Sweet Kitty Bellairs (Warner Bros.) (1930)

Warner Bros. Present “SWEET KITTY BELLAIRS,”’ an All-Talking, “Sweet Kitty Bellairs” Recalls Other oe Singing Picture in Natural Colors Famous Women Who Have Ruled Men by Wit, Wiliness or Beauty PLANT THIS SERIES OF SIX STORIES IN LOCAL PAPER A WEEK IN ADVANCE OF THE PICTURE Preface each daily story with “The coming of ‘Sweet Kitty Bellairs,’ the latest Warner Bros. and Vitaphone romantic comedy in technicolor: to the | . Theatre next, recalls famous flirts of history.” — Peg Woffiington Few who frequent the quaint eighteenth century coffee houses known as “Peg Woffington’s,” realize that the actress for whom they are named ig one of those women the world refuses to forget. She touches the imagination. She ig rosemary for remembrance. Peg Woffington is one of those about whom it may truly be said, much-she has loved, much shall she be forgiven. Dublin was her birthplace and of her parents nothing is recorded but their poverty. At ten Peg was playing Polly Peacham in a liliputian presentation of “The Beggar’s Opera,” and was dancing and playing in various Dublin theatres, till twenty-six, when her success as Sir Harry Wildair in “The Constant Couple” won her a London engagement. In this, and as Sylvia in “The Recruiting Officer” she had a pronounced success, and at Drury Lane and Covent Garden, as well as in Dublin, she appeared in all the plays of the day with evergrowing popularity. er Her impersonations of the elegant © ladies of the day—were fine, “but in breeches parts,” says the Britannica, “she was unapproachable. Her many and notorious love affairs were not more well known than her generosity and kindness of heart. At the height of her fame she suddenly gave up all, adopted a life of nunlike seclusion, seeing only the poor and suffering. She built and endowed almshouses in Teddington, where she died three years later, in 1757, aged forty-three years.” “Sweet Kitty Bellairs,” at the Theatre next, Comtesse Du Barry Du Barry of the scintillating wit, the frank and gracious manners, the seductive beauty—Du Barry who ruled Louis XV, and through him all France —Du Barry whom Benjamin Franklin and other brilliant men of her day visited—Du Barry whose head fell be neath the knife of the guillotine—Du Barry! One of the women who will live while time lasts. Born in poverty in Vaucoeleurs, tau~"* drawing and the catechism in a t, at sixteen she is a Paris m Then the courtesan Mlle. La. __and later mistress of Jean, Comte du Barry, who takes her into his house to make it more attractive to the dupes whose money he wins by gambling. Through him, and with the help of Lebel, valet de chambre of Louis XV, and due de Richelieu, she ig finally presented in court as the Comtesse du Barry and made official mistress to the king. Her influence over Louis XV is absolute until his death, and courtiers and ministers are in favor or disgrace with him in exact accordance with her wishes. Louis’ successor banishes her, but by the queen’s intercession she is allowed to live at the magnificient home Louis XV had built for her. She goes to England in 1792 to raise money on her jewels and on her return to France is accused before the Reyolutionary Tribunal and beheaded the same evening, December dy A198. “Sweet Kitty Bellairs,” ........... aheatre, =. next. for a preposterous length of time she settled down to the social leadership of Paris. Among her friends, she counted Mme. de la Sabliere, Mme, de la Fayette and Mme. de Maintenon. It became the fashion for young men as well as old to throng about her, and the best of all introduetions for a young man wishing to cut a figure in society was the introduction of Mlle. de L’Enclos. Her distinguishing characteristics were neither beauty nor wit, but high spirits and perfect evenness of temperament. “Sweet Kitty Bellairs,” Theatre next. Ninon de L’Enclos Ninon de L’Enclos, daughter of a gentleman of good position in Touraine, was born in Paris in 1615. Her long and eventful life divides into two periods, during the former of which she is the typical Frenchwoman of the gayest and most licentious society of the séventeenth century, during the latter, the recognized leader of fashion in Paris, and the friend of wits and poets. All that can be pleaded in defense of her earlier life is that she had been educated by her father in epicurean and sensual beliefs, and that she retained throughout, the frank demeanor, and disregard of money, which won from Saint Evremond the remark that she was an honnete homme. She had a succession of distinguished lovers, among them being Gaspard de Coligny, the Marquis of d’Estrees, La Rochefoucauld, Conde and Saint Evremond. Queen