THE  STORY  OF  THE  STEELERETTES,  THE  FIRST  CHEERLEADING  SQUAD  IN  THE  NATIONAL  FOOTBALL  LEAGUE.

For over a hundred years, American football has been associated with cheerleading.  First in schools, whether at the high school, college or university level.  Most fairly large educational institutions with a student football club had, and still have, a group of cheerleaders to support them.

National Football League (NFL) clubs were exceptions to this rule, until 1961, when the Pittsburgh Steelers, in conjunction with Robert Morris Junior College, decided to form a women's cheerleading team to cheer on the local club's players and spectators, also in hopes of improving ticket sales to Steelers games.  Because in those years, the team had little success on the field, which hurt ticket sales.

In 1961, William Day, an administrator at the Robert Morris college, who was also the entertainment coordinator for the Steelers, had this idea to hold tryouts at the college and select a group of young female students to perform on the field during Steelers games.  Robert Morris was a small college without a football team, and the students had unofficially adopted the Steelers as «their team».  So it was a natural union...

At tryouts, candidates were evaluated on their athletic ability, coordination, personality, gymnastics, and appearance.  They also had to know football well to prove that they would know when to cheer.  At games, the performed choreographed jazz routines to live jazz music performed by Harold Betters and band leader Benny Benack.  Steelerettes received one free ticket per game as pay.

1961

Without realizing it, the young Steelerettes were making history as the first cheerleading squad in the NFL.  They would be adorned in outfits befitting of the steel town image of Pittsburgh.  Their uniforms consisted of gold knee-lenght bibbed jumpers and hard hats.

The first group of Steelerettes that cheered during the 1961 season were : Eleanor Lineman (Captain), Virginia Davis, Patricia Zuvella, Margaret Hensler, Dolly Merante, Margie McCormick, Sandy McEachran, Linda Walters and Barbara Bishop.

Contrary to their habits, the Pittsburgh Steelers had more success at home that year, winning four of their seven games.  And the Steelerettes proved to be a tremendous success with both the fans and the media.

1963

The 1962 season started off with a frenzy of public appearances.  When the squad was selected, Bob Prince interviewed them on his weekly TV show, and they were being mentioned in newspaper articles.  The Pittsburgh Steelerettes had become the darlings of the local sports scene.

A group of young men, called «the Ingots», who were also Robert Morris students, were added to complement and assist the cheerleaders in their routines.  But the experience lasted only one season.  The Ingots did not return in 1963.

1964

That year (1963), the Steelerettes uniforms were a bit brighter and the girls no longer had to wear the hard hats.  They were making regular appearances at charity functions, hospitals and schools.  The talented ladies were also regular performers during halftime at the Duquesne University basketball games.

The squad was increased to ten girls, which made it possible to do a classic pyramid, which from then on became one of the Steelerettes trademark routines.

Carefully choreographed acrobatic maneuvers were used to disassemble the pyramid.  The girl in the top position did a backflip onto the field, then a series of cartwheels ending in a split to begin the formation.  The next two did their backflips and cartwheels ending in a split on each side of the first and so on until we ended up forming a «V» on the field.  The girls performed this several times during the game and it was a genuine crowd pleaser.

1968

But the pyramid was difficult to pull-off, and sometimes the girls collapsed into pile.  The 1963 Steelerettes, as well as the 1969 squad, are immortalized in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  Among the films that are shown in the theater are bloopers.  The opening scenes of two such films show the pyramids collapsing in one of the Steelerettes humorous heaps.

Another well-rehearsed routine was the line dance that followed every Steelers score, performed to the rhythm of the «Pittsburgh Steelers Fight Song».

By the 1967 season, the idea of having cheerleaders on the sidelines had cought the attention of several other NFL teams, most notably the Dallas Cowboys, and times were changing.  The Steelerettes had always projected a wholesome, collegiate type image while the new wave of NFL cheerleaders mimicked the Cowboys cheerleaders and their go-go dancing «Rockettes» style.

The Steelerettes were starting to look a bit outdated.

