One of the most beautiful screen stars of the Forties, the blonde and green-eyed Virginia Mayo was a versatile performer who graduated from being one of the decorative Goldwyn Girls to become a top star. She danced well enough to play in several musicals, proved an admirable foil for both Bob Hope and Danny Kaye, and excelled as a girl who had "been around", in such films as Flaxy Martin and Smart Girls Don't Talk. Her most memorable roles were two of her most unsympathetic, the faithless wife in The Best Years of Our Lives, and the shrewish moll of James Cagney's gangster in the classic gangster movie White Heat.

Born Virginia Jones in 1920 in St Louis, she developed an interest in dancing at an early age, and at six she became a pupil at an aunt's drama school. Seeing shows staged by the St Louis Municipal Opera fuelled her ambitions to be a dancer, and on graduation in 1938 she successfully auditioned to join the company's chorus ("I had the happiest year of my life working with the Muni Opera"). The following year she and five other girls formed a night-club act, which led to her being hired by a vaudeville performer, Andy Mayo.

Mayo did an act in which he and another man cavorted in a horse suit, joking, singing and dancing with a lady "ringmaster", normally played by Mayo's wife. When she became pregnant he hired Virginia, who changed her last name to Mayo to disguise from bookers the fact that the act had changed its personnel.

She toured vaudeville houses for three years before winning a small role in a Broadway musical, Banjo Eyes (1941), starring Eddie Cantor. The showman Billy Rose then hired her, along with the "Pansy the Horse" act, to appear at his night-club, the Diamond Horseshoe. "Billy Rose really showcased me," she later recalled. "He gave me beautiful costumes, a spot in the show where I danced solo, and I also did the part in the horse act."

The producer Sam Goldwyn, alerted by Rose to the charms of Mayo, signed her to a seven-year contract and started grooming her to be a star, with lessons in acting, voice, posture and dance. She was also put on a diet and had her cheeks "contoured" by a masseuse prior to making her début as a Goldwyn Girl in Up in Arms (1944), the first film to star Danny Kaye. In a memorable dream sequence, Mayo can be seen as one of the "human trees" in a fanciful forest.

During this period Goldwyn allowed her to take bit roles at Fox in the Betty Grable vehicles Sweet Rosie O'Grady (1943) and Pin Up Girl (1944), and larger roles in Jack London (1943) and Seven Days Ashore (1944). On the set of Jack London she fell in love with the film's star, Michael O'Shea ("I saw him on the set sitting there, and I thought he was kind of cute"). They married in 1947, a union that lasted until O'Shea's death in 1973.

With Mayo's apprenticeship complete, Goldwyn then gave her the female lead in the Bob Hope comedy The Princess and the Pirate (1945). Looking gorgeous in Technicolor, Mayo sparred well with Hope, and sang (dubbed by Louanne Hogan) and danced to the song "How Would You Like to Kiss Me in the Moonlight?" The critic of Newsweek reported, "Miss Mayo is lovely in Technicolor and more than adequate to the film's negligible acting demands." At the film's conclusion Hope is preparing to embrace Mayo when she walks past him to hug a sailor (Bing Crosby). Hope quips, "I work my brains out for nine reels and some bit player from Paramount comes over and steals my girl!"

Mayo then played leading lady to Danny Kaye for the first of four times, in Wonder Man (1945), a zany tale in which she played a librarian in love with a scholarly young man (Kaye) whose body is intermittently inhabited by the ghost of his murdered brother, a night-club entertainer. Asked about rumours of friction with Kaye, Mayo replied,

He was not in favour of having me in all his pictures, so he was resentful of that. He wanted somebody like Ingrid Bergman to work with him. Well, that was kind of silly. I was a very good foil for him. He didn't know it at the time but it was true. He didn't know I had all this comedy experience, you see.

Wonder Man was a popular hit, but the next film, The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), was to be the biggest success of the films in which Mayo appeared with Kaye. Based on the play The Milky Way, filmed 10 years earlier with Harold Lloyd, it told of a timid milkman who inadvertently knocks out a boxing champion and is then taught to box to the strains of "The Blue Danube". Lavishly produced, it had a fine supporting cast and a score by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn.

The same year Mayo was given her most challenging role to date, in William Wyler's superb story of returning servicemen The Best Years of Our Lives. As the shallow floozy who is faithless when her husband of two weeks (Dana Andrews) goes off to war, and who derides his post-war efforts

In this picture, there are five seniors for the class of 1975. These seniors are the leaders of the student body government, which means they were elected to their positions by their peers. Notice how there are three girls, and two guys. The president is still a male. According to Rosenwasser et al, this is not uncommon because of four reasons. “(1) “Self-selection”: Compared to men women less frequently seek political office; (2) “Targeting”: Women candidates are more often in races in which they face a strong opposition candidate and have little chance of winning; (3) “Political Resources”: Women do not have comparable backgrounds or party support; (4) “Sexism” : Female versus male candidates are at a disadvantage because of attitudes towards women as politicians.” As this analysis suggests, women are at the disadvantage because of their sex. As the last point Rosenwasser makes is sexism. In 1975, it was a joke for women to be in leadership positions, as it was until only a few years ago. As a woman myself, If I were to peruse career as a politician, even today I could be beat by a male candidate simply because of my sex. Mezey, believes that one possible reason for this lack of power is actually our own fault. Throughout history, women’s rightful place has been in the home, taking care of the kids, and family not in the work force, making a name for ourselves. In many professional positions, where a man is above a woman, the woman is often treated with bias opinions and are not given the same opportunities as men. “This bias makes sex a detriment to women’s ability to gain and hold public office once they opt for political careers.” However, who says that women cannot be the master of the house and hold political careers? After all, America is changing. According to the 2007 census, there were 159,000 stay-at-home fathers, either by choice or unemployment, were as in these families, the women were the breadwinners of the family, the only source of income. The gender role is changing, where the roles are more equal in the home. Men doing the dirty work of cooking or laundry, and women working full time jobs. In 1975, these gender roles were so engraved, women would teach, become a hair dresser or stay at home with the kids, very few became politicians or doctors or lawyers. Those that did faced heavy dislike from their male peers in the workforce.


Attitudes Toward Women and Men in Politics. Rosenwasser, Rodgers, Fling, Silvers-Pickens and John Butemeyer.Attitudes Toward Women and Men in Politics: Perceived Male and Female Candidate Compenices and Participant Personality Characteristics. International Society of Political Psychology. 1987

Mezey, Susan. “Does Sex Make a Difference? A Case Study of Women in Politics.” In The Western Political Quarterly, 492-501 University of Utah.



Smith Jeremy, The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared Parenting are Transforming the American Family. Boston: Beacon Press 2009