Catching Up With Pin-Up Legend & Former Miss USA Myrna Hansen (Exclusive)
Named after Hollywood film star Myrna Loy, Chicago-born beauty Myrna Hansen set her career goals from a very young age. Hansen’s drive and fine Scandinavian features made her a sought-after model and pinup girl when she was barely in her teens. At 18, Hansen became Miss Illinois USA 1953, Miss USA 1953 and almost earned the 1953 Miss Universe crown, coming in at first runner up. Naturally, Hollywood came calling and the fresh-faced beauty signed a contract with Universal Studios to try her hand at films when her responsibilities as a beauty queen ended.
Everett Collection
So how did Myrna Hansen — still lively and gorgeous at age 91 — turn her smarts, wholesome good looks and Midwestern charm into pinup and pageantry stardom and a 20-year acting career? Here’s what she told ReMIND when we caught up with her at the recent Hollywood Show in Burbank.
Myrna Hansen asked her parents for modeling lessons
Courtesy King Features Syndicate
“After I graduated from grammar school, my parents said ‘What would you like?” Hansen told ReMIND. Though she considered becoming a veterinarian, courtesy of time spent on her uncle’s Ohio farm, “I said, ‘I would like some modeling lessons because no matter what I do in life, that would be a good background.”
Her parents allowed her to take lessons at downtown Chicago’s legendary Patricia Vance modeling school and it became readily apparent that Hansen would not become a vet anytime soon. She landed work immediately, and, she told us, appeared on almost every advertising billboard on Chicago’s State Street throughout the 1950s. But it was another chance meeting that would make Hansen a star.
She became a favorite model of pinup artist Gil Elvgren
As Hansen, then about 15, began to build a portfolio, an agency employee told the young model that she should go see painter Gil Elvgren, who was making a name for himself as a master of pinup portraits from his suburban Chicago studio.
“Gil Elvgren is the top pinup artist in America. He beats [Alberto] Vargas even” Hansen told ReMIND, holding up a Halloween-themed image that ran on the cover of the Sunday Mirror in 1953. “We hit it off perfectly.”
So perfectly that, following Hansen’s successful run as a beauty queen — which allowed her images to become more risqué — her own mom accompanied her to Evlgren’s studio. An image from Taschen’s 2014 book The Art of Pin-Up even show’s the elder Hansen helping hold her daughter’s skirts up to best show off Myrna’s gartered stockings for one of Elvgren’s most best-known pieces, “What a View.”
“I have hundreds of [Elvgren portraits] — so many of them —because I worked for him for years, “ Hansen recalled. “I arranged my school schedule so I could get out early and so I go downtown and we’d work.”
What is Myrna Hansen up to now?
Though Myrna Hansen was never became a movie star the likes of fellow pin-ups like Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable or Rita Hayworth, she still landed plenty of work in film and TV, from the swashbuckling spy film The Purple Mask and the romantic drama There’s Always Tomorrow to recurring roles on The Thin Man and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show.
Twice married and mom to two kids, Hansen is still a popular draw for nostalgia shows and publications and is considered an icon in the pin-up world. Her collaborations with Gil Elvgren turned both into stars.
Additional reporting by Karen Ruud
Remind 
Vintage Brands
June 2023
Look back at memorable celebrity endorsements, network sponsorships and just plain bizarre ads over time
Buy This Issue