is marking the 50th anniversary
of the cancellation of her
television show. She was Voluptua,
hostess of a weekly series of romantic
movies broadcast on KABC Channel 7,
beginning Dec. 15,1954.
Unfortunately, Voluptua was ahead
of her time, and viewers were not
ready for her seductive greeting,
"Welcome to my boudoir. Take off your
coat, ties.'anything you want to take
off. Just be comfortable." She reclined
near a satin couch and gold telephone
trimmed in mink.
She wore a low-cut, tight-fitting gold
lame' evening gown. But by the end of
the program, Voluptua would be
suggestively dressed in a necktie and a
pair of men's pajamas.
Angry wives and church groups
protested her sexy flirting on the air,
calling her "Corruptua." And when the
FCC threatened to cancel the station's
license, it took Voluptua off the air
after only seven weeks.
"It was suggestive—corny, not pomy
—but the public couldn't handle it at
the time," says Gloria.
Now, 50 years later, she quips, "I
used to have a figure that wouldn't
quit, but one day it did."
As you might guess, Gloria's life has
been anything ordinary. At age 16, she
took classes and became an aircraft
mechanic, working on bombers and
fighter planes during World War II.
"My father was in the merchant
marine, and my brother was in the Air
Force. I wanted to do something," she
explains.
As the war was nearing an end, she
tired of the grease under her fingernails
and returned home to Brooklyn, where
she had grown up. Gloria was in the
Empire State Building, working for the
USO, on July 28, 1945, the day that a
plane crashed into its 79th floor. "We
didn't know what had happened. We
had to run down 56 floors with debris
falling around us," she recalls. Only
when she left the building and someone
told her to look up did she see the tail
of the B-25 bomber protruding out of
the building.
Gloria's career path changed when
she won a beauty contest, Miss
Gloria Pall today,
and 50 years ago as Voluptua
Flatbush of 1947. (Flatbush is a part of
Brooklyn.) The statuesque blonde,
nearly six feet tall in high heels, with
39-24-37 measurements, soon became
a model and "cover girl" appearing on
most of the men's magazines of the
day.
"I got in on the ground floor of
television," she says, when the studios
broadcast live from New York. Gloria
appeared on most of the variety shows,
with Eddie Cantor, Bob Hope, Milton
Berle, Robert Q. Lewis, etc.
Later, after moving to the West
Coast, Gloria appeared in Cameo roles
in a long list of television dramas and
comedy series, as well as movies. She
appeared on Kirk Douglas' arm in
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and
her legs appeared in a famous scene in
Jailhouse Rock with Elvis Presley,
She calls herself "the Cameo Girl of the
1950s."
1951 to work as a showgirl in the
casinos. She also performed at Las
Vegas casinos. and that's how she met
Howard Hughes. One night he sent a
note to her, wanting to meet her
backstage.
"I was gutsy," she recalls. "I told him
I wanted to be a movie star and wanted
his help." When he was taken aback,..
Gloria told him she used to be an,
airplane mechanic arid offered, "Any-
time you need my help with an airplane,
give me a call." He came to see her
show every night for a period.
With a natural flair for comedy, she
became a foil for comedians performing
at the casinos. And, when the Spike
Jones band was looking for a "pretty
but dumb girl" to act as erncee and
comedienne in skits, Gloria applied for
the job. There was a roomful of pretty
girls auditioning, but as Spike Jones
entered the room, she walked up to
him and said, "I defy you to find
anyone dumber than I am."
He remarked, "Either she's dumb
like a fox or really dumb. Let's hire
her." Gloria toured with the band in
1954-
Eventually, she decided at age 37 to
get married, and had a baby.
By the 1980s, Gloria decided that
real estate might be a profitable career
and got her license. Her first sale was a
home that was not even listed; she
convinced the owner that it would be
good to sell, and she had a buyer!
Always an activist, Gloria obtained a
broker's license and opened her own
real estate office, which catered to
celebrities. It was painted lavender to
coordinate with her lavender Mercedes
and lavender Thunderbird cars.
"One day, an emissary from Howard
Hughes came in and said that Mr.
Hughes had recommended her as an
agent to find 'hideaways' for his
starlets to lease," she recalls. Gloria
found homes tucked away in the hills
and earned a commission on each of
the leases.
Now mostly retired from real estate,
Gloria has written and self-published 13
books, which she sells on her website,
www.gloriapall.com. They cover her
experiences in show business, like her
sells pin-up photos of herself from her
glamour days. Some were taken by
former silent movie actor Harold Lloyd
at his estate in 1964. Photography was
his hobby, and he took the pictures with
a 3-D camera. The photos were stored
away and discovered many years later
by Lloyd's daughter.
Gloria's performances now are
limited to a bit of stand-up comedy at
senior centers and nursing homes. And
at an annual memorial service for
Marilyn Monroe, she quipped, "People
used to compare me to Marilyn Mon-
roe, but now it's M&M candy. I'm
round, sweet, colorful and sometimes
nutty.
