Now the same thing is happening to a luscious blonde charmer who calls herself Sheree North. The doll appeared on Bing Crosby's first TV show and played an Irma-like role with Bing and Jack Benny. Toward the end of the show she flung off her skirt and went through a dance routine that sizzled the cables. Also the sponsor and some irate TV viewers. "The dance was criticized as a burlesque routine," she recalls. "It wasn't. A girl who was only a burlesque dancer wouldn't have been able to do it. Actually, the routine was not as bad as some people made it out to be. It's just that it seemed wild after the easy pace of the show. People are used to a leisurely pace from Bing. When a girl throws off her skirt and does a fast dance number after he has been on, it's something of a shock."
"I realized this, and that's why I picked the most conservative choreographer I knew. The trouble was that I didn't have time to learn the routine. I had been laid up for two months with a broken arch. I had only a couple of hours to rehearse the dance. Then they shot it mostly from the waist up. When you have a girl jitterbugging to the 'One O'clock Jump,' it's bound to look a bit sensational."
That's putting it mildly. But while the protests poured in, so did the offers. The biggest was the possibility of filling out Monroe's "Pink Tights." She was given the most extensive test in recent years -- in CinemaScope yet. Two days ago 20th Century-Fox signed her to a contract.
"I was really lucky," she remarked. "With both 'Pink Tights' and 'The Egyptian' postponed, peopie had nothing to do on the lot. I was given the top director, cameraman and everything."