Here, American actress and singer Gloria DeHaven posing in themed promotional publicity stills for Thanksgiving, ca. 1952. During Hollywood’s Golden Age, major studios routinely staged seasonal pin-up shoots to keep their contract players in newspapers and fan magazines year-round.
At the time these were taken, DeHaven was a prominent contract star for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Studios produced thousands of holiday-themed photos, ranging from Fourth of July sparklers to Thanksgiving turkeys, and distributed them to the press for free to promote their actors and upcoming films.
Photographers dressed DeHaven in a playful “farmer’s daughter” outfit complete with a straw hat, plaid shirt, and shorts. This was a popular, wholesome pin-up aesthetic of the era that contrasted with the actors’ glamorous on-screen personas. Although they look like candid farm shots, the dramatic cloud backdrop, clean hay bales, and staged lighting show that the photos were taken on an indoor soundstage or studio backlot.
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