Small busted Golden Era actresses?

[Mervinwaves]

Hello, the Golden Era is often associated with the busty hourglass figure. Are there examples of old Hollywood actresses with a small bust?

 

[Tiki Tom]

Groucho Marx once commented on a Hedy Lamarr film that "I'm not interested in a film where the man's (pecks) are bigger than the woman's."

Beyond being a classic beauty, Hedy reportedly had an IQ of 160 and invented a frequency hopping system that was incorporated into allied torpedo guidance systems during the war and eventually contributed to the creation of modern cell phones. She was born right here in Vienna, Austria, and her ashes were scattered in the Vienna Woods.

 

[Fading Fast]

Based on today's standards for what is a large bust, I would say all the following GE actresses had quite successful careers with modest busts:

Barbara Stanwyck, Katherine Hepburn, Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Loretta Young, Myrna Loy, Fay Wray, Joan Fontaine, Marlene Dietrich, and Audrey Hepburn (tail-end of GE period).

While, in some movies, these women's busts were, eh-hem, enhanced and some still shots will give the appearance of larger busts, overall - and again by today's standards - these women were all on the smaller side of the scale and had fantastic careers often playing sexy women.

Edit Add: I almost didn't answer as I was modestly concerned that the topic could be handled in a not-sincere manner, but thought we shouldn't let that stop us as long as we all address the topic respectfully. I tried to do that in my post.

 

[BlueTrain]

I'd dying to see what Miss Lizzie has to say about this.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Even though this exact question was suspiciously posted by the exact same poster about a year and a half ago, I can point out that the "sweater girl" physique didn't become fashionable until the mid-1940s. As Fading points out, most prominent actresses of the 1930s tended to be substantially less pneumatic. The popular silhouette of the thirties was businesslike and athletic -- the "hourglass" was seen as a dated throwback to the 1890s, as portrayed in movies by Mae West.

There were a number of "topless" shows at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, and Kodachrome home movie footage of some of these is extant. They reveal that without exception the women performing in these shows tended to be very small-busted.

 

[Fading Fast]

Even though this exact question was suspiciously posted by the exact same poster about a year and a half ago, I can point out that the "sweater girl" physique didn't become fashionable until the mid-1940s. As Fading points out, most prominent actresses of the 1930s tended to be substantially less pneumatic. The popular silhouette of the thirties was businesslike and athletic -- the "hourglass" was seen as a dated throwback to the 1890s, as portrayed in movies by Mae West.

There were a number of "topless" shows at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, and Kodachrome home movie footage of some of these is extant. They reveal that without exception the women performing in these shows tended to be very small-busted.

Do you think the reason for the '30s modest bust is because (1) in the '20s, the "look" was for the skinny, no-hips, flat-chested flapper, i.e., "preferences" in appearance, like fashion, tend to evolve so the '30s was just a gradation away from the '20s and (2) the depression unfortunately forced many people to be skinny which, overall, reduced bust lines as well?

 

[BlueTrain]

Ah, the Nude Ranch! I thought that was in San Francisco. The correct term would be, I believe, "athletic." But the hourglass figure still appeared in the form, so to speak, of older women, who quite naturally would have looked dated, even in real life. One of the best examples I can think of is Queen Mary (Mary of Teck) who had a fashionable hourglass figure when she married in the 1890s. Her waist must have been no more than twenty inches. The hourglass figure was of course semi-artificially created with tightly laced corsets and perhaps a bustle. Wonderbras came later.

It is true, however, that a boyish figure was popular in the 1920s (before the depression). A straight silhouette seems to have been the thing, along with short hair, short skirts, bee sting lips and the things that went with them. Close-fitting hats, a lowered waist line, coats with oversized collars and so on. I don't know what larger women did.

Some elements of the older hourglass figure came back after the war, with fuller skirts, small waists and lower hemlines. The human body is quite pliable when it comes to fashion.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think it was a combination of factors in the 1930s, not the least of which was the idea that women were expected to take a greater role in society than simply being broad-hipped Mothers Of The Race. It was fashionable in the thirties to be an active, athletic woman with interests outside the home. The whole "Live Alone And Like It" ethos of the mid-thirties revolved around personal independence, and brought with it a no-nonsense, businesslike personal aesthetic.

In 1930s popular culture, a large bust was seen as the mark of a dowager -- a middle-aged Margaret Dumont-like character carrying a lorgnette and accompanied by a ridiculous yappy little dog. When a Daily Worker cartoonist wanted to show a caricature of the Stereotypical Capitalist and his wife, the wife always had a gigantic pillow-like bosom.

The arrival of the New Look in 1947 was opposed by many independent-minded women who preferred the trim, no-fuss wartime styles to all the preposterous foof of postwar fashion.

