Jewel Flowers, who died February 6 at 83, was a popular pinup model whose pulchritudinous glory shone from millions of calendars in the 1940s and 1950s, and graced World War II bomber noses and tank turrets.

Almost as much as Betty Grable, she personified the exhilarating “why we fight” spirit for servicemen abroad, dozens of whom sent her letters with marriage proposals.

Flowers merely supplied the raw materials; the actual work of transforming her classic middle-American look into the iconic pinup look fell to Rolf Armstrong, one of the acknowledged masters of the form, and a man generally credited with developing, if not quite inventing, the girlie calendar.

Armstrong discovered Flowers in 1940, when she was just 17, and newly arrived in New York City from her native South Carolina to attend business college. The story goes that she was so nervous during her first modeling session that she pestered the artist repeatedly, asking “How am I doing?”

Armstrong, whose images often had evocative titles like “Pretty Smooth” and “The Enchantress,” titled their first image “How Am I Doing?” It became one of his most reproduced pinups, originally appearing on a 1942 Brown & Bigelow wall calendar. The company reputedly produced more than half the calendars in America during the middle part of the century.

As their partnership blossomed, Flowers became a famous face, although her strikingly euphonious and appropriate name was not as well-known as a top model’s would be today. During World War II, the government enlisted her persuasive talents for Liberty Bond drives. She was famous enough that a serviceman’s letter addressed merely “Jewel Flowers, New York City” found its way to her.

Flowers agreed to model for Armstrong exclusively, and the two grew to be close friends over two decades of collaboration. Among the 53 images they produced together were “Ridin’ High” (Flowers riding a simulated bronco); “Toast of the Town” (apparently in an ecdysiast’s outfit), and “On the Beam” (originally a nautical term probably referring here to Flowers’s “just right” proportions).

Flowers married in 1946, and followed her husband around the country as he tried a number of business ventures, including managing a pool hall. At one point, she dealt cards in Reno, Nev. Periodically, Armstrong would call and beg her to return to New York and model for him, Michael Wooldridge, author of “Pin Up Dreams: The Glamour Art of Rolf Armstrong,” said.

Flowers’s career ended when Armstrong died, in 1960. Her first marriage ended in divorce, and she moved back to Myrtle Beach, where she married an accountant, Jon Wesley Evans. Her house was filled with art, but the pinups were kept out of sight.

“You had to be invited into the inner sanctum,” said Mr. Wooldridge, “She didn’t want to crow about it.” The main remnant of her glamour years was a fastidious attention to personal appearance.

Jewel Flowers Evans

Born July 22, 1923, in Lumberton, S.C.; died February 6 of complications from surgery; survived by her son, Woody Welch.