By the late 1960's, Robert Morris' students body had grown and the school now had its own football team.  The decision to disband the Steelerettes was a joint decision between the Rooney family (owner of the Steelers) and Robert Morris.  Apparently, the cheerleaders wished to wear outfits that were more «modern» and «daring».

In response, the «very conservative» owner fired the team.  The last squad of Steelerettes left the field after the 1969 season, when the Steelers lost 13 of their 14 games.  They would never come back.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, to this day, are still among the few NFL teams that do not have cheerleaders.

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Three years later, Dallas Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm asked fashion designer Paula Van Wagoner to «modernize» the cheerleaders' uniforms of the team.  The result was the 1972 iconic DCC uniform which is in the Smithsonium Museum today...

Read the story here : (BIKINI AND POM POM GIRLS: 50 YEARS AGO, IN 1972, FASHION DESIGNER PAULA VAN WAGONER CREATED THE ICONIC UNIFORM OF THE DALLAS COWBOYS CHEERLEADERS.)

A MONTH AFTER GINA LOLLOBRIGIDA, ANOTHER FAMOUS BIKINI GIRL, RAQUEL WELCH, PASSED AWAY.

By 1966, bikini was becoming increasingly popular, especially among young women, in Western countries.  This two-piece bathing suit was not the very minimalist one that had caused a scandal on the almost totally naked body of stripper Micheline Bernardini, in Paris, on July 5, 1946.  This was shortly after the creation of the tiny bikini by the French engineer Louis Réard.

In the early 1950s, only pin-up girls (or a few other women who sometimes received police fines for indecency on public beaches) most of them movie stars, such as Brigitte Bardot, Gina Lollobrigida, Esther Williams, Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe, dared to appear in this very light outfit.

But for ordinary mortals, to appear in public, with so few clothes, was simply indecent, at least, for the mores of the time.

In the early 1960s, the American actress and signer Annette Funicello (brown hair girl on the photo above) will create the fashion of the Beach Party, in a series of movies around this theme.  Already a recognized artist thanks, among other things, to her roles in Disney studio productions, she is recommended by the producers to wear sober bathing suits, one-pieces, or, at least, not-too-revealing two-pieces that do not show her navel.

Because, for a woman, showing her navel was considered indecent, still, in puritanical America, at that time.

In 1963, from the first of this series of Beach Party films, that will be very popular, young people will imitate this kind of activity in their everyday life, obviously also wearing the famous bikini.

A little while before, in 1962, in a dazzling scene from the movie "Dr No", the famous Bond Girl Ursula Andress (photo), coming out of the sea with her splendid white bikini, had entered history, not only of cinema, but as a beauty icon who greatly contributed to the brand image of the bikini.

In 1966, Raquel Welch did the same by emerging from the water wearing a partially torn bikini, made of animal skin and fur, in the film "One Million Years B.C.".  The movie, almost totally silent, is a failure, and all Raquel Welch hopes is that it quickly sinks into oblivion, so that it does not damage her career, which is still in its infancy.

If this film, in which she says only three lines, is a failure, its promotional posters will be a phenomenal publicity stunt for Raquel Welch.  She appears in the foreground, dressed in her original cave woman bikini.  The sales sucesses of this poster are instant and overwhelming.  They break records and are distributed all over the planet. 

 

Overnight, thanks to this poster that testifies to her extreme beauty, Raquel Welch achieves worldwide fame, and she becomes a sex symbol, of which all moviegoers dream.  Every magazine wants photos of her, and she becomes an actress and a top model much sought after by film directors and fashion designers.  It is a total surprise for this young woman born in 1940, in Chicago, of an American mother, and a father of Bolivian origin.  

In her memoir (Raquel : Beyond the Cleavage, 2010) Welch wrote : "I was not brought up to be a sex symbol, nor is it in my nature to be one" (...) "The fact that I became one is probably the loveliest, most glamorous and fortunate misunderstanding".

