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Vivien Blackburn, the Famous “Fencing Girl,”
Tells How Her Beauty Thwarted Ambition
and Closed the “Right Doors of Love/’
I READ recently with the keen
est interest and sympathy
Edna Goodrich’s talk in this
newspaper about the disadvan
tages of being a great beauty.
I have suffered so much more than
Miss Goodrich, can tell so much of
the unhappiness that beauty brings,
the toll it takes, that I felt it my
duty to add my experiences to her
record.
In her article, Miss Goodrich
went more into the general aspect
of the question. I propose to tell
specifically how my beauty
thwarted me in my ambition at
every turn for ten years, not only
closing the only entrance to the
stage that. I desired, but closing as
well every exit in life through
which my heart desired to go.
The first happened because it is
the tradition that a beautiful
woman cannot be intelligent, and
the second, because the kind of man
who is impelled to propose mar
■iage to a beauty is not the kind
i thoughtful girl would choose as
mate.
A girl who is unfortunate enough
io be known as “A Beauty” has
had thrust upon her the most
dreadful handicap imaginable. If
she happens to be a girl on the
stage, and particularly a girl in
musical comedy, she has no future,
unless she has a courage, a deter
mination. a bulldog tenacity that
laughs at disappointments and after
each fresh discouragement arises
with a fresh determination not to
be a slave of her looks.
With the same amount of pluck,
of work and of brains, a girl who
Is not so handicapped, will progress
further in one year than the beauty
will in ten!
It has been proven that in fash
ionable society there are, out of
every ten unhappy married women,
seven beauties to three of average
appearance. The records of the
divorce courts show’ that rarely is
a plain woman called upon to sever
her marital bonds, and still more
rarely is she divorced because she
has been at fault.
In the average circle of life
beauty is a constant disturber of
he peace, while to be beautiful ir
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Vivien Blackburn as She Is Now. Not So Prettv Ml »
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By VIVIEN BLACKBURN
The Famous “Fencing Girl.”
the lower circles is dreadful in
deed for the woman.
What is the reason for all this?
When I was only a little girl,
just turning ten, I had a forerunner
of the bitter experiences that were
to befall me in later life. I had
been one of a close group of school
girls. One day one of them gave
a party- and I was the only one
not invited. I was heartbroken I
cried my eyes out. I didn’t go to
school for a week. When 1 did I
asked one of the little girls why
I had not been invited to the party
, becau9e you’re too
pretty, Vivien, she said. "Maudie
was jealous of you, and she told me
that she was tired of hearing every
one say: ‘My, what a pretty eirl
Vivien Blackburn is.’”
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In that little incident you get a
clear cut example of what goes on
all through life for the beauty. The
little girls turn to big ones; the
little party becomes a very dazzling
one perhaps, but here and there, all
the time, the beauty is being
“panned” by her girl friends, be
cause they are "tired” of hearing
her called a beauty and because
they are a bit afraid of her too.
Time went on, and I grew, they
said, prettier I liked being called
pretty. It made me feel different
from the other girls. I looked down
on them a bit. I liked to have the
boys dangling about me. The girls
weren t as confiding to me as they
were to others. But I didn’t care.
Jealous things, I said, they’re lust
envious! '1 hen I began to notice
that the r<\.e boys that hutig around
nlain^n 1 t° ff p° ne by one and married
plain sort of girls who couldn't hold
a candle to my looks.
nn A th'^ Bt f l made UP ffiy mind t 0 K°
on the stage. I didn’t want to be
a show girl. I wanted to be'a great
actress, and I thought I had intelli
gence enough to be one. I was
v ry t ha A P ? y when 1 wen ‘ to New
After I bad tried to get into ,
a real play for a month and couldn’t '
tril/Th S ° • h r appy ‘ At laßt 1
tried the musical comedies, and I
didn t have the least trouble getting
on It wa u all new, and for a time
1 for ßOt my ambitions. I said to
myself that this was only a little
picnic, before I began the real
serious business of being a great
actress.
,T he ?u, one day the most unfortu
nate thing that ever happened to
me came about. I awoke to find
myself christened “the most beauti
ful chorus girl in New York!”
