English and three Russian. The album 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane achieved huge success worldwide and eventually became the first group ever to get the IFPI Europe platinum award for the same album in two different languages. Due to their success, the duo were recognized as one of the most successful female music acts to emerge in the early decade and have established themselves as the most successful Russian act to date.

t.A.T.u. represented Russia in the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest, performing "Ne Ver', Ne Boysia", placing third. In March 2011, the duo officially announced their separation, due to personal reasons and conflicts between them and embarked on solo careers, which started around the end of 2008. As of 2012, t.A.T.u. have sold over 15 million records, and both the Russian and English version of 200 Km/h are listed amongst the best-selling albums by a girl group.

However, it is their stunning pin-up style photoshoots that interest us the most here at waist.it.

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Helen Luella Koford, born 1929-01-07, better known as Terry Moore, is an American film and television actress. Born in Glendale, California, as Helen Luella Koford, Moore grew up in a Mormon family in Los Angeles, California. She worked as a child model before making her film debut in Maryland in 1940. Moore was billed as Judy Ford, Jan Ford, and January Ford before taking Terry Moore as her name in 1948.

Moore worked in radio in the 1940s, most memorably as Bumps Smith on The Smiths of Hollywood. She has starred in several box office hits, including Mighty Joe Young (1949), Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) (for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress), and Peyton Place (1957). She appeared on the cover of Life magazine for July 6, 1953, as "Hollywood's sexy tomboy". Moore's photo was used on the cover of the second issue of the My Diary romance comic book (cover dated March 1950).

During the 1950s, Moore worked steadily in films like The Great Rupert (1950), Two of a Kind (1951), Man on a Tightrope (1953), Daddy Long Legs (1955), Between Heaven and Hell (1956), Bernardine (1957), A Private's Affair (1959), and Why Must I Die? (1960). By the 1960s, Moore's film career had faltered. She had began to appear less frequently in films. However, she did make films like Platinum High School (1960), She Should Have Stayed in Bed (1963), Black Spurs (1965), Waco (1966), and A Man Called Dagger (1967). Lacking film roles, Moore appeared on television. In 1962, she appeared as a rancher's daughter in the NBC Western Empire. She also appeared on the NBC interview program Here's Hollywood.

After the 1960s, Moore semi retired from acting, only completing two films in the 1970s; though by the 1980s her career had resumed with minor roles in low-budgeted B-movies. Moore has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7080 Hollywood Blvd.

In the 1940s, Moore lived with Howard Hughes. After Hughes died in 1976, Moore claimed that they secretly married in 1949. Moore stated that the ship's log and any documentation of the marriage was destroyed and the couple never officially divorced. Despite this claim, Moore married three other men after 1949, including an eleven-year marriage to Stuart Cramer with whom she has two children. Moore failed to provide any evidence of a marriage, but the Hughes's estate paid her a settlement in 1984.

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Toby Wing, 1915-07-14 ~ 2001-03-22 was an American actress and showgirl. Born Martha Virginia Wing, she began working onscreen at age 9; her father, Paul Wing, was an assistant director for Paramount Pictures. In 1931, she became one of the first Goldwyn Girls, and in 1932 she was seen in Mack Sennett-produced comedies made by Paramount, one starring Bing Crosby. Wing made an impression with producers and moviegoers, but she seldom broke through to leading roles.

Many of her roles were small and scantily-clad, before the introduction of the 1934 Production Code, but she became widely recognized as a sex symbol. Since her contracted studio was myred in bankruptcy during much of her career, much of her work was done on loan, primarily at Warner Bros. and later, after her release, on extremely low budget efforts on a per-film basis. Wing enjoyed a far more successful sideline doing product endorsements and was featured in many fan magazines from 1933 ~ 1938. She was also well known off-screen for her romances, and was linked to Jackie Coogan (to whom she was engaged during much of 1935), Maurice Chevalier and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.

Toby Wing played a few leading roles in B movies and short subjects. In 1936 and 1937, she worked opposite singer-songwriter Pinky Tomlin in two of his low budget musical features, With Love and Kisses and Sing While You're Able. The two stars were engaged briefly during late 1937. Although the romance ended before their planned marriage, they remained close until Tomlin's death. Her last leading role was in The Marines Come Thru (filmed in Florida in 1938, but not seeing general release until 1942 as Fight On, Marines!). She retired from movies after marrying the pilot Dick Merrill, more than twenty years her senior, in 1938. Wing completed her acting career on Broadway in the unsuccessful Cole Porter musical You Never Know, which starred Lupe Vélez, Clifton Webb, Libby Holman and Harold Murray.

The couple retired to DiLido, Florida, where Merrill was assigned Eastern Airlnes' New York - Miami route for the remainder of his career. Wing became successful in real estate in California and Florida. Wing and Merrill later settled in Virginia, where they lived together until Merrill's death in 1982.

