Social Commentary on Sabrina
Girls with a Gimmick
Sun-Herald, 9 September 1956
From Anthea Goddard in London
IN show business to-day, talent is no longer enough. The cry is: "You've got to have a gimmick."
So the Gimmick Age has come to Britain.
Would-be stars—talented actors, pretty actresses— struggle along for years in repertory, earning a precarious living without hope of reaching the top—until they find a gimmick.
This is defined officially as "a clever device to ensure success." and almost every one of Britain's rising personalities has acquired one.
The craze has led to a new profession in London's theatreland: the gimmick expert.
He or she is the person with a vivid imagination who can take an unknown and build him into a personality.
...
Sabrina was one of the earliest gimmick-girls. Untrained in any form of show business — except that she once posed for a photographer in the nude — her name became a household word throughout Britain because her bust (39½ inches) was discovered to be an inch or so bigger than that of Jane Russell.
This won her some film parts and a series of public appearances at bazaar openings and film premieres.
The search for the new gimmick is unflagging, but the most original publicist of all remains to be discovered: the man who will one. day make a star of a client because he has no gimmick.
GILBERT MANT
The Way I See It
Sun-Herald, 23 June 1957
WHATEVER you thought about that photograph of Sabrina gatecrashing the Royal enclosure at Ascot, you've got to hand it to her publicity men for bringing off a notable stunt.
This is an era of publicity and ballyhoo and there's no better proof of it than the immense success of Sabrina's chest measurements.
Nobody would look twice at her if you made her gatecrash a race meeting on the island of Bali.
But big commercial firms and theatrical entrepreneurs set aside large sums of money each year for stunts and gimmicks such as this.
With all due respect, even great stars such as Fonteyn and Olivier have to be constantly kept before the public by means of inspired stunts, but of course they use different types of gimmicks to Sabrina.
It doesn't do any real harm and it must amuse the Sabrinas to discover how gullible the public can get.
But you've got to have a gimmick.