Firstly Trading Places is a great and well loved movie so that brings some attention.

I think you might be underselling her role a little. She was probably the 3rd or 4th most featured character (her and the butler).

She played a prostitute who turned out to have more decency than any of the rich bastards or most of Billy Ray’s fickle friends and I think she did that well enough for a movie of this sort. So I think she did a great job of the role.

Now I’m not naive enough to think that the fact she got her tits out made no difference, but I do think it made less than half of the difference in how this movie helped her career.

Out of all the times an actress’s body has got her more attention and praise than her actual acting talent deserved, this would be really low on my list.