Just before One Million Years B.C., Welch had the first success of her career thanks to her role in the sci-fi film Fantastic Voyage.  Previously, she had played small roles (including one, in 1964, in the film Roustabout starring Elvis Presley).  As was the case for Marilyn Monroe and Gina Lollobrigida, film producers confined Raquel Welch to many superficial roles, betting only on the beauty of her body.  Like her two famous colleagues, she will always protest against this categorazation of "woman object". 

 

Curiously, Welch, every man's sexual fantasy,  first owes her breakthrough in the Hollywood film industry (in 1965) to... a woman, the wife of producer Saul David, who, after seeing a magnificent photo of Raquel in Life magazine, sees great potential in her, and points it out to her husband.

David recommended Welch to a contract with 20th Century Fox.  She agreed to a lucrative seven-year contract, for five pictures over the next five years.  Almost forty other films will follow, as well as fifty television shows, making Raquel Welch a legend.

Her curves and beauty captured pop culture attention.  Playboy crowned her the "most desired woman" of the '70s, despite the fact that she never appeared completely naked in the magazine.  In 1995, she was named one of the 100 sexiest stars in film History.  The year after, she received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  And in 2013, Welch nabbed the No. 2 spot (behind only Jennifer Aniston) on Men's Health's "Hottest Women of All Time" list.

The film and television industry had finally rewarded her talents as an actress, singer and dancer by awarding her a Golden Globe for her role as Constance Bonacieux in the fil "The Three Musketeers (1973, photo).  She was nominated for this award, in 1988, thanks to her excellent performance in the television film "Right to Die".

Her remarkable career spanned five decades.  Unlike Gina Lollobrigida, who became an actress by chance, to pay for her studies at the School of Fine Arts of Rome (she wanted to become a painter), Raquel Welch became an actress by training.

In 1942, to serve his country's war efforts, her father, an aeronautical engineer, moved his family to La Jolia, California.  Very early, the one who then bears the name of Jo-Raquel Tejada, will want to become an artist of show business.  She took classes un dance, singing and acting.  

Already, at 14 years old, aware of her advantageous physique, she won beauty contests, and she soon landed a few modeling contracts.  Funny enough, after seven years of ballet lessons, seeing how much her feminine attributes have grown, her instructor makes her give up a career in this field, telling her right away that she really does not have the physique of the job !

For posterity, Raquel Welch holds a very high place in the Pantheon of female beauty of all time.  This stunning and breathaking beauty, and her glorious acting and modeling careers will ensure that she will never be forgotten.  Even if she died last Wednesday, at the age of 82, she will remain, in a way, immortal...  And one of the most famous bikini girl of all time !

Here is an audio-visual montage that attests to her legendary iconic beauty.

GINA LOLLOBRIGIDA, ONE OF THE FIRST BIKINI GIRL, DIES AT THE AGE OF 95.

In a previous article (https://bikiniandpompomgirls.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-most-beautiful-girl-in-world-to.html), we saw that after its creation, in 1946, by the French engineer Louis Réard, and the fashion designer Jacques Heim, the bikini, considered too daring for the mores of the time, did not know an immediate popular success.  It wasn't until the early 1950s, when movie stars like Brigitte Bardot and Gina Lollobrigida wore it, either in films, or posing for wide-ranging photos, that common women began to wear it timidly, and then increasingly in the 1960s.

Legendary diva Gina Lollobrigida died last week at the venerable age of 95.  Back in 1950, her photos showing her in a bikini played an important role in launching her great film career.  At the age of 20, in 1947, she studied at the School of Fine Arts in Rome.  To pay for her studies and bring home some money, after her family was ruined by the 39-45 war, she landed a few small roles in the cinema and she participated in beauty contests.

Her first big film contract will be granted to her by the renowned American producer Howard Hughes.  Falling under the spell of the young woman after seeing one of these photos where she poses in a bikini, Hughes brings her to Hollywood after signing her a contract.

Literally crazy about her body, of sculptural beauty, with voluptuous forms, he will lock her up for months in a Los Angeles hotel room.  Sometimes, during the night, he rents an orchestra, and he takes her out of the room to dance with her in the hotel restaurant.  Lollo, as she was later nicknamed, will eventually free herself from her confinement and she will participate in some American films.  For thirteen years, Hughes will try to seduce her.  In vain ...

