Friday, January 24, 2020

Blonde insurance - publicity photographs of Sheree North



(The color in almost all of these images, as I found them, was much altered and distorted by age; they'd gone very magenta. It was tough work adjusting them, trying to restore some semblance of what was probably their original appearance. And they still don't quite match up from shot to shot, sets of images that were clearly taken at the same time. The above is the only one that appears to have - somehow - retained its original color balance.)

Compare the color of the pink satin here with the color of it above.

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Sheree North (born Dawn Shirley Crang; 17 January 1932, Los Angeles – 4 November 2005, Los Angeles), American actress, dancer, and singer. Dancing in USO shows at ten, married at sixteen, a mother at seventeen, she won a Theatre World Award for her Broadway debut at the age of twenty-one. The following year she was put under a four-year contract with 20th-Century Fox, mostly with the thought of using her, should the need arise, as a replacement for the studio's increasingly uncooperative leading female star, Marilyn Monroe. She was given the whole studio treatment, and when Monroe was put on suspension, North was put into the role in How to Be Very, Very Popular that Monroe had refused to play; the news made the cover of Life magazine. She continued to make films, but the studio gradually lost interest in her. By the time her contract expired in 1958, Fox had already signed Jayne Mansfield, more than eager to be their "Marilyn insurance." She went on to do much work in television and film and on the stage, becoming known as a fine dramatic actress; she was nominated for two Emmy awards. Her last role was as Cosmo Kramer's mother on two episodes of Seinfeld. Married four times, the mother of two daughters, she died during surgery at the age of seventy-three.

In the studio office of designer Travilla - best known for creating Monroe's most iconic costumes - with Monroe's dress form...!



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