When Hazel Forbes was still a teenager, she entered a beauty pageant in Atlantic City, N.J., and was named Miss Long Island. In 1926, she was chosen Miss United States at the Paris International Beauty Pageant. The following year -- at the age of “17”, and with no experience as a performer -- Forbes was hired by Florenz Ziegfeld to appear in his Ziegfeld Follies in New York City. She appeared in a supporting role in the long-running production of "Whoopee!," which premiered in 1928 and starred Eddie Cantor, and ran for nearly a year and more than 400 performances. In 1929, Forbes was lured away from Ziegfeld by his primary competitor, Earl Carroll, but she returned to Ziegfeld the following year.
On stage, Forbes was described as a dancer, but she was more likely one of the many "Ziegfeld girls" who simply walked across the stage wearing fabulously elaborate costumes, or nearly no costume at all. She was also probably one of Ziegfield's famous "living statues" -- scantily clad women who came out on stage and just stood there. (This was Ziegfeld's solution to a New York law which prohibited nude performers from moving on stage.)
During her work with Ziegfeld, Forbes was also photographed by Alfred Cheney Johnston, who worked for Ziegfeld for more than 15 years, primarily taking publicity and promotional photographs of the Follies performers.
After Johnston's death in 1971, a huge collection of nude and semi-nude photos of showgirls from the Ziegfeld Follies -- including Forbes -- was discovered among his possessions. Since the photos could never have been used to publicly promote the Follies in the 1920s, it has been speculated that the images were either taken by Johnston as samples of his artistic work, or were done at the request of Ziegfeld for his private collection.
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