I thought It fine then. I didn’t
realize the serious sadness of it I
sent clippings to all my friends and
1° ™ y f ? mily ' Next a rival man
ager met me and offered to raise
my salary from S2O to S3O a week
I thought that fine too. Very Roon
another offered me S4O, then S S S
and then S6O. e
But wait! I went to the manager
and asked him to give me a speak
ing part. He laughed at me. i,
"Why people don’t w’ant to hear,
you,” he said. “They just want to
look at you. Anyway, a pretty
woman hasn’t any- brains!”
I argued. He was inflexible.
I had to live, so I kept on —letting
people just look at me. Then I
went into Anna Held's “Little
Duchess.” I was one of the fencing
girls. A photograph of me In black
silk stockings, short skirt and a
fencer’s pad on my waist attracted
the attention of the general man
ager of the Chicago & Alton Rail
road. He used it as a trade mark
and had thousands upon thousands
of my photographs distributed as a
souvenir of the railroad.
After that I was doomed! 1 was
a Broadway Beauty, and I couldn’t
shake off that handicap, no matter
how I tried.
You see. there I was, just a
beauty, and nothing else. Famous
because I had a good figure, a
pleasing face, a complexion, nice
eyes. All of them perishable, too!
Everything for which people
thought me worth while was just
on the surface. I had no reserve
to call upon—and I knew that I
had brains as well as beauty. But
nobody else would believe it.
I grew desperate. I went to
manager after manager for whom 1
had worked, and begged them al
most on my knees to take me
away from being a show girl and
give me some lines.
‘Just let me try one rehearsal ”
I would beseech “I know I can
play parts. I don’t want a big one,
just a few- lines. Just give me a
One and all they laughed at me
“Oh, you’re too pretty to waste
yourself on a little part, Vivien,”
they would say. "I’ve got some
stunning new costumes for ' you
and I’m going to put you again in
the front row and pay you more
money than any two show’ girls in
that?’ ,ay ' Why nOt be Batisfled with
I wasn’t. To prove that I was
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Vivien
Blackburn’s
Famous
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aw«v ? er for tw ° years aud went
SDealHi? BtUdy and t 0 P !an for that
around part ’ After tha ‘ 1 went
mnro to tbe o ®ces again. Once
me lny old managers laughed at
tO ..£ ome l>ack ' ar e you?"
show ahu’.f Wel1 ’ there ’ 8 been no
Place. gi si^ nc ! b^ ho could take your
“"0 -et fittea ~.re ° *Kt ra and g 0
firl costumes 1 the best show
“I won’t,” I said.
At last Henry W. Savage agreed
to give me a chance in his farce,
“Excuse Me.” I’m playing the
second most important feminine
role in it now, and after Christ
mas, Mr. Savage Is going to give
me a better and bigger part in a
new Broadway production. I have
won out in my fight against my
looks.
But see the waste. It’s taken me
ten years to do ft. If I had been
plainer I could have done it in one.
I’ve spoken about the “exits to
the heart” being closed too. I can’t
imagine anything more dangerous
for true love than being a stage
beauty. I’ve had proposals, lots of
them. But 1 wouldn’t marry the
kind cf men who did the proposing.
If I’d found one who wanted to
marry- me for something besides my
beauty it would have been differ
ent. But it’s g. very shallow love
that is aroused by mere appear
ance
Lock at the girls who have mar
ried on the stage because men
have become infatuated with their
looks. How many have turned out
happily? I can count you twenty
girls to-day who are either back on
the stage or leading miserable lives
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a *1 was f c K ere d to my A) / I/) J
IP mirror. I had brains in I *W
my head, but al! they I \
were given to do was to / \3r \
||||l make my eyes roll lan- / I T j
|S|a guishingly,” says Miss //L_. J] ~ Al
Blackburn. This picture I I
°f h er shows her eyes at ' /
their “languishingest.” <3/ \\ j\ I I
te they married men who
were attracted by their beauty.
There’s something unnatural
about a woman being beautiful any
way. In nature —in the lower ani
mals and the birds —-the female isn’t
beautiful. It’s the male that is the
better looker. The female is
usually a demure, plain little thing
who isn’t readily noticed. The male
struts around in colors and might
and comeliness. There's a good
reason for this. The persistence of
the race depends upon the female.
She has to be unobtrusive, so she
won’t attract dangerous attention.
She has to look out for the young.
The male can be more easily re-
When a woman Is beautiful, un-
Weird Human Things Done bv Plante
By.. PROF. G. KENSLOW.
