Betty Brosmer: The Girl with the Impossible Waist of the 1950s

Betty Brosmer epitomized the classic "hourglass figure", a title that can easily be associated with her image in any fashion vocabulary.

Hailed as the highest-paid pin-up star of the 1950s, she earned recognition as one of the early supermodels.

Her presence graced the pages of countless prestigious magazines like Life, Time, Fortune and Look.

Additionally, she made history by becoming the first model to acquire the rights to many of her photographs and negatives – an unprecedented feat in the industry.

However, amidst her extraordinary career, one aspect made headlines: her incredibly small waist which earned her the nickname, "the girl with the impossible waist."

Her waist defied the standards of plausibility, measuring in at a size that seemed more like an artist's creation than biological reality.

With measurements that challenged the concept of proportion, her impossibly tiny waist became the focal point of attraction and speculation.

Born Betty Chloe Brosmer on August 2, 1935, in Pasadena, California, she was a bit of a tomboy when she was little.

His father encouraged him to play sports and he became interested in bodybuilding before his teenage years.

When Betty was 13, she began modeling for Sears & Roebuck and was noticed by famous photographers such as Alberto Vargas and Earl Moran. At just 15 years old, she moved to New York to become a full-time model.

Life in New York brought great success but it also made him grow up fast. “At 15, I looked like I was 25,” Betty recalls of those early days.

Soon, her face was everywhere in America – on milk cartons, billboards, books, and tons of magazines.

After a few years, she left New York and moved back home to California. She pursued modeling jobs while studying psychology at UCLA.

With Joyce Wedrall, she created a workout plan for women of all ages, published as Better & Better in 1993.

Betty worked with a famous photographer named Keith Bernard, who is known for capturing icons like Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield.

Playboy also asked her to pose, but she refused. From the beginning, Betty knew her worth. He owned all his photos and got paid whenever they were used.

In the late 1950s, Betty met bodybuilder and magazine publisher Joe Weider. Infatuated with Betty, Weider featured her extensively in his magazines and eventually married her in 1961.

Then Betty became fond of fitness. He wrote columns about bodybuilding and health, emphasizing a healthy look for cover models.

With her husband, she wrote two book-length fitness guides, The Weider Book of Bodybuilding for Women (1981) and The Weider Body Book (1984).