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The noun bedroom eyes designates a look inviting sexual interest.—Hence, the adjective bedroom-eyed, which means: giving a look inviting sexual interest.
The noun bedroom eyes occurs, for example, in the following from an interview of the Italian actress Claudia Cardinale (born 1938), by Steve Rose, published in The Guardian (London and Manchester, England) of Thursday 12th September 2013 [page 17, column 1]:
Cardinale […] had worked […] in a 1962 swashbuckler called Cartouche […]. The New York Times lecherously approved of her: “a quick, flashing smile, a pleasingly husky voice and a sense of humor add to the physical attributes not hidden by her Gypsy costumes”.
It’s no disservice to give those physical attributes some of the credit for Cardinale’s success. A generation of postwar cinephiles rhapsodised over her earthy voluptuousness, her hourglass figure, her “bedroom eyes”, her cascading brunette tresses. She was the embodiment of postwar European glamour and was packaged as such, on screen and off. It’s almost like she had sexiness thrust upon her.
These are, in chronological order, some of the earliest occurrences of the noun bedroom eyes and of the adjective bedroom-eyed that I have found:
1-: From More Gal’s Gossip. Fourth Edition 1 (London: Maclaren & Company, 1906), by Arthur Morris Binstead 2 [Mars; page 42]—Fannie Bruce was appearing in the Divorce Court as the respondent; “Co.” refers to the co-respondent:
Poor Fannie was so mortified that great salt tears of indignation stood in her “big, brown, bedroom eyes”—as Byron says, somewhere—and she sobbed something about being dash-blanked if she wouldn’t almost sooner have been charged with simple desertion, like some poor soppy, ungingered school-girl than have come before the courts with such a “Co.”
1 This book was originally published in 1901 by Sands & Co., London.
2 The British journalist and humorist Arthur Morris Binstead (1861-1914), a.k.a. Pitcher, also wrote for The Sporting Times. Otherwise known as The “Pink ’Un.” (London, England).
2-: From the Manchester Evening News (Manchester, Lancashire, England) of Thursday 11th January 1923 [page 5, column 2]:
BETTY.
The Lady with the Bedroom Eyes.
WIFE’S DISCOVERY.
Evidence Found in Waste Paper Basket.In the Divorce Court, to-day, Mrs. Dorothy Emily Crawford, living at Lake Como, Italy, petitioned for the dissolution of her marriage with her husband, Oswald S. Crawford, on the grounds of his misconduct and cruelty.
Giving evidence the petitioner said […] her husband […] got a position in China, and she joined him there. In November, 1920, she surprised him writing a letter. When she came in he crumpled the letter up and threw it into the wastepaper basket. She later recovered the letter, and found that it began “Dearest Betty,” and made an appointment for the afternoon.
“Betty,” said the petitioner, was a Mrs. Elizabeth Fisk Leitch; she was a lady who started on the fringe of society in Tientsin, and was gradually ostracised. She was known as “the lady with the bedroom eyes.”
3-: From The Chair Warmers, by Sherley Hunter, published in the Los Angeles Record (Los Angeles, California, USA) of Friday 31st July 1925 [page 1, column 1]:
If you think the corner of Sixth and Hill streets is crammed with bedroom-eyed Brummels, try to horn through the brigade just inside the entrance of a fist-class hotel. It’s terrible.
4-: From an advertisement for Bracey’s Ltd., a Lithgow department store, published in The Lithgow Mercury (Lithgow, New South Wales, Australia) of Monday 18th July 1927 [page 3, column 6]:
Here’s another Special, also from our Dress Department. 36-inch PURE GLACE SILK, of heavy weight and splendid quality, with a lovely soft finish. In glorious evening shades that would give a Sphinx the bedroom-eyes of a certain so-called sheik 3. It should be 7/11 a yard at least, but here is yours for 5/11.
3 This is an allusion to the Italian-born U.S. silent-film actor Rudolph Valentino (1895-1926), a.k.a. The Latin Lover, who starred in the U.S. film The Sheik (1921).
5-: From Journey’s End. A Play in Three Acts (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1929), by the British author Robert Cedric Sherriff (1896-1975) [Act III, scene 2, page 104]—the following takes place in a dug-out in the British trenches near St. Quentin, in northern France, during the First World War:
[Hibbert takes a leather case from his pocket and produces some picture post-cards.
Hibbert: I say, I’ve never shown you these, have I?
[He hands them one by one to Stanhope, smiling up into Stanhope’s face for approval.
Stanhope: Where did you get these from?
Hibbert: In Bethune. (He hands up a card.) […] There’s a nice pair of legs for you.
Stanhope: Too thin—aren’t they, Trotter? (He hands Trotter the card.)
Trotter (after some thought): Scraggy, I call ’em.
Hibbert (handing Stanhope another card): That’s the one I like best.
Stanhope: Not bad.
Hibbert: Glorious bedroom eyes.
Stanhope: She’s all right.
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