Angelina Jolie’s leg: when gorgeous gams take on a life of their own

Angelina Jolie set folks a-Twitter
when she exposed her right leg at the Oscars

Social networks lit up when Angelina Jolie struck a pose on stage at the Oscars with her (too?) svelte leg thrusted from the thigh-high slit in her black sheath dress.  Angelina’s leg immediately got its own handle on Twitter (@AngiesRightLeg), and began tweeting such gems as “I’m a leg, get a load of me!” and “Hey, check me out!”

But this isn’t the first time a celeb’s legs have taken on a life of their own and become famous for their own sake.  Hollywood has offered plenty of example to feed fans’ leg fetish. Perhaps the first and most famous example is from the classic film It Happened One Night.  In it Claudette Colbert as Ellie and Clark Gable as Peter are in need of a lift.  Peter tries to flag down a car to no avail, to which Ellie replies, “I’ll stop a car, and I won’t use my thumb!”  She hikes up her skirt to reveal her left leg.  The car screeches to a halt, and the rest is history.

Claudette Colbert stopping traffic in It Happened One Night

Claudette’s fictitious Twitter handle:

@IveGotaLegUpOnYouAngie

And we certainly can’t forget 1940s pin-up icon Betty Grable, whose legs were known far and wide as the most beautiful in the world.  Her photo graced the locker of almost every soldier during World War II and during that time she was the highest paid star in America.  Twentieth-Century Fox famously footed the bill for a million-dollar insurance policy for her legs with Lloyds of London, and the imprint of her (right!) leg is still on view in cement in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood.

Betty Grable set servicemen's hearts
a-flutter in the 1940s with her million-dollar legs

Betty’s fictitious Twitter handle:

@ImWalkingAllOverYouAngie

And speaking of famous legs, how can we forget King Henry VIII, whom we often think of as chomping on a turkey leg?  He was the first sovreign to feast on the tasty limb, and now there’s not a Renaissance faire around that isn’t littered with the bones of consumed turkey legs.

King Henry VIII’s fictitious Twitter handle:

@GobbleGobble

Surprisingly, the prize for the best legs in history might just go to a man.  France’s King Louis XIV, the Sun King, had his portrait painted flaunting his gorgeous gams in sexy silk stockings that would make Angelina eat her heart out.  He prided himself on his dancing abilities, because make no mistake, that monarch had moves, and he had his dance master of the court meticulously document them all in writings that eventually became the official beginning of choreography.

Check out the sexy calves on King Louis XIV!
This dude's gams have got game!

King Louis XIV’s fictitious Twitter handle:

@MenInTightsRock

So now we know that legs are much more than a footnote in the history of royalty, whether Hollywood or actual. She’s -- and he’s -- got legs, and s/he knows how to use them!