For a long time, during the war, our source of supply was cut off, when the gals made more money at home in defense work or as waitresses than they could expect to begin with in the expensive-to-live-in metropolis.
But in days before that, there was no horizon at home for a good-looker with ambitions.
They hitchhiked, rumbled in by bus, train and plane. The more fortunate became models or show girls. One of a thousand went on to fame and fortune in Hollywood or acquired a millionaire, in or out of wedlock.
But the reward for the lucky ones is so great that for every failure a dozen new, young, starry-eyed twists come to town.
The case of Mary Stuart, of Tulsa, Okla., is typical.
It is one of the stories that could only happen on Broadway.
The chief characters:
Joe Pasternak, famed movie producer and discoverer of Deanna Durbin; his wife, the former Dorothy Darrell, who was a chorus girl Cinderella, and Mary Stuart, the 19-year-old beaut from out West.
But let us start from the beginning. Destiny stopped in Tulsa and pointed his long, bony finger straight at New York. Mary took the hint.