The Women Who Became Pinups
This before and after shows how closely Elvgren followed his models.
After: notice how Hansen became golden blond, and her pucker, well . . .
A model poses for what would become Dog Gone Robber for a 1960 Brown & Bigelow calendar.
After: the pooch remains nonplussed.
Elvgren directs Myrna Hansen with his posing stick. He used the stick to “nudge” models and avoid touching sensitive body parts.
After: that waist!
Model Myrna Hansen is helped by her mother—yes, mother—and artist Gil Elvgren’s assistant in arranging her skirts for Elvgren’s portrait, What a View, circa 1957. If Elvgren defined much of pinup’s stylistic quality, perhaps his models defined the rather psychotic facial expressions worn by many of the women.
Where did that necklace come from?
Rosy cheeks for days.
Betty Grable, pictured here with artist Earl Moran, was the most popular model of W. W. II pinup.
Zoë Mozert, model and artist, was a pinup incarnate. At 21 years old, she established a lifelong taste for younger men when she married a 17-year-old hitchhiker. They divorced two months later.