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Tuesday Weld, born 1943-08-27 is an American actress. She began her acting career as a child, and progressed to more mature roles during the late 1950s. She won a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Female Newcomer in 1960. Over the following decade she established a career playing dramatic roles in films. As a featured performer in supporting roles, her work was acknowledged with nominations for a Golden Globe Award for Play It As It Lays (1972), a nomination for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1978), an Emmy Award for The Winter of Our Discontent (1983), and a BAFTA for Once Upon a Time in America (1984).

Since the end of the 1980s, her acting appearances have been infrequent.

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Ursula Andress, born 1936-03-19 is a Swiss-American actress and sex symbol of the 1960s. She is known for her role as Bond girl Honey Ryder in the first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962), for which she won a Golden Globe. She later starred as Vesper Lynd in the Bond-parody Casino Royale (1967).

Andress was born in Ostermundigen, Canton of Bern, Switzerland, the daughter of Anna, who was Swiss, and Rolf Andress, a German diplomat who was expelled from Switzerland for political reasons. He disappeared during World War II.

Andress became famous as Honey Ryder, a shell diver and James Bond\'s object of desire in Dr. No (1962), the first Bond movie. In a well-known scene, she rises out of the Caribbean Sea in a white bikini. The scene made Andress the "quintessential" Bond girl, and is now considered iconic. "My entrance in the film wearing the bikini on that beautiful beach made me world famous as \'the Bond girl\'", she said, and the bikini from this "classic moment in cinema and Bond history" sold at auction in 2001 for £41,125 ($59,755) including commissions and tax. In 2003, in a UK Survey by Channel 4, her entrance in Dr. No was voted #1 in "the 100 Greatest Sexy Moments".

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Valerie Leon, born 1943-11-12 is an English actress who had roles in a number of high-profile British film franchises, including the Carry On series. She also had a fabulously curvaceous figure that must have made her a delight to photograph. Sadly relatively few images of her have appeared on-line. But we have collected what we can. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Leon

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Vera-Ellen, 1921-02-16 ~ 1981-08-30 was an American actress and dancer, principally celebrated for her filmed dance partnerships with Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Danny Kaye, and Donald O'Connor. Vera Ellen Westmeier Rohe was born in Norwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, to Martin Rohe and Alma Catherine Westmeier, both descended from German immigrants. She began dancing at age 10 and quickly became very proficient. At 16 she was a winner on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour and embarked upon a professional career.

In 1939, she made her Broadway debut in the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein musical Very Warm for May. She became one of the youngest Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, although she was only 5'4". This led to roles on Broadway in Panama Hattie, By Jupiter, and A Connecticut Yankee, where she was spotted by Samuel Goldwyn, who cast her opposite Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo in the 1945 film Wonder Man.

She danced with Gene Kelly in the Hollywood musicals Words and Music and On the Town, while also appearing in the last Marx Brothers film, Love Happy. She received top billing alongside Fred Astaire in the musicals Three Little Words and The Belle of New York. She had a co-starring role with Donald O'Connor in the Ethel Merman vehicle, Call Me Madam. Vera-Ellen's second to last film role was the 1954 blockbuster hit White Christmas, co-starring with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney. She starred in only one more film, the 1957 British production Let's Be Happy. Her last performances were on a November 1958 television episode of The Perry Como Show and a February 1959 broadcast of the The Dinah Shore Show.

She was married twice. Her first husband was a fellow dancer, Robert Hightower, from February 1941 to November 1946. Her second husband, from 1954 to their 1966 divorce, was millionaire Victor Rothschild. While married to Rothschild, she gave birth to a daughter, Victoria Ellen, who died at three months of age from SIDS in 1963. Following the death of her only child, she withdrew from public life. Vera-Ellen died of cancer in Los Angeles, California, aged 60. She was buried at Glen Haven Memorial Park in Sylmar, California.

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Vera Miles, born 1930-08-23, is an American actress who worked closely with Alfred Hitchcock, most notably as Lila Crane in the classic masterpiece Psycho, reprising the role in the 1983 sequel, Psycho II. Her other popular films include The Wrong Man, The Searchers, Follow Me Boys! and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Miles has been married four times. Her first husband was Bob Miles. They were married from 1948 until 1954, and had two daughters, Debra and Kelley. Her second husband was Gordon Scott. They were married from 1954 until 1959, and had one son, Michael. Her third husband was actor Keith Larsen. They were married from 1960 until 1971, and had one son, Erik. Miles currently lives in California. She refuses to grant interviews or make public appearances. Her grandson, actor Jordan Essoe, however, met with actress Jessica Biel in 2012 in preparation for Biel's portrayal of Miles in the film Hitchcock.

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Victoria Ree Principal (born 1950-01-03) is an American actress, author and businesswoman best known for her role as Pamela Barnes on the CBS night-time TV drama Dallas from 1978 to 1987.When she left the show in 1987, she began her own production company, Victoria Principal Productions, producing mostly movies for television. In the mid-1980s, she became interested in natural beauty therapies and in 1989 she created a self-named line of skin care products, Principal Secret, which has amassed over $1 billion (USD) in sales to date.

