We decided to make model June Ann look like a naughty 1950s greaser with the bright red vintage car. The only wardrobe of mine that she's wearing is my bra, which we stuffed for even more dramatic cleavage. Yes, I literally lent a model my bra on a photoshoot 🙂 I...
Here is illustrated how two marketing companies used cheesecake pinup, double entendre, and sexual innuendo to sell mens shirts and bed sheets.
Enjoy these pinup pictures of Marilyn Monroe, declared “The All American Pinup” by the 1953 issue of Cheesecake – An American Phenomenon. Jane Russell said that “Marilyn is the most female girl I know”, and her only flaws were “a slight thickness behind the knees”.
The next page declares that “American business will spend close to $1,000,000,000 in advertising alone. At least one out of every three advertisements will feature a girl, who is bound to be pretty, shapely, and appealing.
Here’s a scan from CheeseCake – An American Phenomenon. It’s a spread with Ed Sullivan’s Toastettes and film snaps of Marilyn Monroe’s appearance on the Jack Benny show. “It was wonderful,” said MM, “You know, Mr. Benny at 39 has all the charm and poise of an older man.” When Marilyn Monroe agreed to be on the Jack Benny Show, finally television had come of age and could compete with the movies. Cheesecake Pinups on the new medium of television!
“The Bust Line May be Best Line in TV”. This article explores how television was currently reshaping the Pinup phenomenon, remarking on Faye Emerson’s low cut gowns in the late 40s, but then turning again away from excess by raising bustlines and hemlines (referencing the Breen office’s revision in 1951, that apparently included a ban against showing intimate apparel on a moving figure). However, these restrictions had the result of making the female form more enticing, “A whisper echoes more than a shout”.
This is an interesting article on how the Motion Picture Production Code affected the evolution of cheesecake pinup, and changed the recipe.
hoopskirts to bathing suits, this Cheesecake Pinup magazine takes a look at the history of sexual innuendo in humor and media.
One of the first cartoons is from the 1860s, showing the wind blowing up a dress to reveal the hoopskirt underneath and (gasp) the sexyness of the woman’s ankels! Then came the peepshows in the Kinetoscopes of the 1890s (as examples are The Bedroom Farce, and a womens’ wrestling). Then, the late 1890s cinema came along, and in the early 1900s, Hollywood and the Keystone comedies and the scantily clad “big names wearing too little” and sensual Femme Fatale Movie Stars of the 1920s…
How did the term “cheesecake” pinup originate? Origins of cheesecake, and the first pinup model and cheesecake photograph. An article about the history of American pinup.
This was the most amazing 1950s magazine to photograph! Is this Marilyn Monroe on the cover? I wish I could have bought this vintage pinup magazine for myself! It’s dated 1953.
I was doing product photography for a friend, and couldn’t help but take a few extra pictures of this pinup calendar from 1958. “Hilda” is a “generously endowed nymph who casts propriety and modesty aside and comfortably romps her way through the year”. Each month has a drawing of Hilda, and advertising for Munger Linen (“‘Coverage where coverage counts’ When Hilda Rents Uniforms she calls Munger Linen”).
If you’re shooting silly lighthearted CheeseCake Pinup photography, the expressions are what make the pictures pop!
I recently discovered these cute pinup pics that I shot a few years ago…
This 1940s dress was such fun to photograph! It has red buttons down the front and an abstract polka dot pattern. I put a smart black hat on the model. Like many dresses of the era, it was unlined and meant to be worn over a slip or under=dress. We borrowed a rolling red wooden storage box as the only prop with this simple set. I love the model’s exaggerated “cheesecake pinup” expressions! She did her own makeup and hair, too.
I was just in an increasingly humorous mood as this retro photography workshop progressed! I posed model Amilee in a vintage child’s dress from the 1950s, with a wrench, in the car repair garage. She gave the perfect helpless and silly expressions of a gal who wouldn’t know the gas tank from the radiator (I wouldn’t, either).
This cute, humorous, cheesecake pinup photography set features pinup model Amy Mooney (Shooby Duwop) posing with a classic red car against a vintage beach backdrop. It looks like she’s on set of a 1950s beach flick! Later, pinup model Amy W. joins in, and they pretend that they’re lost on the way to the real beach (it does not help that they’re in Missouri, reading the map upside down).
This is another cute retro set from my 2011 archives! Classic, cheesecake pinup in a swimsuit. We had a ton of fun shooting this happy series with the old radio and American flag on the sheepskin rug. The model did her own makeup and it was just as wholesome as apple pie.
