On this day in 1939, Betty Grable appeared on Life magazine.

Elizabeth Ruth Grable was born Dec. 18, 1916, in St. Louis. Her father became a successful grain broker and her mother Lillian pushed Betty into dancing and vaudeville at an early age. In 1929 she and Betty moved to Hollywood when the Golden Age of sound movies, the Star-Studded Revue and the Technicolor musical was beginning. Although only 5′4″ tall and 13 years old, Betty was hired as a Fox chorus girl at $50 a week to dance in Happy Days and Let’s Go Places. After working in films for Eddie Cantor and Busby Berkeley, she signed a 5-year contact in 1934 with RKO. Betty worked for most of the major studios in the 1930s but did not become a star until 1939: she signed with Darryl F. Zanuck at Twentieth Century Fox in July; divorced Jackie Coogan in October; starred in a Broadway play that opened Dec. 6; appeared on the cover of Life magazine Dec. 11.

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