Theda Bara. Dorothy Lamour. Betty Grable. Jean Harlow. Vivien Leigh. Greta Garbo. Elizabeth Taylor. Jayne Mansfield. Twiggy. Farrah Fawcett. And, of course, the magnificent Marilyn Monroe.

They came from different eras, from 1910 until the 1960’s. They were beautiful, alluring, and represented the “ultimate woman.” Pin-up girls were present in advertisements, illustrations and posters that represented every man’s dream of the perfect woman!

These pin-up ladies graced the lockers of high school boys, calendars, and the American soldiers of World War II’s bunk rooms.

Actress Jean Harlow

Far from home, the G.I.’s treasured pin-up girl posters; they gave the soldiers something beautiful and sexy to see instead of their all-male comrades, not to mention the misery and graphic violence of war. Army Air Corps pilots, who risked their lives every day, developed “nose art” that was beautifully painted upon the outside cockpit of their fighter, bomber or cargo airlift planes. In addition to stunning depictions of fierce, snarling animals like tigers, eagles and sharks, pin-up girls frequently graced the noses of U.S. aircraft. And in 1941, test pilot Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in a jet he decorated with a gorgeous pin-up of his wife, naming the plane “Glamorous Glynnis.”

In 1947, the Army Air Corps officially became the United States Air Force. Nose art, especially that of vintage pin-up girls, continued to grace the outside cock pits of the best and fastest aircraft in the world. But times change, as does “political correctness.” Thirty years later, in the beginnings of awareness of the sexual harassment and exploitation of women, nose art was officially banned by the USAF, and this pin-up art vanished forever. It’s now only seen in museums depicting the lives of servicemen in ages gone by.

Several sources cite the top three pin-up girls as Betty Grable posing provocatively in a one-piece bathing suit, Marilyn Monroe’s revealing skirt “blow up” from The Seven Year Itch, and Farrah Fawcett as she appeared in TV’s “Charlie’s Angels.” But it doesn’t end with the beautiful and sensual pin-up girls; the past decade has given us pin-up men as well! Handsome heartthrobs Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt and Fabio adorn the walls of many a teenage girl’s bedroom. Also popular in modern pin-up art are rock singers Ozzy Osbourne, Zakk Wylde, Steven Tyler, and the enormously popular cross-over group, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

Pin-up art reached its heyday during World War II, and art experts say that it will never quite be the same again. During this time, every female star in Hollywood had aspirations of becoming a popular pin-up art subject; this was part of their formula to successful movie careers. Today you can find vintage pin-ups on the Internet that are of fine quality and evoke memories of days long gone.

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Russ Meyer, director of Pin-up Girls

Let’s talk about movies and ultravixens sexploitation director Russ Meyer. Best known for his obsession with breasts, he began his career as a photographer for the magazine Playboy in the 1950s, and in that role filled several of the magazine’s middle pages.

As a sleazemeister film maker,  “nudie” director Russ Meyer was  famous for his girls in bikinis, ie, well endowed Amazons in films like Mudhoney, Faster Pussycat Kill Kill!,  Beneath the Valley of the Dolls, and Under the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens.

In the decade of the 1950’s, this director made a few films including Burlesque! In the movies, Entitled Teaserama as well as Variatease, burlesque queens Tempest Storm and Lili St. Cyr, joined the silver screen with pin-up star Bettie Page!

His most famous film stars included busty Kitten Natividad and Tura Satana, girls who were famous pin-ups in their own right. Tura Satana was a dancer before being discovered by Meyer.

His Femme Fatale pinup girls are famous poster girls used to market 60′ and 70′ bikini softcore sleaze … In the 1975 movie, Supervixens, Russ Meyer created a fabulous combination  of violence, sexy grinding and comedy….

Meyer seems to have been  permanently fixated on huge breasts! In fact, those  large breasted women  was a central trademark in all of his films. He discovered many actresses who were naturally well endowed, and became very famous. Russ Meyer Stars included: Kitten Natividad, Tura Satana, Lorna Maitland, and Uschi Digard.

When viewing a Meyer film,  with the physically and sexually overwhelming female characters, you may want to think of them as being  placed in their own separate genre. And while it may seem he presents women as sex objects, notice that they are all more powerful than their male counterparts in these films. So does that make him a feminist filmmaker? Was it conscious or unconscious? Today, we should just enjoy his films as they are – beautiful  pin-up girls and all…

Stacy Lande is a Los Angeles based artist, and her pin up art is most often placed in the lowbrow category. Her new website, about all things pinup, can be seen at http://www.i-love-pin-up-girls.com. Her book, The Red Box: The Phantasma-Allegorical Portraits of Stacy Lande, from Last Gasp press, features introductions from Robert Williams and Frank Kozik.

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