Christina of Sweden visited her, and Anne of Austria was powerless against her. After she had continued her career Pepys wrote in his immortal diary on March 25, 1667, after seeing Nell as Florimel in Dryden’s “Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen,” “So great a performance of a comical part was never, I believe, in the world before.” Nell Gwynn was born, probably in an alley off Drury Lane, London. Her father was a broken-down soldier, and her mother, after Nell Song Hits “YOU—O0-O, I LOVE BUT YOU” % “MY LOVE, PLL BE WAITING FOR YOU” ® “HIGHWAYMAN’S SONG” Three Column Ad—Style N—Cut or Mat ==" SWEET was in the twenties, was drowned, apparently when intoxicated, in a poud in Chelsea. The child sold oranges in the preeinets of Drury Lane Theatre, and at fifteen went on the boards. Her success as Florimel brought her other leading parts, suited to her airy, irresponsible personality. She was piquant rather than pretty, short of stature, and her chief beauty was her reddish-brown hair. She was illiterate and with difficulty scrawled her initials at the bottom of letters written for her by others. It was, however, as the mistress of Charles II that she endeared herself to the public. Her frank recklessness, generosity, good temper, ready wit, infectious high spirits, and amazing indiscretions appealed to a generation, as the living antithesis of Puritanism. The king’s deathbed request, “Let not poor Nelly starve,” was carried out by his brother, James II, who paid her debts and settled on her an estate. She did not long survive her royal lover, and by her own request was buried in St. Martin-in-theFields. “Sweet Kitty Bellairg” ee: Theatre next. George Sand George Sand—Madame Amandine Lucile Aurore Dudevant, nee Dupin history. Not alone for the reason that she was the most prolific authoress of all time, but because she was the first lady to wear trousers on the boulevards and to smoke big, black cigars. Then, too, her divorce from a bourgeois husband and her sgubsequent love affairs, caused scandalmongering tongues to wag. George Sand was born in a room adjoining the hall where her soldier father was fiddling for a country dance. “She will be fortunate,” said an aunt, “for she was born among the roses, to the strains of music.” Blood of kings of France mingled with that of a Paris bird-fancier, in her veins. She liked the range of her heredity, and her vast wunderstanding of life was gained from years in camp, convent, country and town. After her divoree she supported her daughter by painting and embroidery, being driven by poverty into literature, and immortality. She was inspiration and despair to many of the greatest men of her time, among them Chopin, Dumas, de Musset and Balzac. Liszt wrote of her in his later years: “She catches her butterfly, and tames it in her cage by feeding it on flowers and she sticks her pin into it when it struggles—this is the conge—and it always comes from her. Afterwards she vivisects it, stuffs it, and adds it to her collection of heroes, for novels.” “Sweet Kitty Bellairs” .... Theatre next, 80) Pe eh ee SOURS es ROO ee pe ele Queen Elizabeth Elizabeth, last of the Tudors, was born on the seventh of September, 1533, only surviving child of Henry VIII and his second Queen, Anne Boleyn. Both parents were bitterly disappointed at her sex, but she was given precedence over her sister Mary, her senior by sixteen years, and for this Mary never forgave her. Later, when Henry had Elizabeth’s mother, not only divorced but beheaded, Elizabeth lost all hereditary right to the throne. However, after Henry had caused the decapitation of Jane Seymour, Elizabeth was placed next in the succession, after the issue of Edward and Mary, by act of Parliament. “Contemporary gossip, which was probably justified,” says the Britannica, “claimed that she was debarred from matrimony by a physical defect. Though her features were as handsome as those of her sister, Mary Queen of Scots, she had but little fascination, and in spite of her many suitors no man lost his head over Elizabeth as men did over Mary. She was far too masculine in mind and temperament, and her extravagant addiction to the outward trappings of femininity was probably due to the absence or atrophy of deeper feminine instincts. In the same way the impossibility of marriage made her all the freer with her flirtations and she carried some of them to lengths that scandalized the public.” Queer bore... Theatre— = next. nectar. This is the love period. Then. —is one of the astonishing ladies of © Ae a Elizabeth, loneliest of queens, ar 4 WARNER VUTAPHONE ag last of her race, died at sever 24 ROS. | WB March 24, 1603. “Sweet Kitty at¥»