Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21157, 5 July 1940, Page 4

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Cinema ~, Snapshots,

For the first time since Clara Bow, the “It” girl, blazed her way across the Hollywood horizon, the redheads are reigning favourites over the blondes and brunettes. Green-eyed Vivien Leigh’s coppery hued tresses, which helped her win the role of Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind,” has set the pace for the bevy of brick-topped newcomers. These range from the true fiery red of Greer Garson to the Titian glory of Lana Turner and the duskier red glints of Maureen O’Hara and Mary Martin. Among the established redheads and brownettes with reddish tints are such delectable charmers as Jeanette MacDonald, Myrna Loy, Janet | Gaynor, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell and Ann Sheridan of “Oomph” fame. In the opinion of Mervyn Leßoy. who is directing Miss Leigh in “Waterloo Bridge,” this is a good sign that the screen will have a not- I able year. Discoverer of Miss Tur- I ner, he is a student of redheads. “Redheads,” he says, “are the greatest of emotional actresses and always have been. Look at the immortals of the stage, Sara Bernhardt, Fritzi Scheff, Mrs Fiske, Mrs Leslie Carter, Cecilia Loftus, Margaret Anglin and Ellen Terry. All were redheads. So were those historymakers, Queen Elizabeth, Helen of Troy and Cleopatra.”