Model, Film Actree, Author, Newspaper Columnist, Advertising Executive, Chief Assistant to Hollywood moguls, Inventor and Host on the "Today" show
Date of Birth August 5, 1914, Washington, District of Columbia, USA Date of Death
March 27, 1992, Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, USA (lung disease)
Birth Name Anita Counihan
Nicknames: The Face, The Institute
She was predeceased by her husband Palen Flagler (Married December 30, 1970, his death March 30, 1984) and her parents Daniel Francis "Bud" Counihan the cartoonist (1887 - 1972) and Margaret McCarthy Counihan (1888 - 1965). She was survived by her sister Francine Counihan Okie who was also a model and nephew Robert J. Riordan Jr.
Anita Colby, perhaps the nation's first "supermodel" and known as "The Face" after her picture appeared on the cover of Time magazine, died at her home in Oyster Bay, L.I. She was 77 years old.
Miss Colby was the eldest daughter of Bud Counihan, a cartoonist for the New York Evening World and the artist for the Betty Boop series.
At the age of 19, Miss Colby moved to New York and soon became the nation's most famous and highest-paid model, working for the John Powers agency. With her willowy, ash-blonde beauty, she was the first model ever to receive $100 an hour -- a stunning figure in those days -- and she once appeared on the covers of 15 magazines in a single month, including Time.
"She was the first great model," Miss Colby's longtime friend, Frances Koltun, said yesterday. Realizing that she had chosen a short-lived career, Miss Colby moved to Hollywood after only one year as a model and, while on contract with R.K.O., appeared in nine movies, including "Mary Queen of Scots" and "Brute Force." A New Career
To her friends, according to a Herald Tribune column, she said: " 'If I ever go to Hollywood again, I'll tell those stars what to do.' And she did."
In 1944, Miss Colby was hired by David O. Selznick as his studio's "feminine director." Ms. Falkenburg, who became a close friend of Miss Colby, said: "She was in charge of coordinating all of these stars of the Selznick stable, on screen and off. She decided how they should be photographed, how they would dress, how public they should become, what interviews they should do. She was the den mother for the top beauties in America."
And in the process, Miss Colby became friends with Ingrid Bergman, Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple, Joan Fontaine, Katharine Hepburn and others. She also turned down marriage proposals from Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart, but let them down easy. "I introduced them to their wives," she told a reporter in 1970 on the occasion of her first and only marriage, to Palen Flagler, a business executive.
In 1947, after working for the Selznick organization, Miss Colby served as a $150,000-a-year executive assistant to the head of Paramount Pictures. Colby also invented a chair convertible to inclined bed (U.S. patent 2690209), which was filed in 1952 and issued in 1954.[She later started a public relations company in New York, wrote "Anita Colby's Beauty Book," bought and sold the Women's News Service, for which she wrote a syndicated newspaper column called "Anita Says," and appeared for six months on the "Today" show with Dave Garroway. There he hired Barbara Walters to write her scripts.
Date of Birth August 5, 1914, Washington, District of Columbia, USA Date of Death
March 27, 1992, Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, USA (lung disease)
Birth Name Anita Counihan
Nicknames: The Face, The Institute
She was predeceased by her husband Palen Flagler (Married December 30, 1970, his death March 30, 1984) and her parents Daniel Francis "Bud" Counihan the cartoonist (1887 - 1972) and Margaret McCarthy Counihan (1888 - 1965). She was survived by her sister Francine Counihan Okie who was also a model and nephew Robert J. Riordan Jr.
Anita Colby, perhaps the nation's first "supermodel" and known as "The Face" after her picture appeared on the cover of Time magazine, died at her home in Oyster Bay, L.I. She was 77 years old.
Miss Colby was the eldest daughter of Bud Counihan, a cartoonist for the New York Evening World and the artist for the Betty Boop series.
At the age of 19, Miss Colby moved to New York and soon became the nation's most famous and highest-paid model, working for the John Powers agency. With her willowy, ash-blonde beauty, she was the first model ever to receive $100 an hour -- a stunning figure in those days -- and she once appeared on the covers of 15 magazines in a single month, including Time.
"She was the first great model," Miss Colby's longtime friend, Frances Koltun, said yesterday. Realizing that she had chosen a short-lived career, Miss Colby moved to Hollywood after only one year as a model and, while on contract with R.K.O., appeared in nine movies, including "Mary Queen of Scots" and "Brute Force." A New Career
To her friends, according to a Herald Tribune column, she said: " 'If I ever go to Hollywood again, I'll tell those stars what to do.' And she did."
In 1944, Miss Colby was hired by David O. Selznick as his studio's "feminine director." Ms. Falkenburg, who became a close friend of Miss Colby, said: "She was in charge of coordinating all of these stars of the Selznick stable, on screen and off. She decided how they should be photographed, how they would dress, how public they should become, what interviews they should do. She was the den mother for the top beauties in America."
And in the process, Miss Colby became friends with Ingrid Bergman, Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple, Joan Fontaine, Katharine Hepburn and others. She also turned down marriage proposals from Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart, but let them down easy. "I introduced them to their wives," she told a reporter in 1970 on the occasion of her first and only marriage, to Palen Flagler, a business executive.
In 1947, after working for the Selznick organization, Miss Colby served as a $150,000-a-year executive assistant to the head of Paramount Pictures. Colby also invented a chair convertible to inclined bed (U.S. patent 2690209), which was filed in 1952 and issued in 1954.[She later started a public relations company in New York, wrote "Anita Colby's Beauty Book," bought and sold the Women's News Service, for which she wrote a syndicated newspaper column called "Anita Says," and appeared for six months on the "Today" show with Dave Garroway. There he hired Barbara Walters to write her scripts.
