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How the Columbia Pictures logo has been Betty Crocker all along
Betty Venables ended up at UCLA
Matthew: I've noticed that the Columbia Pictures logo — “Columbia,” the woman in the long robe that they show at the beginning of their movies — seems to have changed. Who was the model for the new logo? Did they use a real person when they designed it? — Andrea, Hillcrest
Don’t you think the new Columbia lady looks like Betty Crocker wrapped in a bed sheet? Does to me, anyway. Sort of wholesome, like she’s about to whip a plate of fresh-baked chocolate chips out from under that robe. Her ladyship has passed through several incarnations, depending on the mood of the times. In 1926 she was a tiara’d babe in a slinky dress with plunging neckline holding up a lightbulb-shaped thing; in the ’30s she looked like a Busby Berkeley ingenue; in the World War II era her flag shawl got pretty huge and she was less slinky, more all-American. Her plunging neckline was traded for a modestly front-slit skirt. In the protest era of the ’60s, they took away her flag. Maybe burned it. Then Columbia herself disappeared in the ’70s, replaced by a sunburst or a car crash or something explosive. But she’s back, her new ’90s face a committee-designed, computer-manipulated pastiche of the features of several women, whose names no one is willing to reveal. But I know it’s Betty. Trust me on this one.
March 30 update
Interesting communique from Jim Menders of Pacific Beach re: the torch-bearing Columbia Pictures logo lady, a question we screened here a few weeks ago. The current version has a virtual face — a computer-manipulated jigsaw of chin, cheekbones, etc., of several nameless models — but the original black-and-white version in the ’30s, says Jim, was fashioned after “wholesome” ingenue starlet Evelyn Venable (Death Takes a Holiday, Alice Adams, The Frontiersman). Venable ditched Hollywood and eventually became a lecturer in classics at UCLA. So in the ’30s, at least, there was a brain behind the face that launched a thousand clips.
Here's something you might be interested in.
How the Columbia Pictures logo has been Betty Crocker all along
Betty Venables ended up at UCLA
How the Columbia Pictures logo has been Betty Crocker all along
Betty Venables ended up at UCLA
Matthew: I've noticed that the Columbia Pictures logo — “Columbia,” the woman in the long robe that they show at the beginning of their movies — seems to have changed. Who was the model for the new logo? Did they use a real person when they designed it? — Andrea, Hillcrest
Don’t you think the new Columbia lady looks like Betty Crocker wrapped in a bed sheet? Does to me, anyway. Sort of wholesome, like she’s about to whip a plate of fresh-baked chocolate chips out from under that robe. Her ladyship has passed through several incarnations, depending on the mood of the times. In 1926 she was a tiara’d babe in a slinky dress with plunging neckline holding up a lightbulb-shaped thing; in the ’30s she looked like a Busby Berkeley ingenue; in the World War II era her flag shawl got pretty huge and she was less slinky, more all-American. Her plunging neckline was traded for a modestly front-slit skirt. In the protest era of the ’60s, they took away her flag. Maybe burned it. Then Columbia herself disappeared in the ’70s, replaced by a sunburst or a car crash or something explosive. But she’s back, her new ’90s face a committee-designed, computer-manipulated pastiche of the features of several women, whose names no one is willing to reveal. But I know it’s Betty. Trust me on this one.
March 30 update
Interesting communique from Jim Menders of Pacific Beach re: the torch-bearing Columbia Pictures logo lady, a question we screened here a few weeks ago. The current version has a virtual face — a computer-manipulated jigsaw of chin, cheekbones, etc., of several nameless models — but the original black-and-white version in the ’30s, says Jim, was fashioned after “wholesome” ingenue starlet Evelyn Venable (Death Takes a Holiday, Alice Adams, The Frontiersman). Venable ditched Hollywood and eventually became a lecturer in classics at UCLA. So in the ’30s, at least, there was a brain behind the face that launched a thousand clips.
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