Margaret Rose Valliquietto (aka June Knight) is described as 'A vivacious blonde’ on IMDB; and although she worked on a number of forgettable films, for a number of companies, in the mid- to late 30s, her short career was finished by the time they were released in the early 40s.This press photo is one of at least two taken of Knight and distributed by MGM immediately after the 30 September release of Vacation from Love (1938) in the lead up to Halloween.
In this photo we see Knight at the height of her career, such as it was: a magnificent Blonde, White, Halloween Witch. All of her clothes and her props are white or silver: she has the most enormous shiny silver witch’s hat I’ve ever seen, white broom, white cat, moon and bat. The cut-out moon and cat look an awful lot like the (black) cut-out moon and cat in the MGM Ava Gardner photos here, Knight even has the same pose as Gardner, riding side-saddle so she can show off her lovely legs, and holding reins so she can sit more upright. (All of which makes me wonder whether the Gardner photos aren’t earlier than I previously thought.) Here are the two cats:
See what I mean! Verrrrrrry similar.