Model, Film Actree, Author, Newspaper Columnist, Advertising Executive, Chief Assistant to Hollywood moguls, Inventor and Host on the "Today" show
Date of Birth August 5, 1914, Washington, District of Columbia, USA Date of Death
March 27, 1992, Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, USA (lung disease)
Birth Name Anita Counihan
Nicknames: The Face, The Institute
She was predeceased by her husband Palen Flagler (Married December 30, 1970, his death March 30, 1984) and her parents Daniel Francis "Bud" Counihan the cartoonist (1887 - 1972) and Margaret McCarthy Counihan (1888 - 1965). She was survived by her sister Francine Counihan Okie who was also a model and nephew Robert J. Riordan Jr.
Anita Colby, perhaps the nation's first "supermodel" and known as "The Face" after her picture appeared on the cover of Time magazine, died at her home in Oyster Bay, L.I. She was 77 years old.
Miss Colby was the eldest daughter of Bud Counihan, a cartoonist for the New York Evening World and the artist for the Betty Boop series.
At the age of 19, Miss Colby moved to New York and soon became the nation's most famous and highest-paid model, working for the John Powers agency. With her willowy, ash-blonde beauty, she was the first model ever to receive $100 an hour -- a stunning figure in those days -- and she once appeared on the covers of 15 magazines in a single month, including Time.
"She was the first great model," Miss Colby's longtime friend, Frances Koltun, said yesterday. Realizing that she had chosen a short-lived career, Miss Colby moved to Hollywood after only one year as a model and, while on contract with R.K.O., appeared in nine movies, including "Mary Queen of Scots" and "Brute Force." A New Career
To her friends, according to a Herald Tribune column, she said: " 'If I ever go to Hollywood again, I'll tell those stars what to do.' And she did."
In 1944, Miss Colby was hired by David O. Selznick as his studio's "feminine director." Ms. Falkenburg, who became a close friend of Miss Colby, said: "She was in charge of coordinating all of these stars of the Selznick stable, on screen and off. She decided how they should be photographed, how they would dress, how public they should become, what interviews they should do. She was the den mother for the top beauties in America."
And in the process, Miss Colby became friends with Ingrid Bergman, Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple, Joan Fontaine, Katharine Hepburn and others. She also turned down marriage proposals from Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart, but let them down easy. "I introduced them to their wives," she told a reporter in 1970 on the occasion of her first and only marriage, to Palen Flagler, a business executive.
In 1947, after working for the Selznick organization, Miss Colby served as a $150,000-a-year executive assistant to the head of Paramount Pictures. Colby also invented a chair convertible to inclined bed (U.S. patent 2690209), which was filed in 1952 and issued in 1954.[She later started a public relations company in New York, wrote "Anita Colby's Beauty Book," bought and sold the Women's News Service, for which she wrote a syndicated newspaper column called "Anita Says," and appeared for six months on the "Today" show with Dave Garroway. There he hired Barbara Walters to write her scripts.
Date of Birth August 5, 1914, Washington, District of Columbia, USA Date of Death
March 27, 1992, Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York, USA (lung disease)
Birth Name Anita Counihan
Nicknames: The Face, The Institute
She was predeceased by her husband Palen Flagler (Married December 30, 1970, his death March 30, 1984) and her parents Daniel Francis "Bud" Counihan the cartoonist (1887 - 1972) and Margaret McCarthy Counihan (1888 - 1965). She was survived by her sister Francine Counihan Okie who was also a model and nephew Robert J. Riordan Jr.
Anita Colby, perhaps the nation's first "supermodel" and known as "The Face" after her picture appeared on the cover of Time magazine, died at her home in Oyster Bay, L.I. She was 77 years old.
Miss Colby was the eldest daughter of Bud Counihan, a cartoonist for the New York Evening World and the artist for the Betty Boop series.
At the age of 19, Miss Colby moved to New York and soon became the nation's most famous and highest-paid model, working for the John Powers agency. With her willowy, ash-blonde beauty, she was the first model ever to receive $100 an hour -- a stunning figure in those days -- and she once appeared on the covers of 15 magazines in a single month, including Time.
"She was the first great model," Miss Colby's longtime friend, Frances Koltun, said yesterday. Realizing that she had chosen a short-lived career, Miss Colby moved to Hollywood after only one year as a model and, while on contract with R.K.O., appeared in nine movies, including "Mary Queen of Scots" and "Brute Force." A New Career
To her friends, according to a Herald Tribune column, she said: " 'If I ever go to Hollywood again, I'll tell those stars what to do.' And she did."
In 1944, Miss Colby was hired by David O. Selznick as his studio's "feminine director." Ms. Falkenburg, who became a close friend of Miss Colby, said: "She was in charge of coordinating all of these stars of the Selznick stable, on screen and off. She decided how they should be photographed, how they would dress, how public they should become, what interviews they should do. She was the den mother for the top beauties in America."
And in the process, Miss Colby became friends with Ingrid Bergman, Jennifer Jones, Shirley Temple, Joan Fontaine, Katharine Hepburn and others. She also turned down marriage proposals from Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart, but let them down easy. "I introduced them to their wives," she told a reporter in 1970 on the occasion of her first and only marriage, to Palen Flagler, a business executive.
In 1947, after working for the Selznick organization, Miss Colby served as a $150,000-a-year executive assistant to the head of Paramount Pictures. Colby also invented a chair convertible to inclined bed (U.S. patent 2690209), which was filed in 1952 and issued in 1954.[She later started a public relations company in New York, wrote "Anita Colby's Beauty Book," bought and sold the Women's News Service, for which she wrote a syndicated newspaper column called "Anita Says," and appeared for six months on the "Today" show with Dave Garroway. There he hired Barbara Walters to write her scripts.
