Jinx Falkenburg

Eugenia Lincoln "Jinx" Falkenburg (January 21, 1919 – August 27, 2003) was an American actress and model.

Thinking the name would bring good luck, she was nicknamed Jinx by her mother Marguerite "Mickey" Crooks Falkenburg, an athlete and tennis player (Brazil women's champion in 1927), and the name stuck.

Falkenburg appeared on over 200 magazine covers and in some 1,500 commercial advertisements in the 1930s and 1940s.

She was considered to be one of the most beautiful women of that era, known for her All-American-Girl athletic good looks.

The New Yorker magazine said she "possessed one of the most photogenic faces and frames in the Western world".

The New York World-Telegram said her face was seen more often and in more places than any other woman in the country.

She attended Hollywood High School but left in 1935 at the age of 16 to pursue a career in acting and modeling.

The Falkenburgs were at the center of a young social set at the West Side Tennis Club in Hollywood.

While playing tennis there she was noticed by a talent scout for Warner Bros. and signed to a studio contract.

After a few brief walk-ons, her fluency in Spanish won her minor roles in a series of Spanish-language films made for distribution in Latin America.

In 1937 her modeling career began when she met celebrity fashion photographer Paul Hesse, whose Sunset Strip studio was a gathering place for advertising moguls and motion picture industry celebrities.

Calling her "the most charming, most vital personality I have ever had the pleasure to photograph", he took her picture for the August 1937 cover of The American Magazine, triggering similar offers from 60 other publications.

In 1939 she was in Hawaii posing for photographer Edward Steichen for a series of ads for the Hawaiian Steamship Company's Matson Line when she fell through a balcony at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and landed 30 feet below on a dining room table.

While in the hospital recovering from her injuries, she was introduced to singer Al Jolson, who was also convalescing there.

They hosted a series of interview shows in the late 1940s and early 1950s that combined celebrity chit-chat with discussions of important topics of the day.

Falkenburg was born to American parents in Barcelona, Spain; her father Eugene "Genie" Lincoln Falkenburg was an engineer for Westinghouse.

Jolson offered her a role in his upcoming Broadway show Hold On to Your Hats, which opened in January 1940.

Though her part as a cowgirl was small, she attracted much attention.

Fans started gathering nightly at her dressing room door at the Shubert Theater, forming the core of what would become the Jinx Falkenburg Fan Club, the only national fan club not devoted to a movie star.

Her biggest breakthrough as a model came in 1940 when she was picked by New York-based Liebmann Brewery, maker of Rheingold Beer, to be the first Miss Rheingold.

As the face for its marketing and advertising campaign, her image appeared on billboards throughout New York, Pennsylvania, and New England., and she was featured in promotional ads at every store that sold Rheingold.

Her face and the campaign were a great success.

Rheingold was suddenly the top brand in New York City.

In the early 1940s she did a dozen movies, mainly for Columbia Pictures, sometimes in the starring role.

Mostly B movies, neither they nor her acting garnered much critical acclaim.

Among them were Two Latins from Manhattan, Sweetheart of the Fleet, Laugh Your Blues Away, She Has What It Takes, Two Senoritas From Chicago, and Nine Girls.

The biggest hit was Cover Girl, a musical about the modeling business that starred Rita Hayworth, with songs by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin.

Falkenburg played herself in a cameo role.

Falkenburg met John Reagan "Tex" McCrary when he came to photograph and interview her for a military publication after she opened in Hold On to Your Hats.

He was a lieutenant colonel in the Army Air Forces.

And a headline story in the January 27, 1941, issue of Life magazine said Falkenburg "is the leading candidate for America's No. 1 Girl for 1941".

They were about to be engaged in 1942, but World War II intervened.

As World War II escalated in 1942, Falkenburg was invited to contribute to the inaugural broadcasts of CBS's innovative international radio network La Cadena de las Americas (Network of the Americas) under the supervision of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs chaired by Nelson Rockefeller.

She married journalist and publicist Tex McCrary in 1945.

Known as "Tex and Jinx", the couple pioneered and popularized the talk show format, first on radio and then in the early days of television.

They married after the war, on June 15, 1945, in a civil ceremony conducted by New York Supreme Court Judge Ferdinand Pecora, famous for investigating the 1929 stock market crash and its aftermath.

All the Falkenburg offspring became known for their tennis abilities; younger brother Bob won the men's singles championship at Wimbledon in 1948.

The family moved to Santiago, Chile, where she spent her early years.

She first received media attention at age two when The New York Sun ran a full-page picture and story of her exploits as a "baby swimmer."

A revolution in Chile caused the family to return to the United States and they moved to Los Angeles, California.