“I WEEL ALWAYSS BE TAIRRTY-NINE!”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 714, 13 July 1929, Page 2

“I WEEL ALWAYSS BE TAIRRTY-NINE!”

MISTINGUETT, OWNER OF THE WORLD’S MQST BEAUTIFUL LEGS, REFUSES TO GROW OLD—AND PROVES THAT SHE HAS REASON TO BELIEVE SHE WILL NOT

HISTINGUETT, the eternally young, the idol of the Paris stage and the most vivacious tinent, has been visiting London. I have sat with her and chatted with her in the luxurious suite of her "West End hotel and have been privileged to have what may be termed a "close-up" view of the "million-dollar" legs which have helped to make her world-famous (writes a reporter in the “World’s Pictorial News”). We talked of her legs, as we sat there, Mistinguett curled up on a settee clad in intriguing negligee, a peach silk pyjama suit with the trousers rolled up above her knees displaying the shapely silken-swathed legs over which artists and sculptors have raved. She is proud of them—rightly so, for there must be few women, indeed, of 60 years who could reveal such graceful lines as Mistinguett, who sat there vivacious and smiling not a day older than the 39 years which is all that she will confess to. "La-la,” she exclaimed in mock indignation, “Mistinguett sixty—nevair. She thirty-nine—nevair forty. Thirtynine sounds not so bad.” It is impossible to reproduce in print the delicious accent of her English of which she is also proud. So Mistinguett will remain "tierty-nine,” as she spoke it. My legs? Always people talk about my legs. When the photographer was here just now, it was my legs he wanted to photograph. Not Mistinguett—no Mistingueic's legs. And I say to him when he go, “Bonjour, M'sieur, go away and make me look very pretty like I never was.” But it was my legs he came to take. And the ladies—they write to me—long, long letters asking me what to do to get pretty legs. What exercises I perform, and how I bathe them, and will I reveal to them all my secrets? Oh, yes—it is always my legs. Never my face, and I tell them all my secrets. I tell them exactly -what I do, and I tell them how to get pretty

legs. I tell them all I know: about it, and that is—nothing. “Beautiful legs,” 1 tell them, “must be born and not made. If you are born with pretty legs—then you will have pretty legs, but if nature is unkind and gives you ugly legs, just like she may give you an ugly face or ugly figure, then you cannot alter it. You may do little things which can remedy small defects, or improve the shape just a little —a very little—but beauty is born and cannot be manufactured. We none of us come into the world alike, and our legs, like our features, differ. Perhaps it is a good thing, for those with beautiful legs or figures may be getting compensation for their lack of beauty in other directions. Ugliness which they cannot change, for an ugly face can no more be changed than ugly legs.” And people call them “million-

dollar legs.” Do you know why? Just because when I made my first journey to America the story of my pretty legs, and how famous artists had wanted to paint them, had gone ahead of me. WONDERFUL DRESSES So even before 1 left France to cross the ocean the American syndicate which had engaged me to appear at their theatres went, to a big insurance company, and insured my legs against accident and against anything which

t might mar or destroy their beauty for a million dollars. Of course they are worth it to me. They are worth more to me than all the gold in all the world, for life would end for me should harm come to my legs. And then —when I reached America there were a little army of photographers all lined up at the quayside, all wim their cameras, and there was another little army of reporters, all . waiting for my arrival, and —the one thing they would talk about, the one thing they insisted on photographing, was—my legs. I had prepared myself in the most ravishing of Parisian modes. I had bedecked myself in the most attractive of hats, for I wanted to create an impression. La-la, thousands of Americans had crossed to the Continent, and had seen me at the Moulin Rouge. They had seen Mistinguett in her wonderful stage creations, but

they had never seen her in her everyday attire. I had paid great pains, and spent lots of time in the selection of my gown and my hat for the occasion of my arrival, and then—they did not care what I Rooked like. They paid no heed to my dress, or to my chapeau. No —they asked me about my legs and took pictures of me in special poses which should display them to the best advantage. Ah — and the hat that I wore—oh, it was too, too wonderful.