Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1930)

Who Is The Most Beautiful Star ? in Hollywood: PHOTOPLAY'S editorial staff conducts a secret ballot-and here is Hollywood's answer* NOT long ago a daring reporter hurled himself bodily at Gloria Swanson, just as the Marquise was boarding a train for the West, and threw her for a loss of ten yards. "Who," asked the brazen newsman, "is the most beautiful star in Hollywood?" Gloria was not taken aback for a minute. "There is only one beautiful star in Hollywood." she answered, "and that is Corinne Griffith. The rest of us are only types." Those words clanged around the world like a Chinese gong. At first pop it seems startling that one of filmland's acknowledged stunners should hang the crown of beauty on the placid brow of a sister and relegate all others, herself included, to the type class. And yet it isn't so startling after all. Hollywood's girls all have a measure of loveliness, usually large. The real beauties in the great Southern California hothouse can afford to be generous, frank and truthful about their sisters under the panchromatic make-up. So when Gloria singled Corinne out of the throng of sun-kissed queens, she was merely paying the tribute of one royal personage to another — a generous and truly regal gesture. And Gloria started something! No flat statement like that is ever going to pass unchallenged in a little world whose chief stock-in-trade is a stupendous and eye-smashing collection of professional lovely ones, and Hollywood has been about eighty-seven per cent agog since Gloria issued her now-famous proclamation. Favorite daughters have been pushed into the arena — boy friends have nominated their sweeties and sent threatening letters — brunettes have turned blondes over night, and blondes a sort of dappled gray. Our Hollywood editorial staff has devoted a solid month to polling the citizens of Beautyville-on-thePacific. Some hundreds of persons have been questioned, discreetly but thoroughly. The ticket nominated on this page today is Hollywood's choice of four exquisite girls who stand for something extraspecial and superfine in the way of good looks. * When this report was turned in, the Hollywood staff left tor the desert, leaving no address 60 Hollywood's Beauty Ticket For 1930 Corinne Griffith . . . Hollywood's Prize Beauty Loretta Young For Youthful Beauty Billie Dove For Classic Beauty Greta Garbo For Exotic Beauty In the midst of all the shooting, Corinne still stands as the outstanding beauty of beauty's modern home, where loveliness is hired for a sizable fee, with six-month options as long as crows' feet stay away. Not for nothing did some inspired press agent — a poet working in a boiler factory — call her the Orchid of the Screen. The beauty of Corinne is neither exotic nor flashily youthful — it has a steady, luminous glow. As good an adjective as any is "patrician." Yet so variegated are the blooms in the Hollywood garden that it would not be sensible, square or sporting to limit discussion of filmland's beauty to one outstanding beauty. If the rest are types, as Gloria says, the leading member of each of several classes is possessed of such smiting loveliness as to merit plenty of discussion, admiration and regard — not to mention a picture in the magazine. AT least three others, with all due respect to La Belle Marquise, can be segregated and festooned with medals and ribbons as the possessors of exceptional good looks in a large field of knockouts, according to Hollywood experts. For sheer youthful beauty, Hollywood nominates Loretta Young. For classic beauty of face and outline, certainly Billie Dove. And the mysterious beauty of spirit and body that combine to make up the strange loveliness we pigeon-hole as "exotic," the Swedish Siren. Greta Garbo. Each, in her own way, is superb. The little Loretta, a comparative newcomer, is so youthfully beautiful that her good looks are pretty much taken for granted, even in the home hothouse. Old Dame Rumor hath it that some other members of the younger set are more than a bit jealous of little Loretta, and are inclined to laugh her off with "Oh, yes, Loretta's awfully sweet" — that deadliest of feminine digs, sweetness in that sense being not at all synonymous with extreme beauty. Moreover, she's a Hollywood product, grown on the home ranch, and is more or less one of those prophets without too much honor in their own lands. None the less, those with perspective and excellent eyesight recognized the exceptional beauty of Loretta the minute she flashed on a screen — the arch-type and pattern of all youthful beauty, with the bloom still on the [ PLEASE TURN TO PAGE 136]