In 1943, at the height of her fame as America’s wartime pin-up girl, Betty Grable received an anonymous letter that read: “This is an extortion. Under threat of your life or great bodily harm, gather $25,000 and uncut diamonds. ” The sender, calling himself the Lap, instructed her to mail the ransom to a Los Angeles hotel. Grable contacted the FBI, which set up a trap, but the culprit never appeared.
A month later, a second letter arrived, this time demanding $5,000 cash be delivered to a stranger in a cemetery, the threat signed “Snow. ” Grable played along while dozens of FBI agents, disguised as gardeners and mourners, surrounded Hollywood Memorial Cemetery. When an 18-year-old drifter named Russell Alexanderson darted out to grab what he thought was her payoff, agents tackled him. He received five years’ probation—until he attempted a second extortion the following year, which earned him a prison term.
Born Elizabeth Grable on December 18, 1916, in St. Louis, Missouri, the future star was pushed into show business by her mother, Lillian, a relentless stage mother who entered her in dance classes and beauty pageants from early childhood. The pressure was intense, and young Betty developed a fear of crowds and episodes of sleepwalking. In 1929, when she was 12, Lillian took her to Hollywood and forged her birth documents to claim she was 15, even dyeing her hair platinum and renaming her Frances Dean so she could work illegally in films.
Betty landed her first role as a chorus girl that same year and eventually joined the Goldwyn Girls alongside future stars like Lucille Ball and Paulette Goddard. But when Fox Studios executives discovered her real age, she was fired. She spent her mid-teens rebuilding her career with small contracts at RKO and Paramount, typically cast as perky coeds in B movies. At 20, in 1937, she eloped with former child star Jackie Coogan in Yuma, Arizona.
The marriage was hasty and troubled; it was Grable who paid for the wedding reception and their home, while Coogan was embroiled in a bitter lawsuit against his own parents over his childhood earnings. The couple divorced in 1939. Frustrated and considered washed up at 23 after her Paramount contract ended, Grable moved to New York and landed a role in the 1939 Broadway musical DuBarry Was a Lady, where she stopped the show nightly. Among her admirers was Darryl F.
Zanuck, production chief of 20th Century Fox, who quickly offered her a long-term contract. Returning to Hollywood in 1940, Grable inherited the lead in the Technicolor musical Down Argentine Way after star Alice Faye fell ill. The film was a smash, and Grable became Fox’s reigning musical queen of the 1940s. By 1943, she was the world’s number one box office draw, outselling even Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable, and she later became the highest-paid woman in America.
Her love life had taken a dangerous turn with actor George Raft, a married man known for his underworld connections. After he reportedly beat her during one violent incident, Grable fled. Raft later had a henchman spy on her dates; the man was told to climb a tree and look through her bedroom window, but he fell and limped away with broken ribs. In 1942, while filming Springtime in the Rockies, Grable met trumpet virtuoso and big band leader Harry James, who was married at the time.
The two began a secret affair that became a scandal once Grable discovered she was pregnant. Studio executives ordered James to divorce his wife and marry Grable quickly to protect her wholesome image. They wed in Las Vegas on July 5, 1943, and their marriage was spun into a wartime propaganda slogan: “I want a girl just like the girl that married Harry James. ” The couple had two daughters, Victoria and Jessica.
Also in 1943, Grable posed for a promotional photo for the musical Sweet Rosie O’Grady. She was pregnant at the time, so photographer Frank Powolny suggested she turn her back to the camera to hide her baby bump. The result—the famous white swimsuit pin-up over her shoulder—became the most iconic image of the era, with nearly three million copies distributed to barracks and battleships around the world. Soldiers pasted it in lockers, carried it in packs, and painted it on fighter planes.
Grable wrote back to countless GIs who sent her fan letters, volunteered at the Hollywood Canteen to dance with servicemen, and auctioned off her own nylon stockings at war bond drives. The US government declared her legs a national asset, and Fox insured them for $1 million with Lloyd’s of London. The nickname “million-dollar legs” followed her forever. She joked about the attention, once saying, “I became a star for two reasons, and I’m standing on them,” but privately she wished she received more credit for her acting and dancing.
One Life magazine survey in 1943 found her the servicemen’s ideal woman. By the early 1950s, Grable felt she deserved a raise from Fox. When executives refused, she walked into Zanuck’s office, snatched her contract from his desk, and tore it to shreds in front of him. The gesture backfired.
Zanuck fired her from the next big musical on the studio’s slate, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and recast the lead with up-and-coming starlet Marilyn Monroe, a decision that made Monroe a megawatt star. Zanuck later cast Grable in How to Marry a Millionaire alongside Monroe and Lauren Bacall. Despite tabloid rumors of a feud between the two blondes, Grable surprised everyone with her warmth. She put an arm around Monroe and said, “Honey, I’ve had my turn.
Go get yours. It’s your turn now. ” She even knelt to polish Monroe’s chipped toenail polish during a publicity shoot, an act that became Hollywood lore. Monroe never forgot the kindness and later refused to be photographed stepping into Grable’s old dressing room.
After one final film in 1955, How to Be Very, Very Popular, Grable left Hollywood at 38, saying she was “tired of being Betty Grable. ” She and Harry James moved to a ranch in the San Fernando Valley and later became fixtures on the Las Vegas entertainment circuit, performing nightly in casino revues. But the marriage had grown dark. James struggled with gambling, reportedly losing the equivalent of millions of dollars at the tables, and continued affairs with showgirls.
Betty’s complaints were met with violence. On New Year’s Day 1965, after 22 years, she finally left him, citing extreme cruelty in her divorce filing. For the first time in her life, Grable was broke. She took television commercials for girdles and reinvented herself on stage, touring in musicals like Hello, Dolly!
and Born Yesterday. In the late 1960s, she began a relationship with dancer Bob Remick, 27 years her junior. They never married but stayed together for the rest of her life. Friends said she seemed truly at ease, hiding her Hollywood awards under the kitchen sink and preferring quiet moments as just Betty.
In June 1973, she was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, the result of years of heavy smoking. She died on July 2, 1973, at a Santa Monica hospital, with her daughters and Bob Remick at her side. President Richard Nixon called her “a symbol of the joy and vitality of America. ” Grieving fans left flowers at her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Joe DiMaggio sent condolences, noting that Marilyn Monroe had always admired her. At her funeral, a nearby radio played I Can’t Begin to Tell You, a love song from one of her films. Harry James died of cancer just days later. Grable’s legacy remains visible today, including the concrete imprint of her legs at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
Hugh Hefner, who had been a young GI in the 1940s, later cited her pin-up as an inspiration for the playboy ethos. Behind the glamorous image was a woman who survived the pressures of a domineering stage mother, the fickleness of Hollywood, turbulent marriages, financial ruin, and a terrifying extortion plot, while still charming a generation.