Colwyn Bay auction of autographed wartime pin-up photo collection

Apr 21 2011 by Samantha Castle, North Wales Weekly News

WARTIME photos autographed by Hollywood starlets such as Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner and Betty Grable are expected to sell for £1,000 in a special auction in Colwyn Bay on Tuesday.

A young Evan Davies was stationed in an RAF camp in Canada during the Second World War and was starstruck following a number of morale-boosting visits by Hollywood pin-ups of the era.

Navigator Evan met them personally and brought home a stash of autographed photos to prove it.

Evan’s son David, 62, who lives in Colwyn Bay and found the photo stash in the attic after 30 years, said his father signed up with the RAF on the outbreak of war and was selected to join a training school for military pilots in Carberry.

Among the thousands of men who passed through the school was Welsh actor Richard Burton, who also served in the RAF as a navigator.

How Evan managed to obtain the autographed photos will never be known.

He married wife Hilda, who survives him, after the war and retired as a bank manager in Newcastle Emlyn. He died in 1966.

Since then, the photos have been kept in the attic of the family home where, according to David, they have remained for the last 30 or so years, although they are in remarkable condition.

The list of stars reads like a Hollywood who’s who of the 1940s: as well as Grable, Turner and Hayworth, there are also photos of Claudette Colbert, Laraine Day, Hedy Lamarr, Loretta Young, Evelyn Keyes, Gene Tierney, Jinx Falkenbureg, Virginia Grey, June Clyde and La Grandeur Sisters.