I was born in '54 and so don't qualify as an expert on the tv of the early 50s.... but -- Why are you so sure that there's a real life model for the image? Like a lot of the names and such in his American triptych, there was a lot of fun had by the author, generalizing from the specifics of American culture.

On Oct 25, 2006, at 1:48 PM, D. Barton Johnson wrote:

Can some one in my aged age group (or older) identify the toiletry in this description in a TV commercial circa the early fifties? The winner will be immortalized in a footnote.   Don Johnson

         Line 412ff                                      The Cause of Poetry on Channel 8.
                                                  A nymph came pirouetting, under white
                                                  Rotating petals, in a vernal rite
                                                  To kneel before an altar in a wood
                                                  Where various articles of toilet stood.

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