The term bombshell is a forerunner to the term "sex symbol" and originally 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 animal rights activist and former actress, singer, and model. Famous for portraying sexually emancipated characters, often with hedonistic lifestyles, she was one of the best known sex symbols of the 1950s–1970s. Although she withdrew from the entertainment industry in 1973, she remains a major popular culture icon and a noted figure in ushering in the sexual revolution.
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 of classical Hollywood cinema list.
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress, singer, nightclub entertainer, 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, and sex symbol. She is perhaps best known for the rock 'n' roll, juvenile delinquency exploitation film Untamed Youth (1957).
Blonde stereotypes are stereotypes of blonde-haired people. Sub-types of this stereotype include the "blonde bombshell" and the "dumb blonde". Blondes are stereotyped as more desirable, but less intelligent than brunettes. There are many blonde jokes made on these premises.
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.
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).
Modern Man was a monthly men's magazine founded in 1951 and run until 1976. Predating Playboy, Modern Man focused on items of interest to adult men, with an emphasis on soft-core pornography, sex, humor, automobiles and popular culture. It featured photographs of many well-known models and actresses, including Marilyn Monroe, Pat Sheehan, Bambi Hamilton, June Blair, Tara Thomas, Dolores Reed, Jayne Mansfield, and Mamie Van Doren, as well as questionable look-alikes.
Jayne Mansfield was an actress, singer, 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.
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.
Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is an original stage comedy in three acts and four scenes by George Axelrod. After a try-out run at the Plymouth Theatre in Boston from 26 September 1955, it opened at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway on 13 October, starring Jayne Mansfield, Walter Matthau and Orson Bean. Directed by the author and produced by Jule Styne, it closed on 3 November 1956 after 444 performances.
The Beautiful Legs of Sabrina is a low-budget 1958 Italian-West German crime-drama-comedy film starring Mamie Van Doren, Antonio Cifariello, and Rossana Martini.
Jorge Guinle was a billionaire from the Guinle family of Rio, Brazil.
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.
In 1957, Jayne Mansfield, an American actress and model known for her publicity stunts, attended a dinner in Beverly Hills at the exclusive Romanoff's restaurant hosted by Paramount Pictures to officially welcome Italian actress Sophia Loren to Hollywood. A photograph of the two women, with Loren casting a sideways glance at Mansfield's cleavage, was distributed world-wide and became an international sensation.
A sex symbol or icon is a person or character widely considered sexually attractive and often synonymous with sexuality.
Mansfield 66/67 is a 2017 documentary musical directed by P. David Ebersole and Todd Hughes about the last two years of actress Jayne Mansfield's life. The film examines the rumors surrounding Mansfield's untimely death, and relationship with Anton LaVey as a celebration of Mansfield's life on the 50th anniversary of her death.