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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ClassyCo" data-source="post: 299517" data-attributes="member: 7">Betty Grable was the biggest box office star for 20th Century-Fox throughout the 1940s and early-'50s. As aforementioned, the profits generated from her films were ushered into more prestigious dramas and period pieces. Grable apparently enjoyed her cheery on-screen persona, and often rebuffed attempts by Fox chief Darryl F. Zanuck to broaden her audience appeal by casting her in more serious films. After making the film noir I WAKE UP SCREAMING and the WWII drama A YANK IN THE R.A.F. (both 1941), both which enjoyed critical and financial success, Grable steered away from making dramas in favor of starring in cheery musical comedies. After 1942, Grable's films were exclusively photographed in Technicolor, which became a trademark for Fox in the 1940s to film romantic musical comedies in vivid color. She was the #1 box office draw in America in 1943, a year when she made such smashes as CONEY ISLAND and SWEET ROSIE O'GRADY. Fox had brought Grable from Broadway to Hollywood in 1939 after Alice Faye suddenly became ill with appendicitis. Faye had been the studio's biggest musical film star for the last five years, but Zanuck felt that Grable would be a suitable alternative to Faye were Faye to refuse scripts or simply be unavailable for films that had been slated for her. Fox cast Grable in DOWN ARGENTINE WAY in 1940, a South American musical comedy that co-starred Don Ameche and Carmen Miranda. The female lead had been intended for Faye, but she was ill and unable to fulfill the assignment. When the film proved successful, Fox refocused their attention to Grable, who eventually became more successful than Faye at the box office. Grable and Faye co-starred together in TIN PAN ALLEY (1940), were they played sisters, and as reported, the two ladies enjoyed a healthy behind-the-scenes relationship despite rumors of a feud stirring concerning Grable's "taking over" from Faye as Fox's primary musical film asset. (BELOW: Faye and Grable photographed in a still from the "Harem number" from TIN PAN ALLEY.) [ATTACH=full]31596[/ATTACH] In time, Fox hired young actress June Haver as a cheaper alternative to Grable. Haver was signed by the studio in 1943, and made her film debut in THE GANG'S ALL HERE (1943), starring Alice Faye. Like Grable, Haver got her big break by replacing Faye in IRISH EYES ARE SMILING (1944), a role Faye declined for personal reasons. Over the next nine years, Haver starred in a series of moderately-budgeted and reasonably successful musical romances for Fox, with THE DOLLY SISTERS (1945) co-starring Grable. [ATTACH=full]31598[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

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