 

[BlueTrain]

That's the image that comes to mind when I hear the character "Mrs. Uppington" (Uppie) on the Fibber McGee & Molly show, although the real person who played her did not look like that. But I also am reminded of a woman I knew, sort of, when I was little, in the 1950s. I don't remember her name but she had a habit of dropping in on some of the neighbors, all of whom graciously entertained her--at the kitchen table. She was matronly and had a funny speech defect which I don't remember well enough to describe.

When you reach a certain age (uncertain in females), everyone you meet reminds you of someone you already know.

 

[belfastboy]

Hello, the

Hello, the Golden Era is often associated with the busty hourglass figure. Are there examples of old Hollywood actresses with a small bust?

longer. It is no longer socially acceptable.
lden Era is often associated with the busty hourglass figure. Are there examples of old Hollywood actresses with a small bust?

I don't think we as males are allowed to notice these things any

 

[BlueTrain]

I rather expect that we as males (those of us who are, that is) are expected to notice such things. There may be things we are expected not to notice but a woman's general figure is not one of them. One might say that the whole point.

Regarding thin women, magazine advertisements that appeared in the 1920s and 1930s suggest that women who were underweight were probably painfully conscious of it and interested in wait-gain products. I was skinny, too, when I was little and likewise painfully conscious of it, although I don't remember hearing anything about wait-gain products at the time. One of my friends was also skinny and still is. The rest were "normal," I guess. The interesting thing is that of all the people that I knew then (say, in grade school on into high school) still retained their basic body shape when I saw them last, which was in most cases about fifty years after the previous time when we were all still in school. In fact, I though it was uncanny. No one had gained any noticeable weight at all.

I am afraid, unfortunately, that my observations and memories cannot be extended to include bust size.

 

[Edward]

Also worth noting, when we look at such things through modern eyes, the sort of surgical enhancement that has become almost a norm in Hollywood in recent decades was far from available in the thirties. (Indeed, actresses considered 'busty', or at least 'sex symbols' even into the eighties are often, looking back, less prominent in the chest than is common now that surgical enhancement is all but a standard.)

 

[emigran]

Incredulous that there are actually are responses to this question...

 

[Fading Fast]

Also worth noting, when we look at such things through modern eyes, the sort of surgical enhancement that has become almost a norm in Hollywood in recent decades was far from available in the thirties. (Indeed, actresses considered 'busty', or at least 'sex symbols' even into the eighties are often, looking back, less prominent in the chest than is common now that surgical enhancement is all but a standard.)

I've thought about this as there's been such an increase in the average size since, I guess, the '90s when augmentation surgery became prevalent, that it's almost like the steroid scandal in baseball where you can't compare before and after. Or, as you said, our "modern eyes" would see many women pre-'90s as smaller than they were thought of in their day.

Also, when there was no surgery to change things - it was what it was - and a wider variations (in this case, really, just a fatter tail to the left as the statisticians say, i.e, more small busts) was accepted, expected and embraced. IMHO, it's another thing we lost that the GE era had - a wider view of "attractiveness" in women's bodies. I applaud the few female stars today who, clearly, have said no to surgery.

Like everyone posting here, I'm sincerely treating this like the way we do all our other threads as a fun, but thoughtful conversation about some topic relevant to the GE. I hope my comments are coming across as intended.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Reconstructive breast surgery did exist in the Era, but it was available exclusively to cancer patients, it was complicated, and the idea was to restore shape, not add volume.

Cosmetic mammoplasty didn't become "a thing" until the invention of the silicone implant in the early 1960s, not coincidentially the height of the Big Pneumatic Movie Star craze -- Jayne Mansfield, Joi Lansing, Mamie Van Doren, and the rest of the postwar booboisie -- and also the point in time where an enormous generation of young men was becoming fully aware of sex. That alone ensured that The Bigger The Better The Tighter The Sweater would become the watchword for the times, and an army of pornographers was right on board to further encourage the image, leading us to where we are today.

Not that there weren't large bosoms in earlier years -- but the notoriety of Jane Russell in the mid-1940s only serves to punctuate just how unorthodox she was compared to other stars of the time.

 

[Zombie_61]

...I applaud the few female stars today who, clearly, have said no to surgery...

Same here, regardless of whether or not those women are "stars". I realize they did it to themselves, so to speak, but I have compassion for those women who have inadvertently mutilated their bodies in an effort to attain a false and completely arbitrary standard of "beauty". I fully support anyone, male or female, who undergoes reconstructive surgery because of physical trauma or illness, but in my opinion performing the same procedure(s) on a perfectly healthy person is unnecessary and foolish.

 

[BlueTrain]

The movie stars--or starlets--mentioned above had careers mostly built around their figures and their reputations. I don't think Marilyn Monroe is really in the same category in spite of what she did as a model.