She was a popular G.I. pin-up girl during the 1940s and did several layouts, including one for Esquire magazine. She did a stint as "The Coca-Cola Girl" in advertisements and was a disc jockey for the Armed Forces Radio Services and hosted a show called "Radio Calling". In the 1950s, Rebel discovered that a New Orleans stripper began using her name and she had to legally stop her.

According to an interview with Mike Barnum in the December 2009 issue of "Classic Images", she got her initial start after winning a scholarship to the Max Reinhardt Workshop in Hollywood where she appeared as Queen Titania in a version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream. Once a John Robert Powers model before going to Hollywood. Born and raised in Chicago, and graduated from Foreman High School.

A glamorous brunette, she is remembered for her several dozen cinematic appearances from the early 1940s thru the mid 1950s. After making a name for herself doing radio commercials, she moved to Hollywood where she made her 1940 silver screen bow in "Turnabout". Working as a Paramount contract player, she was seen in numerous features of the day, among them 1941's "The Lone Rider in Ghost Town", "In Old Oklahoma" and "The Powers Girl" (both 1943), the 1945 "Booby Dupes", and 1945's "The Shadow Returns".

During World War II, Rebel also worked as a Powers model, was a popular GI pin-up girl, was featured as "Esquire" magazine's centerfold at least twice, and had two failed marriages to radio personality William Mann Moore, A.K.A. Peter Potter; in 1949, she was named "The Most Beautiful Girl on TV".

In September 1953, Rebel married wealthy actor and businessman Glenn Thompson in an ill-starred union that lasted only a few days due to her husband's apparent mental instability, the marriage ending in annulment.

Last seen on the screen in the 1956 short "Come on Seven", she lived the rest of her days in Southern California, was for a time the face of Coca-Cola, had romances with several high-profile men, though she never married again, gradually faded from view, and died after spending her final years in a nursing facility. A number of her films are preserved on DVD.

ILLUSTRATOR/ARTIST:

George Edward Hurrell (June 1, 1904 – May 17, 1992) was a photographer who contributed to the image of glamour presented by Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s.

Early life[edit]

Born in the Walnut Hills district of Cincinnati, Ohio, Hurrell originally studied as a painter with no particular interest in photography.^[1] He first began to use photography only as a medium for recording his paintings. After moving to Laguna Beach, California from Chicago, Illinois in 1925 he met many other painters who had connections. One of those connections was Edward Steichen who encouraged him to pursue photography after seeing some of his works. Hurrell also found that photography was a more reliable source of income than painting.^[2] Hurrell was an apprentice to Eugene Hutchinson.^[3] His photography was encouraged by his friend aviator Pancho Barnes, who often posed for him. He eventually opened a photographic studio in Los Angeles.^[2]

Career in Hollywood[edit]

In the late 1920s, Hurrell was introduced to the actor Ramon Novarro, by Pancho Barnes, and agreed to take a series of photographs of him.^[2] Novarro was impressed with the results and showed them to the actress Norma Shearer, who was attempting to mould her wholesome image into something more glamorous and sophisticated in an attempt to land the title role in the movie The Divorcee.^[2] She asked Hurrell to photograph her in poses more provocative than her fans had seen before. After she showed these photographs to her husband, MGM production chief Irving Thalberg, Thalberg was so impressed that he signed Hurrell to a contract with MGM Studios, making him head of the portrait photography department. But in 1932, Hurrell left MGM after differences with their publicity head,^[4] and from then on until 1938 ran his own studio at 8706 Sunset Boulevard.^[5]

Throughout the decade, Hurrell photographed every star contracted to MGM, and his striking black-and-white images were used extensively in the marketing of these stars. Among the performers regularly photographed by him during these years were silent screen star Dorothy Jordan, as well as Myrna Loy, Robert Montgomery, Jean Harlow, Ramon Novarro, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Rosalind Russell, Marion Davies, Jeanette MacDonald, Lupe Velez, Anna May Wong, Carole Lombard and Norma Shearer, who was said to have refused to allow herself to be photographed by anyone else. He also photographed Greta Garbo at a session to produce promotional material for the movie Romance. The session didn't go well and she never used him again.^[2]

In the early 1940s Hurrell moved to Warner Brothers Studios photographing, among others Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Ida Lupino, Alexis Smith, Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney. Later in the decade he moved to Columbia Pictures where his photographs were used to help the studio build the career of Rita Hayworth.

Postwar[edit]

He left Hollywood briefly to make training films for the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Forces. When he returned to Hollywood in the mid-1950s his old style of glamour had fallen from favour. Where he had worked hard to create an idealised image of his subjects, the new style of Hollywood glamour was more earthy and gritty, and for the first time in his career Hurrell's style was not in demand. He moved to New York and worked for the advertising industry where glamour was still valued. He continued his work for fashion magazines and photographed for print advertisements for several years before returning to Hollywood in the 1960s.

After 1970, his most prominent work was as a photographer for album covers. He shot the cover photos for Cass Elliot's self-titled album (1972), Tom Waits' Foreign Affairs (1977), Fleetwood Mac's Mirage (1982), Queen's The Works (1984), Midge Ure's The Gift (1985) and Paul McCartney's Press to Play (1986).

Death[edit]

Hurrell died from complications from bladder cancer shortly after completing a TBS documentary about his life. He died on May 17, 1992.

Since his death, his vintage works have continued to appreciate in value and examples of his artistic output can be found in the permanent collections of numerous museums around the world.