A DISTINGUISHED gardener
was dozing in a chair in his
drawing-room one sultry
Summer afternoon, and a bottle
stood on the table by his side.
Suddenly the bottle began to move
stealthily across the table. The
sleeper woke up; the bottle had
disappeared.
In astonishment, which might
have been agitation, had the bottle
contained anything but a bunch of
blossoms, he set out to investigate.
In the midst of his meditations the
thief fortunately gave audible warn
ing of his proximity. Glancing out
of his window the horticulturist
saw an astonishing sight. The
tinkle-tinkle he had heard was a
Virginia creeper rattling the bottle
against the window-pane!
The adhesive pads on its tendrils
are irritated by anything they touch,
and stick to it like a leech. Really
it may be quite feasible to train a
plant to pick pockets.
The fashionable sweet-pea. if
touched on one of its tendrils with
a stick, or rubbed gently for half
an hour, will begin to twist round
the stick. If teased further it will
usually baautlf,,.
nature, and la’ BUe getß ° u tsida
dangers of tb„ ’Ubject to all the
Stlnctlvely re^ bn . Ormal - Man in '
therefore the „ B > n Zes thls - and
fights shy of thl« f r , egular ma n
that are attract female; the kin d
that do big th?n are ( u nOt ,he klnd
world's progress g th»» hat help tbe
warks of the ran t^a^n? re tbe bu *'
frltterers the nhHs^ 67 are the
more or le BB h u e ßpl S landerers ’ ‘he
betuy
thing qh» h 8 l he sa ddest
admired fi y
her' R She isV’ J B notbin « left of
Better ?or hfl JUB * a u sbadow - a husk.
1 r hei L t 0 be dead.
"re the most reckless of
grapple with its tormentor. Be
sides the twisting motion it has
af°“how- Which has been described
Nation Th a^° UUd ’’ or c|rcum-mu
ation. This is an endeavor to fas
ed v^. 60 ' nethllls - R was undoubt
edly its success in "bowing around”
th- c* rcum -inutatlon, that enabled
the creeper to carry off the bottle. >
t hough we have yet to find plants
that can hear or smell, many of our
common growths are sensitive to
, c ,! si s ht and thirst. Chlor
ophyll, which is the green coloring
matter of leaves, not only stores up
the energy of the sun in plants, but
enables the plant to select the light
ray that is most beneficial to it
In millions of little green granules
under the epidermis of the leaf, it
is, in fact, the eyes of the plant. It
can detect every color and rays the
human eye cannot see.
The projected giant sun-concen
trator which may make the Sudan
the powerhouse of the world was
long ago anticipated by Nature In
the schlzostigma. This apparently
terrible creature is nothing more
formidable than a type of moss.
Nature has endowed it with lenses
tn the form of globular granules
which concentrate and condense
women? The most beautiful
why? Because they know thai
they have nothing but that, and
lime is ever threatening to fore
close. They have to make the best
of the thin sheaf of bills Fortune
has given them. The bills are
beautifully engraved, it is true, but
soon spent. And so they try to get
ail they can out of them.
Iv e often wondered whether the
P : a ?° ck „ wouldn’t have had a
?efn h destln y If he hadn’t
b r ® n „ f ? ced for centuries into be
wouki 8 h n ° W V rd ' , 1 won der what he
rhirvt bG u n? As useful a- 8
cnicken prooably.
„3 d ’?* hei be a chicken than a
leacock. But if i were a peacock
no one would ever believe it!
light and so feed the plant In the
shade. Too much light, however,
turns leaves yellow, and plants can
be made to turn their coats by the
action of light upon them.
Plants, in fact, are just as sensi
ve as we are. Insectivorous
plants can undoubtedly taste what
is given them and refuse it as cer
tainly a s the gourmet would an in
ferior dish at the dinner of a City
company. They only like nitrog
enous substances; sugar, starch
oil and such fattening carbohy
drates they have no use for.
The craving of plants and trees
for water has sometimes led them
to terrible extremes. A poplar has
been known to burrow beneath a
wall, under a road, and down a
well—all in search of water, and
a pertinacious turnip which got the
tip of its root into the crack in a
field drain went on and on until it
was six feet long in the drain. So
sensitive is the tip of the root- on
the water question that Darwin de
clared it must have a brain in it.
If ever a book is written on "veg
etable mechanics,” one will find that
plants have made levers, screws,
columns wedges- everything, la
fact, s hat engineeers have.