However it is her stunning fitness pictures and her fabulous figure that we admire here at waist.it.

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Virginia Mayo, November 30, 1920-11-30 ~ 2005-01-17 was an American film actress. Born Virginia Clara Jones, in St. Louis, Missouri to Luke and Martha Henrietta (née Rautenstrauch) Jones, tutored by a series of dancing instructors engaged by her aunt, she appeared in the St. Louis Municipal Opera chorus and then appeared with six other girls at an act at the Jefferson Hotel, where she was recruited by vaudeville performer Andy Mayo to appear in his act (as ringmaster for two men in a horse suit), taking his surname as her stage name. She appeared in vaudeville for three years in the act, appearing with Eddie Cantor on Broadway in 1941's Banjo Eyes.

She began her career in vaudeville. She progressed to films and during the 1940s established herself as a supporting player in such films as The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and White Heat (1949). Mayo continued her career as a dancer, then signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn and appeared in several of Goldwyn's movies. With Danny Kaye she played the dream-girl heroine in comedies including Wonder Man (1945), The Kid from Brooklyn (1946) and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947).

At the height of her career, Mayo was seen as the quintessential voluptuous Hollywood beauty. It was said that she "looked like a pinup painting come to life," and she played just such a role in the 1949 film comedy, The Girl from Jones Beach. According to widely published reports from the late 1940s, the Sultan of Morocco declared her beauty to be proof of the existence of God. In 1949's White Heat she took on the unsympathetic role of the cold and treacherous "Verna Jarrett", opposite James Cagney. She was also cast against type as a shallow golddigger in The Best Years of Our Lives. Her career continued strong through the 50s, frequently in B-movie westerns and adventure films.

By the start of the 60s, the pace of her work slowed, but she continued occasional film appearances in the following decades, her last role being in The Man Next Door (1997). While she also appeared in musicals, Mayo's singing voice was always dubbed. Mayo and her husband, actor Michael O'Shea co-starred in such stage productions as Tunnel of Love, Fiorello, and George Washington Slept Here. She appeared in her own right as well in stage and musical theater productions. Mayo has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine. In 1996 she received a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Mayo wed Michael O'Shea in 1947, and remained married to him until he died in 1973. They had one child, Mary Catherine O'Shea (born 1953). The family lived for several decades in Thousand Oaks, California. She converted to Roman Catholicism by way of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. A lifelong Republican, she endorsed Richard Nixon in 1968 and 1972 and longtime friend Ronald Reagan in 1980. Mayo died of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles, aged 84.

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Yvette Mimieux 1942-01-08 is a retired American movie and television actress. Yvette Carmen Mimieux was born in Los Angeles, California to a French father and Mexican mother. Before her film career began, Mimieux was one of four finalists from a beauty contest picked by Elvis Presley (while he was filming Jailhouse Rock, 1957) who were invited to come to the set and compete for a bit role in the movie ("girl in bathing suit"). She and the other girls modelled their suits (and figures); Mimieux was not selected.

Among her earliest screen appearances was a role in the teen movie Where the Boys Are (1960) as well as in George Pal's film version of H. G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine (also 1960) co-starring Rod Taylor, in which she played the character Weena. This was followed by The Light in the Piazza (1962) with Olivia de Havilland. In 1963, Mimieux appeared in Diamond Head and Toys in the Attic.

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Yvonne De Carlo, born Margaret Yvonne Middleton, 1922-09-01 ~ 2007-01-08, was a Canadian-born American actress and singer of film, television, and theatre. During her six-decade career, her most prominent roles were featured in the films Salome Where She Danced, Criss Cross, and Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. De Carlo is also known for her portrayal of Lily Munster in the CBS television series The Munsters. More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_De_Carlo

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Beauty pageants have become somewhat controversial these days. However some of the imagery, particularly the publicity shots, offer some interesting ideas. We like the way some of these photographs capture the anticipation, enthusiasm and excitement of the contestants. We often try to reproduce that same look in our work.

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This site is primarily about having fun with retro swimwear and corsetry. We love experimenting with various ways to shape and sculpt the female form. We enjoy what we do and we hope that you do to. And the whole corset thing is quite funny in a sense - striving for beauty whilst tugging on the laces.

Therefore, this site would not be complete without a "humour" section. After all, it is this sense of fun that is our prime creative driving force.

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Few things more pleasant to look at than a slim, attractive young woman in well fitting corsetry. As the old saying goes, "Corsets look best on girls that don't really need them!" Hence various advertising images created through the years have become a major influence on our work here at waist.it

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Over the years, waist.it has borrowed heavily from this sort of literature for shoot ideas. It has also proven a fun and effective way to make ordinary young women look good on camera.

Seems old fashioned methods that worked so well on girls fifty or sixty years ago, are just as effective on the girls of today.

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