Columbia

Rumour has it that the woman holding the torch in the Columbia Pictures logo is the actress Annette Benning.

Not so. Roger Ebert has the scoop.

While Ms. Bening is a talented actress, she was not the model for my Columbia Pictures lady. The actual model is Jenny Joseph, a homemaker and mother of two children now living in the Houston area. She was an exceptionally gracious and unassuming model, and received very little compensation for her work in 1992. The face of the Columbia lady is perhaps one of the most famous in the world ... and it happens to belong to Ms. Jenny Joseph.

So now you know.