The Day I Became A Pin-Up Girl

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31169, 20 September 1966, Page 2

The Day I Became A Pin-Up Girl

(By

MOYRA BIGELOW)

When I was still young enough to pose willingly for professional photographs, I decided to visit the studio of a Siamese photographer named Paranee, who claimed to be able to discover hidden glamour in anybody.

His statement was supported by a window adorned with exotic portraits. One of them bore a distinct resemblance to a former school-mate of mine nicknamed Podge, who glamorised by Paranee, could now grace any army barracks as a pin-up. Without a moment’s hesitation, I made an appointment.

I selected my clothes and cosmetics with care in an effort to get off to a good start, and entered Paranee’s studio. The small, slender man looked up at my five feet four inches and walked in a circle round me.

He then seated me on a very small stool and circled me, looking down. His expression was inscrutable. He paused, shrugged, and emitted a great sigh. I expected him to pronounce that this challenge was too great, but instead, he announced in a precise, clipped accent: “I shall take you in drapes. Yes?” I was turned over to the care of a large woman who could have been well cast in the role of a wardress frisking female prisoners. “She will wash her face,” the gentleman remarked nonchalantly as I was led into a booth. Shed Clothing Obediently, I shed most of my clothing. My custodian took a roll of white linen, winding it around and around like a bandage, from just below my armpits to my knees, fastening it tightly. No chastity belt could have been more secure.

I felt as if I was struggling cut of a test tube. My face was well scrubbed of its careful makeup, and then plastered with thick cream and an orange, greasy lipstick. At last. I tottered back to the studio, ready for the shooting to begin. The scrutiny was repeated. “1 will pluck your eyebrows. Yes?”

This completed, I was seated on a bench (a difficult procedure in so tight a bandage), and told to lean back on my right arm, held stiffly, and look over my right shoul-

der as far as I could, and then a little more. Hold. it. In this extremely uncomfortable pose, I discovered numerous potential arthritic aches, kinks and ricks. Paranee shook his head, grabbed my shoulders firmly and tried to wind my torso further round. He sighed heavily. “You are not relaxed. Get up. walk around the room, and return to this position.” Tortured Pose

Hobbled ludicrously by the bandage, I circled the room with tiny steps and resumed the tortured pose. Again, he tried to force my shoulders. “Until you are relaxed, I cannot take photograph.” Until you take photograph, 1 cannot relax, I decided. This seemed to create an impasse.

He stepped back and studied me with enigmatic concentration. “Relax. Do not be tense. Think pleasant thoughts.” Pleasant thoughts? Trussed up in a straitjacket and twisted like a corkscrew?

He draped a piece of gauze over my bare shoulder, and carefully mussed my hair, arranging a lock to fall on my shoulder. “You are thinking happy thoughts?” he asked. 1 nodded, hoping he had no powers of telepathy.

He returned to his camera at which 1 gazed over my shoulder. He ordered me to close my eyes, opening them very slowly as he counted to 10. I heard the first click when he had counted four, and my eyes were at halfmast. Next, he clicked at two, and then at three. Only once did he wait until my eyes were widened at 10. The ordeal was over.

A week later, I called to see the proofs. With sphinxlike calm, Paranee lined them on the counter Wow! I goggled at the exotic creature with her smouldering, sultry gaze.

“That is you,” be assured me, with his magnificent

Oriental tranquillity. “The camera cannot lie. That is the real you.” Brigitte Bardot, move over. Actually, in those days, Lana Turner, or Betty Grable wore the crown. Perhaps this could have been one of those tides in the affairs of men which lead on to fortune, but over Paranee’s shoulder, I could see my reflection in a raincoat and beret, clutching a shopping-bag. Droopy-eyed Hastily, I selected the most droopy-eyed proof, to Paranee’s satisfaction. Clearly, he had no use for the one of wide-eyed innocence. I placed an extravagant order for enlargements and prints. Two weeks later they were ready, and I floated home to exhibit the Real Me to my disbelieving parents and brother.

Oh, well, families are never polite. 1 did, however, expect more from my friends. They need not have been quite so blatantly astounded. The biggest problem was how to distribute all those prints. These were not the type of photographs to send to aunts, uncles, or girl friends. They were also inappropriate to send to former boy friends. As for my hus-band-to-be, some inner wisdom warned me not to send them to him at an Army camp. The biggest enlargement stood on the piano, but soon, the unfavourable comparisons between the likeness and the original, and the type of humour thus evoked began to pall. I decided to place the Real Me face down in a trunk. It travelled that way across the Atlantic, and, a decade and a half later, across the Pacific. Resurrection It was resurrected recently one wet Saturday when my sons were rummaging in the trunk in quest of dice. “Wow! Who’s the bird?” they asked, showing me the somewhat yellowed, but still smouldering portrait. Nonchalantly, I informed them that it was Mother when young. This statement was greeted with hilarity and whoops of derision. “You never looked like that. Dad, did Mum ever look like that?” Of course, I knew better than to expect moral support. 1 resisted the temptation to burn the Real Me, and placed it back in the trunk.