The history of the Indy 500 often focuses on the men who won the race or more tragically those who died in pursuit of victory. But the history of the Indy 500 isn’t just about those speeding around the oval.That history also includes stories like that of actress Carole Landis, who in 1947, presented the Borg-Warner Trophy to Indy 500 winner Mauri Rose. Just over a year later Landis would die under somewhat suspicious circumstances.
Landis chose her stage name to honor her favorite actress, Carole Lombard, whose life story also had Hoosier ties. Lombard, who spent the first years of her life in Fort Wayne, and her mother were flying back to Nevada in January 1942 after visiting Indianapolis as part of a war bond tour when the plane they were on crashed, killing them both.
Landis started her career with extensive pin-up work. She was known as the “Ping Girl,” as in “I saw her and –ping!,” after she appeared in a popular ad for motor oil that promised to take the “ping” out of an engine and “make it purr.” Other nicknames for her included “The Blonde Bomber” and “The Chest“ as she was rather well-endowed.
But Landis wanted her fans to focus on other aspects of her personality. “Heaven knows I want people to think I have sex appeal. But I also want them to think I have something besides sex appeal,” she was known for saying.
Landis was the it-girl of her day and a “USO” star. During World War II, she gave the war effort her all, taking shooting lessons and almost losing her life along the way. The strenuous nature of the USO tours, which included dodging enemy fire and traveling over 100,000 miles, led her to develop dysentery and malaria. While on tour, her appendix burst.
Later she penned a book about the grueling tour with three other female entertainers that became the musical comedy drama, “Four Jills in a Jeep” in 1944.
When troops wrote to her begging for pin-up photos, Landis filmed a teaser that starts with her addressing her audience from behind a rubenesque bathing suit cutout, allowing viewers to see only her head. She eventually emerges in a bathing suit as requested, but instead of a skimpy pin-up style suit, she chose a full length old-timey “bathing costume’ that resembled a mix between full coverage bathing costumes of yesteryear and Bo Peep, much to the delight of audiences who enjoyed a good chuckle.
But Landis wasn’t just a pin-up, she was also a trailblazer, author, pilot and and athlete. In high school she attempted to start an all-girl football team. The principal squashed the dream, saying it would be “unladylike.” At age 15, Landis dropped out of school.
Her professional career included starring roles in the original version of “A Star Is Born” and she was later cast as cave girl in the original film version of One Million B.C., a role Raquel Welch reprised two decades later.
Landis even earned her pilot’s license, flying for the Civilian Air Patrol.
Landis, however, was unlucky in love. Landis had four husbands: Irving Wheeler (married him twice because the first time was annulled as she was only 15); Willis Hunt Jr., her flight instructor; Thomas C. Wallace and W. Horace Schmidlapp, a Broadway producer.
At the time of her death at age 29, Landis was in the process of divorcing Schmidlapp.
At age 29, Landis was reportedly found dead on the bathroom floor of her own home by lover and fellow actor Rex Harrison and her maid Fannie Bolden. Harrison had refused to leave his wife actress Lilli Palmer for Landis. Suspicion arose about the circumstances of her death because Harrison failed to call police or a doctor for several hours after discovering her body.
Police investigators and the coroner officially deemed her cause of death an overdose of the drug Seconal. Landis reportedly left two suicide notes, one to her mother and one to Harrison, which he and his lawyers never released.
Ever the overachiever, Landis made 49 pictures during her short life and earned herself a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. She is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in California.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Retro Indy: The ‘Ping girl’ who presented Borg-Warner trophy in 1947
Reporting by Michelle Pemberton, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
