#cathy downs

(via Film Noir Photos: Bevy of Beauties: Starlets of 1949)

This photo was taken in October 1949 in Hollywood (Los Angeles, USA).

The famous LIFE magazine sent photographer Philip Halsman to Los Angeles to make a photo essay about aspiring and promising Hollywood actresses.

Top row (from left to right):

Lois Maxwell is a Canadian actress who later gained worldwide fame as the first performer of the role of Miss Moneypenny in James Bond films.

Suzanne Dalbert is a French actress who starred in American films and television in the 1940s and 1950s.

Enrica "Ricki" Soma is a model and ballerina who soon became the fourth wife of director John Huston and the mother of famous actress Anjelica Huston.

Middle row (from left to right):

Laurette Luez is an actress and model, best known for the adventure film Prehistoric Women, 1950.

Jane Nigh is a star of low—budget films and popular TV series of the 50s.

Dolores Gardner is an aspiring starlet whose film career turned out to be quite short.

Bottom row (from left to right):

Marilyn Monroe was at that time still a little-known actress, who in a few years would become the main sex symbol of the era.

Cathy Downs is an actress who had already starred in John Ford's famous western My Dear Clementine (1946).