Name: Georgette Lookalike
Made by and When: Unbranded, ca. 1970s
Material: Vinyl head, arms, and legs; stuffed tan cloth body
Marks: Unmarked
Height: 22 inches
Hair, Eyes, Mouth: The light brown hair on the top and sides of the head is short and choppy, styled with bangs and two long side twists. The twists might have originally been braids. (The white yarn hair ties were added by the curator.) Bright green sleep eyes with attached eyelashes, three painted eyelashes in the upper eye corners, three painted eyelashes in the lower inner eye corners, freckles, and a smiling mouth with coral lip color create this doll’s facial features.
Clothes: The pink and white floral-print cotton dress has a white cotton bodice, white eyelet trim at the shoulders and sleeve edges, and a white horizontal floral embroidered strip where the bodice and dress skirt meet. Vertically, two of the embroidered strips decorate the center of the dress skirt. This doll wears white flannel underpants, and white flannel shoes cover the feet. The shoes appear to be replacements, and the socks are missing.
Other: In addition to the distinctive facial features and eye color, this doll’s hands are uniquely sculpted. The right fingers are outwardly flexed, with the index finger raised slightly higher. The thumb points downward. The left index finger is pointed while the other fingers on this hand are curled under. The right arm is straight. The left arm bends at the elbow.
Except for skin tone and hair color, this doll’s unmarked/unbranded head is identical to EEGEE’s 1971 Georgette, a white redhead with freckles. A companion doll for Georgette by EEGEE, named George, uses the same head sculpt. Georgette and George, however, bear EEGEE’s hallmark and are only 19 inches tall, whereas the featured doll is 22 inches tall. Furga of Italy also produced an identical white version named Teresa and a white companion, George. Resources indicate that Furga’s dolls are 24 inches tall. The existence of male versions with the same complexion as the doll in this installation is unknown.
Gallery
Reference
George and Georgette by EEGEE and Teresa and George by Furga
_________
Your comments are valued. Donations support the initiative to preserve black-doll history.
If you subscribe to DeeBeeGee’s Virtual Black Doll Museum™ by email, click the post title of the email, which links to the website to view all text and associated media. Please “like” and share this installation with your social media contacts. If you’d like to subscribe, add your email address to the subscribe or sign-up field in the footer or right sidebar. Add your email address to the subscribe or sign-up field in the footer or right sidebar.
DeeBeeGee's Virtual Black Doll Museum™ 
Wow, this is fascinating to me! I have two Eegee Georgettes both in the middle of refurbishing, onr Georgie, multiple Teresas, and various other similar dolls.
I (a retired librarian) started off looking for a childhood doll, and as a result have spent years collecting and gathering deep-dive information on the dolls from Eegee/Furga/Horsman specifically with these stop / point hand molds and same or similar big-eyed head molds, plus the Spanish licensed version and various closely-related dolls to these, so I’ve collected a mountain of information (as well as dolls!) in that extremely tiny niche area. But I’ve never seen this doll before!
Some notes based on my experience with similar dolls:
–Your doll seems to be based on Furga’s Teresa rather than Eegee’s Georgette, based on both her size and her eye shape.
–While very similar, and even sold in the very same outfits by their respective companies, Teresa and Georgette DO have slightly different eye shapes. If you go to the your own “Reference” link under your photos of this black doll, which goes to the Planet of the Dolls site, and go down to the 6th photo on that page, you will see an eye comparison between the two.
While they are extremely similar, Teresa (like your doll) has oval eyes that are taller than they are wide, while Georgette has rounder, more horizontally oval eyes. Your dolls seems to have the former, as well as being Teresa-sized. Georgette has lower, flatter eyebrows, while Teresa’s are high, more like your doll. But Teresa’s also angle downward on the outside, looking rather like two sides of a roof.
–Furga did make black versions of some of their dolls. I have some of them. But I haven’t ever seen any Furga dolls from their vinyl era that don’t have Furga (in letters or their logo) stamped on the back of the neck (same with Eegee and also Horsman who made some similar dolls), making me suspect this is a copy version. Running this site, I’m sure you are familiar with this happening, where another company bought old molds from a bigger company, or just made their own very close “version” of a popular doll and just didn’t put a brand name on them.
–Also, supporting this idea somewhat, my black Furga dolls are a more dark chocolate brown color as opposed to the more cinnamon brown color this doll seems to have. Your doll’s eyelashes also seem to hint at her being a copy rather than an original Furga or Eegee.
Her painted top eyelashes are also something that neither Georgette nor Teresa/Pippi has. The anniversary edition of Teresa has a few small painted eyelashes similar to this doll’s bottom lashes, but they are on the outsides of her eyes rather than the insides. And as I said, her eyebrows are a bit different from Teresas.
I suspect that the slight height difference between her and Teresa is mostly a matter of the company that made her making the torso slightly shorter. It would be interesting to compare measurements of her body parts, though, to see if this is the case, or if the company that made her actually resized the mold again and made the vinyl parts in a different size, between the other two doll molds. I can give you measurement comparisons if you want.
(Georgette’s arms and legs are the same exact mold as Teresa’s, and the face extremely similar, but they are definitely different sizes.)
–I believe only Georgette had a male “brother.” I have not seen any evidence of a “George/Georgie” type brother for the Italian Teresa, who seems to be the original of all the relatives who followed. If anyone has any information on a Furga brother to Teresa, I’d be interested to hear about it.
(Teresa was sometimes sold, though, as “Petronilla”, who was basically “Pippi Longstocking”, when Furga simply dressed some Teresas in an outfit more akin to Pippi’s movie outfit and put wires in her braids to make them stick up, and sold her by that name, but otherwise the same doll.
If there’s any other information on these dolls that I can help the museum or anyone else out with, please let me know.
LikeLike