Picture-Play Magazine (Sep 1928 - Feb 1929)

46 Manhattan Medley Photo by Brown The visit of Alice Day to New York was all work and no play. from the slouchy set, and given her height, elegance, and line. His nimble fingers have fashioned fripperies for the piquant charm of Leatrice Joy, and the airy, fairy beauty of Claire Windsor, as well as the fresh girlishness of Norma Shearer. But he will tell you that it is far more entertaining to enhance \' the charm of the woman who j; is interesting and far from beautiful, than merely to glorify the magnificence of the real beauty. "Mere beauty," he says, "means nothing. It is too perfect to stimulate the imagination. But your interesting woman; — she may be plain, but she is bewitching. She is the unexpected. There is a sameness about a beautiful woman. She is invariably beautiful. Her beauty is static, but the fleeting x glances one has into the personality of an interesting woman are far more stimulating. An interesting woman changes with her mood. A beauty is always content to be a beauty, and why not? It is far easier for an ugly woman to be interesting, than it is for a beautiful woman to be interesting. "Take Greta Garbo, for example. She is one of the most fascinating women of modern times, but she is not, according to ordinary standards, beautiful. Her charm is her expressiveness. She is difficult to fathom. She is elusive. She is variable. These are the very qualities which appeal to the imagination — and clothes, beautiful clothes, are the product of the imagination. An interesting woman changes with her clothes. They make a subtle difference in her appeal to the world. You take your real beauty, like Billie Dove, whether she is dressed in sport clothes, or draped with Grecian folds, she is always beautiful Billie Dove, late of the 'Follies.' .Hers is the charm of ,the picture gallery. Then, again,, consider Garbo. She presents a vista of fascinating possibilities. There is always the lure, the search for the unknown, unsuspected quality. "Women in Hollywood have not yet 'found' themselves in the matter of dress. They have not yet developed clothes sense, but they are acquiring it. The interesting European woman is ever intent upon being individual. She demands that her clothes reflect her personality and hers alone. The Hollywood woman is an everlasting procession of diminutive Mary Pickfords, Gloria Swansons, and Clara Bows. The majority of women are doing their level best to reflect a personality; yes, but not their own — rather the personality of some conspicuous type, popular at the moment with the producers. The repetition is merely monotonous. The procession of endless types merely defeats its own purpose, for individuality in clothes inevitably wins the day. That is why a clever woman is never happy unless she is well dressed." An Untamed Hero. One of the screen's most unique heroes recently made his first visit to New York. Speak-easies held no interest for him. He was never to be found in the Ritz Grill, the Lambs Club, or at a night club, and he positively refused to take any interest in his public. His art is innate with him, and he makes no bones — and bones are his birthright — about it. No amount of coaxing could induce him to keep his shoes polished, his nails clean, or his face washed. "Smudges on mah face don't show," he has been known to inform the management, of whom he is the despair. Even though he is an actor, and a good one, he has never been known to shopped for complain about not dolls, anj'thing, not Farina baseball bats,