Sabrina (actress)
Sabrina | |
|---|---|
Sabrina in London, 1955 | |
| Born | Norma Ann Sykes 19 May 1936 |
| Died | 24 November 2016 (aged 80) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Other names | Sabby |
| Occupations |
|
| Spouse |
Harold Melsheimer
(m. 1967; div. 1974) |
| Website | Encyclopedia Sabrina - sabrina |
Norma Ann Sykes (19 May 1936 – 24 November 2016), better known as Sabrina or Sabby, was an early English glamour model and actress.
According to film studies academic Pam Cook writing in British Stars and Stardom, Sabrina was one of "a host of exotic, glamorous (British) starlets ... modelled on the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and Lana Turner."
Adrian Bingham and Martin Conboy, however, argue that Sykes represented possibly the first example of the modern 'glamour model' in the British context, due to the media's increasingly sexualised content of the 1950s and its appetite for female glamour. In contrast to American stars, they argue, Sykes was "famous only for her looks and not for any acting, dancing or singing abilities", and was helped by the media to become one of the biggest stars of the 1950s.