Subsequently, Gina Lollobrigida will play the main roles (in 30 years she turned in more than sixty films) in cinematographic successes such as «Fanfan la Tulipe» (Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1952), in which she plays a bohemian character fortune teller, alongside the formidable French actor Gérard Philipe.

The same year, she burst onto the screen in her role as Leila, in René Clair's famous film «Les Belles de Nuit».

In 1957, Gina Lollobrigida won a Bambis Award for Best Actress for her unforgettable role as Esmeralda in the film «Notre-Dame de Paris».

In 1959, her bewitching beauty reached a peak when she played the Queen of Sheba in the film «Solomon and the Queen of Sheba».  His partner, Yul Brynner, who plays King Solomon, is bewitched by the splendid Italian actress.  In scenes where the two actors kiss, they continue to do so even after the director shouts : «cut» !

Subsequently, her career faded somewhat when Sophia Loren, another Italian actress -another beauty queen- came to compete with her.  At first jealous of her new rival, Lollo will eventually make a great friend of her.

Provocative, characterized by her ember gaze reflecting her fiery temperament, she will go too far in 1966, in a new sketch film («The Dolls»), wearing outfits deemed too daring.  She was sentenced to two months in prison, but was fortunately amnestied.

In the 1970s, like Brigitte Bardot, she grew tired of cinema and became a photo journalist.  She also returned to her first love at the School of Fine Arts in Rome by devoting herself to sculpture and drawing.  She will explain that she began to make cinema by pure chance, and that she continued out of curiosity.

From her youth, she dreamed of being a painter.  Her goal was first and foremost to become a visual artist, but she did not regret her career in cinema.  A career that she considered very successful and satisfactory.

Like Bardot, too, at the beginning of her career, she will have the audacity to ask for an exorbitant fee (one million) to turn in films.  Launched as a joke, this immense request, unimaginable fortune for the time, will be accepted, to the great surprise of Gina !

Like Bardot, Lollobrigida will long be considered the most beautiful woman in the world.  Ambitious, she said she wanted to become a very great actress and she refused to be reduced to a status of sex symbol.

In her long and wonderful career, she played with the greatest actors of her time.  Marilyn Monroe will take Gina as a model and the Italian super star will influence her a lot by her advice.  It has been said that she "sculptured" the legendary American blonde actress.

Orson Welles, another great actor, director and producer, called Gina Lollobrigida : «the most fabulous woman in the world, the Queen».

The Italian novelist and journalist Alberto Moravia called her «the archetype of Italian female beauty».  Italians loved her so much that the used to say that she was the greatest discovery since the invention of spaghetti !

Gina Lollobrigida received many prizes and awards (more than 20) for her fabulous career, but the one that perhaps pleased her the most was the latest : her star on the Walk of Fame on Hollywood Boulevard, in Los Angeles, in 2018.  A kind of final consecration or crowning.  She received this ultimute honor with her characteristic exuberance.

Although Gina Lollobrigida married in 1949, at the age of 22, to a Yugoslav doctor named Milko Skofic, who became her manager, and divorced him in 1971 after giving him an only son, she later declared that her only regret in life was never meeting the soul mate.  Many of her countless admirers, for whom she was an extraordinary sexual fantasy, would certainly have liked to be that ideal lover she never found.

In 2017, in some od her latest public confidences, Lollo confessed to having suffered two sexual assaults in her youth.  Events that marked her character and that she was never able to erase from her memory and her being.

After her death on January 16, photographer Rino Barillari, a renowned Italian paparazzi, paid tribute to the late diva : «She was fashion, everyone imitated her.  A person like that will never be reborn.  It is not only a diva of the cinema who has left, but a real global star.  Gina Lollobrigida was something idescribable, everyone was losing their minds for her.  Damn beautiful and a feminity that has marked history».  Including the bikini story, I might add !

Here are some of the eternal looks of Gina Lollobrigida, in a montage on Giorgia's song «Quando Una Stella Muore» (When a Star Dies)...