Pinups throughout history have been used to sell everything from cosmetics to real estate. Sometimes, they had their origins in the scandalous worlds of peepshows and erotica.
The scandalous Gilda Grey, famous for popularizing The Shimmy with her signature song The Shimmy Shewabble, helped sell a reducing cream in 1923. In 1925 she did the shimmy after a meeting to interest buyers in buying Coral Gables properties in Florida.
The Shimmy, for which Gilda Grey was famous for, reportedly could be danced properly only with great difficulty and was considered primarily an exhibition dance. Similarly, the Cat Dance by Lilly Christine, had its origins in the realms of peepshows, but she crossed over into mainstream pinup model popularity and helped sell products.
Below are pictures of Gilda Grey (in one week her performance of the Shimmy grossed $45,000), and Lilly Christine:
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