Saturday’s ad is for “Rheingold Beer,” from 1958. This ad was made for the Rheingold Brewery, which was founded by the Liebmann family in 1883 in New York, New York. At its peak, it sold 35% of all the beer in New York state. In 1963, the family sold the brewery and in was shut down in 1976. In 1940, Philip Liebmann, great-grandson of the founder, Samuel Liebmann, started the “Miss Rheingold” pageant as the centerpiece of its marketing campaign. Beer drinkers voted each year on the young lady who would be featured as Miss Rheingold in advertisements. In the 1940s and 1950s in New York, “the selection of Miss Rheingold was as highly anticipated as the race for the White House.” The winning model was then featured in at least twelve monthly advertisements for the brewery, beginning in 1940 and ending in 1965. Beginning in 1941, the selection of next year’s Miss Rheingold was instituted and became wildly popular in the New York Area. Miss Rheingold 1958 was Madelyn Darrow, who came from a prominent Hollywood family. Her father was motion picture landscape artist and her mother had been a silent screen actress. She was the youngest of three daughters, and her sister Barbara Darrow was a B-Movie star, mostly with RKO. After graduating from Hollywood High, she became a cover model and landed a small part in the film “Guys and Dolls” in 1955 and the following year in “The Ten Commandments.” But her career as an actress was slowing, so she moved to New York for modeling work, and was elected Miss Rheingold shortly thereafter. After her Rheingold year, she married tennis star Pancho Gonzales and they had there daughters together, divorcing in 1968, remarrying in 1970, but divorcing again the following year. She stayed in California for the remainder of her life, staying out of the public eye, until she passed away in 2015. Full disclosure, this is not an ad, but some publicity photos featuring Miss Rheingold 1958, Madelyn Darrow, from her career before she was crowned the annual beer queen. One of her early screen credits was the film “Guys and Dolls,” starring Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Jean Simmons, and Vivian Blaine. Darrow was in the chorus, so to speak, and was one of the Hotbox Dancers, who were dubbed “Goldwyn Girls,” a reference to an earlier group of stock dancers that started in 1930.
The Goldwyn Girls were a musical stock company of female dancers employed by Samuel Goldwyn. Famous actresses, dancers, and models whose career included a stint in the Goldwyn Girls include Lucille Ball, Virginia Bruce, Claire Dodd, Paulette Goddard, Betty Grable, Virginia Grey, Lorraine Crawford, Jann Darlyn, Barbara Brent, Madelyn Darrow, June Kirby, Joi Lansing, Barbara Pepper, Marjorie Reynolds, Pat Sheehan, Gail Sheridan, Ann Sothern, Larri Thomas, Tyra Vaughn, Toby Wing, Vonne Lester, and Jane Wyman.
So MGM brought back the concept for Guys and Dolls with a brand new set of dancers, including Madelyn Darrow, who would go on to be Miss Rheingold 1958. That’s her on the left in the photo below.
In 1955, MGM Studios produced a film rendition of the popular Broadway musical Guys and Dolls, with a new line of Goldwyn Girls cast as the Hotbox Dancers, supporting Vivian Blaine as Miss Adelaide, who originated the role on Broadway. The Goldwyn Girls then went on a world tour, which further promoted the film, and the film became an international hit, “rivaling MGM’s overseas records set by Gone With the Wind.”
