Betty Grable: The Girl With the Million Dollar Legs [Hardcover]

Tom McGee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1997

This is a newsy, respectful, affectionate tribute to a trouper...-- Booklist

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Twenty-two years after her death, Betty Grable still has a fan club. McGee was himself a die-hard Grable aficionado when he interviewed her for a Glasgow newspaper. The interview was followed by additional conversations with Grable and those who knew her best. The results are a detailed, career-oriented biography of the superstar who at one time received 12,000 fan letters per week. McGee shows us a humorous, hardworking, easygoing woman whose mother taught her to dance and who appeared in her first film at age 14. Hers was an active, scandal-free life--Hollywood, Broadway, nightclubs, television, two husbands, two daughters, and scores of famous friends, including her supposed replacement, Marilyn Monroe. McGee has lovingly captured the woman who admitted that her family meant more to her than her fabulous career; a woman who believed that her face, not her famous legs, held her fortune. This is a newsy, respectful, affectionate tribute to a trouper whose death at age 56 was mourned around the world. McGee's book is Grable's longest fan letter. Anyone looking for dirt had better dig elsewhere. Patricia Hassler

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Vestal Press (January 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1879511150
• ISBN-13: 978-1879511156
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,672,354 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Personal Insight into Hollywood's Box Office Champ, November 23, 2001

By 

William Hare (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Betty Grable: The Girl with the Million Dollar Legs (Paperback)

Betty Grable was the star whose pinup photograph was the most popular among World War Two servicemen. The vibrant blonde star also set a record that has never come close to being equaled in reigning as Hollywood's female box office champ for an incredible ten years. What made movie fans throughout the world love Betty Grable?

Scottish author Tom McGee supplies the answer to that question in his entertaining biography of the popular film great. A personal friend of Grable's who had the opportunity to interview her at length on many occasions, McGee etches an enduring portrait of a wholesome, caring woman who always put warmth as a human being and loyalties to family and friends above star persona. Ego was never a problem with the popular superstar in an industry often overcome by it. When one sees such a warm and totally unaffected woman emerge in the pages of "The Girl With The Million Dollar Legs" it becomes obvious that people the world over loved Betty Grable because of the vibrance, warmth, and sweetness they saw in her.

McGee's book is also rich in photographs capturing Grable and the luminous era in which she starred. There is also a warmly affecting Foreword by fellow Twentieth Century Fox blonde glamour girl, Alice Faye. Grable and Faye became great friends with no animosity or jealousy ever emerging.

This book is a must for Grable fans and all those who love the exciting cinema era of the forties and fifties. It is so refreshing to read a movie biography devoid of trashy gossip and petty commentary.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Meet the real Betty Grable!!!! What a star really is!, March 20, 2001

By 

Redtailhawk (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Betty Grable: The Girl with the Million Dollar Legs (Paperback)

If you are a Betty Grable fan this is the book you want. It is written by Tom McGee who knew her and used her words to write it. Not only does it have her film history and fantastic photos of her, but it shows Betty Grable as she was when the cameras weren't rolling. In this age of stars with huge egos and terrible personalities it is great to find out Betty was such a wonderful person who loved life and those around her. A true star, a great actress and a wonderful woman who many people obbviously loved for more than her legs. She, like all of us had her faults and problems. But, she overcame them as only a person with her kind and wonderful personality could. With grace and dignity, which is a novelty in this day and age. Million dollar legs, with a Billion dollar personality. Great job Tom McGee!!! Thank you for sharing the real Betty Grable with us. Sure beats the heck outta those sloppy hearsay dirt-digging books we see about her. Want the truth about Betty as a person, this is the book for you!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Extended loving fan letter, May 18, 2006

By 

Douglas M - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Betty Grable: The Girl with the Million Dollar Legs (Paperback)

Just as some biographies emphasise the negative qualities and scandals of some stars, this valentine to Betty Grable does the opposite. It is a detailed and loving tribute to the star. The author became a personal friend of Grable and was able to draw on conversations with her over an extended period so we get many quotes from Grable herself. If there is any criticism to make it, it is that the book does gloss over Grable's problems. It is a pity, as the author states, that her daughters did not participate. While she was obviously a warm, modest and funny woman, it would seem that while she may have wanted to be a good mother, she really wasn't equipped to be. Her own childhood was hardly normal since she began performing at age 12. Also, there is no doubt that her husband Harry James was a louse. Grable should have been financially secure, allowing her more time for her family but she was cleaned out supporting James's gambling habits, not that her own love of the horses etc did not have a bearing too. Whether she wanted to continue to work or not, she certainly had to.

The author captures what an excellent all round entertainer Grable was and there are plenty of personal details about her films, her exploitation by Darryl Zanuck, her eventual resistance to this exploitation and her own lack of ego. There are plenty of excellent photos too.