Gloria Pall was Hollywood’s ultimate rebel — too glamorous, too bold, and way ahead of her time.
And when networks pulled her shows, she had one response that stunned everyone…
Born in Brooklyn on July 15, 1927, Gloria Pall would grow into a model, actress, TV hostess, and writer — a woman who lived boldly in an era that didn’t always welcome fearless women.
Growing up in poverty during the Great Depression, Gloria learned early how to be resourceful. After her father died, she stepped up and embraced challenges head-on. During World War II, she joined the Civil Air Patrol as an aircraft mechanic — an unusual job for a woman at the time — but it perfectly suited her adventurous spirit.
Sometimes Gloria’s life veered into true adventure. In the summer of 1945, she was working at the USO headquarters on the 56th floor of New York City’s Empire State Building — when suddenly, a U.S. Army B-25 Mitchell bomber crashed into the 79th floor. Fourteen people were killed, but Gloria narrowly escaped with her life.
”It threw me across the room, and I landed against the wall. We didn’t know if it was a bomb or what happened. It was terrifying,” Pall told NPR in 2008.
Pulled the show
After the war, Gloria turned heads as a model.
Her platinum-blonde hair, curvy figure, and piercing blue eyes made her one of the most photographed glamour girls of the 1950s. She posed for men’s magazines like Modern Man, Rogue, and Follies, cementing her status as a post-war pin-up icon.
But Gloria wasn’t content to just look beautiful — she had bigger ambitions. In 1954, she caused a sensation with her TV character, Voluptua, billed as “the girl who makes grown men blush.” Reclining on satin sheets in tight gowns, she hosted late-night films with a seductive, tongue-in-cheek style meant to parody the era’s obsession with sensuality.
