Gloria Pall

Gloria Pall (born Gloria Pallatz; July 15, 1927 – December 30, 2012) was an American model, showgirl, actress, author, and businesswoman.

Biography

Gloria Pallatz was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1927. She attended the Casey Jones School of Aeronautics to learn to be an aircraft mechanic and work on war planes. During World War II, she worked as an aircraft mechanic in upstate New York at the Rome Army Air Depot. On July 28, 1945, she was employed by the USO headquarters office on the 56th floor of the Empire State Building in New York City when a U.S. Army B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed into the 79th floor. Fourteen people were killed; she narrowly escaped.

In 1947, she entered and won a "Miss Flatbush" contest which opened the door to work as a model. She worked as a showgirl in both Reno and Las Vegas, as well as in Hollywood, where for a time she was chosen to be "Miss Earl Carroll" from the huge cast of beauties. This was at the Earl Carroll Theatre on Sunset Blvd. in 1952. She dated Howard Hughes for a time.

She appeared on the cover of several national celebrity magazines and twice was a centerfold in Esquire.

In late 1954 and early 1955, she developed a television show called Voluptua for KABC-TV that caused a furor for what was then seen as obscenity. In a 2011 radio interview with author and broadcaster R. H. Greene, Pall reminisced about the Voluptua program, explaining the show's format, re-enacting character dialogue, and explaining how Christian and PTA groups labelled the character "Corruptua" and pressured KABC to take her off the air. Cancelled after seven weeks, Voluptua got Pall feature stories in Life and Playboy magazines. In 1959, Pall began developing a career in real estate, and in 1962 opened her own office on Sunset Strip. Her final known screen credit is the 1964 TV short Low Man on a Totem Pole.

Personal life On August 11, 1956, she wed actor Robert P. Eaton on a whim. They divorced a year later due to his infidelity. She married Allen Kane in 1965; they divorced on August 28, 1984. By her second marriage, she had her only child, her son, Jefferson Kane.

Publications Voluptua: Story of a TV Love Goddess (1992) Cameo Girl of the '50s (1993) I Danced Before the King (2000) The Marilyn Monroe Party (2002)