Which classic period actresses would have done nude scenes?

Barbara Payton, natch, but can’t think of any other obvious choices. Anyone?

Hedy Lamarr

Marilyn Monroe

Maureen O’Sullivan, in fact, I believe she did one in a Tarzan movie.

Fay Wray just seems likely to me.

I suspect Audrey Hepburn would have been willing. She did not seem like the type to be uptight about such.

Several of the famous dancers are probably strong candidates. Dancers seem to be casual about nudity.

So I would guess:
Ginger Rogers
Cyd Charisse
Leslie Caron

I suppose many classic period actresses would, probably several with squeaky clean images. At the same time I have the feeling Liz Taylor & Ava Gardner would have avoided it, despite their bad girl reps.

Jim

Joan Crawford did porn.

You know, statements like that require some sort of cite. Really, I am not joking, can you point to some verification of this?

From IMDB:

Jane Russell

:crosses fingers:

It’s impossible to speculate who “would have done” nude scenes. Actresses back then had a completely different mindset than today (and those today are different from actresses in the 70s, when nude scenes were much more common).

Lamarr did a nude scene, and Monroe posed nude, so they probably would have, but unless an actress did do a nude scene, there’s no way to tell if she might have done one.

Yes, but the early 30’s mindset was very different from the 40’s mind set.

I am not even sure what we mean by classic period actresses. Nudity and near nudity happened in the early 30’s and disappeared from main stream movies completely until sometime in the 60’s. So do we look at only actresses from after the Hays Code in 1934?

Jim

that’s Hedley!

Well, ok, she was widely rumored to have done porn. I read something by Kenneth Anger in which he more or less claimed as fact that she had done stag films before she got famous. I could have sworn there was also some kind of old film out there somewhere with an actress who looks like her and reputedly was her, but maybe that’s not verified.

Oh, there’s an image I didn’t need.

Shame on you folks for not thinking of the most obvious name - Mae West!

and Tallulah Bankhead.

You’re not fooling anyone, Streisand! I know it was you in that grainy porn loop!

I am grateful for any thread that gives me the opportunity to mention Louise Brooks.

Would have done? How about should have done!

Myrna Loy…sigh…Carole Lombard…Eleanor Powell…

Probably the closest you’re going to get.

And if we’re talkin’ shoulda, then I gotta add Vera-Ellen and Joan Blondell.

Double sigh.

Nell Gwyn.

[sub]What?[/sub]

Vera didn’t load.

I’ll see your Joan Blondell and raise you June Preisser!

Myrna Loy would be my wish, and Barbara Payton, and Gloria Grahame.

I always thought Mildred Davis was quite pretty. I never thought Safety Last! could be improved upon but this thread has me second-guessing that.