The term bombshell is a forerunner to the term "sex symbol" used to describe popular women regarded as very attractive. [1] [2] The Online Etymology Dictionary by Douglas Harper attests the usage of the term in this meaning since 1942. Bombshell has a longer history in its other, more general figurative meaning of a "shattering or devastating thing or event" since 1860. [3]
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The first woman to be known as a bombshell was Jean Harlow, who was nicknamed the "blonde bombshell" for her film Platinum Blonde (1931). [4] [5] [6] [7] Two years later, she starred in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Bombshell (1933). [4] One of the blurbs on posters was "Lovely, luscious, exotic Jean Harlow as the Blonde Bombshell of filmdom." [8] Hollywood soon took up the blonde bombshell, and then, during the late 1940s through the early 1960s, brunette, exotic, and ethnic versions (e.g., Jane Russell, Dorothy Dandridge and Sophia Loren) were also cultivated as complements to, or as satellites of, the blonde bombshell. [9] Some of the movie stars, largely of the 1940s–1960s, referred to as bombshells include Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, [10] Diana Dors, [11] Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren, [12] Jane Russell, Ava Gardner, Camelia, Carroll Baker, Brigitte Bardot, [13] Kim Novak, Julie Christie, Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Ann-Margret, Hind Rostom, Veronica Lake, Raquel Welch, Ursula Andress, [14] [15] Marlene Dietrich, Betty Grable, Marie Wilson, Judy Holliday, Lana Turner, Dorothy Dandridge, Barbara Eden, Carol Wayne, Goldie Hawn, Claudia Cardinale, Anita Ekberg [16] and Gina Lollobrigida. [17]
The epithet rose sharply in popularity after the death of Marilyn Monroe in 1962, and declined in popularity in the late 1960s due to emerging ideological conflicts. [14]
Bombshells are identified with hypersexuality, their curves, including hourglass figures and large breasts, sex appeal, larger than life personas or hedonistic lifestyle, [14] as well as stereotypes associated with blonde women and supermodels. [14] [9] [18]
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot, often referred to by her initials B.B., is a French former actress, singer, and model as well as an animal rights activist.
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as well as an emblem of the era's sexual revolution. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million by the time of her death in 1962.
Jean Harlow was an American actress. Known for her portrayal of "bad girl" characters, she was the leading sex symbol of the early 1930s and one of the defining figures of the pre-Code era of American cinema. Often nicknamed the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde", Harlow was popular for her "Laughing Vamp" screen persona. Harlow was in the film industry for only nine years, but she became one of Hollywood's biggest movie stars, whose image in the public eye has endured. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Harlow number 22 on its greatest female screen legends list.
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress and Playboy Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s, Mansfield was known for her numerous publicity stunts and open personal life. Although her film career was short-lived, she had several box-office successes, and won a Theatre World Award and Golden Globe Award, and soon gained the nickname of Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde."
Mamie Van Doren is an American actress, singer, model, and sex symbol who rose to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. A blonde bombshell, she is one of the "Three M's" along with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, who were friends and contemporaries. In 1953, Van Doren, then named Joan Lucille Olander, signed a seven-year contract with Universal, which hoped that she would be their version of Marilyn Monroe. During her time at Universal, she starred in teen dramas, exploitation films, musical, and comedy films among other genres. She has married five times, and had intimate affairs with many other Hollywood actors. She was one of the leading sex symbols in the 1950s.
Blonde stereotypes are stereotypes of blonde-haired people. Sub-types of this stereotype include the "blonde bombshell" and the "dumb blonde". Blondes have historically been portrayed as physically attractive, though often perceived as less intelligent compared to their brunette counterparts. There are many blonde jokes made on these premises. However, research has shown that blonde women are not less intelligent than women with other hair colors.
Cleouna Moore was an American actress, usually featured in the role of a blonde bombshell in Hollywood films of the 1950s, including seven films with Hugo Haas. She also became a well-known pin-up girl.
Peter Basch was an American magazine and glamour photographer. He was born in Berlin, lived and died in New York City. The main body of his work was produced in the fifties and sixties.
Arline Hunter was an American actress and model. She was perhaps best known as Playboy's Playmate of the Month for August 1954. Her centerfold was the first not to be purchased from the John Baumgarth Co. by Hugh Hefner, and was instead photographed by Ed DeLong, who went on to become one of the more prolific Playboy photographers in the 1960s.
Promises! Promises! is a 1963 American sex comedy film directed by King Donovan and starring Tommy Noonan and Jayne Mansfield. Released at the end of the Production Code era and before the MPAA film rating system became effective in 1968, it was the first Hollywood film of the sound era to feature nudity by a mainstream star (Mansfield).
Bombshell may refer to:
Jayne Mansfield was an actress, singer, Playboy playmate and stage show performer who had an enormous impact on popular culture of the late 1950s despite her limited success in Hollywood. She has remained a well-known subject in popular culture ever since. During a period between 1956 and 1957, there were about 122,000 lines of copy and 2,500 photographs that appeared in newspapers. In an article on her in the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture (1999), Dennis Russel said that "Although many people have never seen her movies, Jayne Mansfield remains, long after her death, one of the most recognizable icons of 1950s celebrity culture." In the novel Child of My Heart (2004) by Alice McDermott, a National Book Award winning writer, the 1950s is referred to as "in those Marilyn Monroe/Jayne Mansfield days". R. L. Rutsky and Bill Osgerby has claimed that it was Mansfield along with Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot who made the bikini popular.
A sex kitten is a woman who exhibits a sexually provocative lifestyle or an abundant sexual aggression. The term originated around 1956 in articles in the British and American press and was originally used to describe French actress Brigitte Bardot. Sources believe Bardot's role in And God Created Woman was what inspired the term in the mid-1950s.
Greta Thyssen was a Danish film actress and former model, long-resident in the United States. Born in Hareskovby, Denmark, she appeared in films and television series between 1956 and 1967.
Sex Kittens Go to College is a 1960 American comedy film by Allied Artists Pictures, produced and directed by Albert Zugsmith and starring Mamie Van Doren, Tuesday Weld and Mijanou Bardot. The film was also released in its European print with an additional nine-minute dream sequence showcasing the robot Thinko with four striptease dancers.
Blonde bombshell may refer to:
Gus Stevens Seafood Restaurant & Buccaneer Lounge was a restaurant and supper club on US Highway 90 in Biloxi, Mississippi. Gus Stevens, the Greek-American owner, came to the Gulf Coast in 1946.
Natasha Lytess was an actress, writer and drama coach.
A sex symbol or icon is a person or character widely considered sexually attractive and often synonymous with sexuality.
American actress Mamie Van Doren has been in 41 films from 1951 to 2012. Van Doren was discovered by Howard Hughes as Miss Eight Ball, and Hughes put Van Doren in 4 RKO movies, including Jet Pilot, His Kind of Woman, and Two Tickets to Broadway. These movies would have Van Doren playing minor roles, where she was often uncredited or credited as Joan Olander.