LURE OF UGLY MEN.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5508, 2 December 1929, Page 3

LURE OF UGLY MEN.

SPELL OVER BEAUTIFUL WOMEN AN UNACCOUNTABLE FACT. What is the lure of the ugly man ? What is that “it” which he possesses which leads women—supposedly such beauty worshippers—to succumb to his charm, magnetism, personality, or whatever you like to call it ? That ugly men have an extraordinary fascination for women —a fascination far greater than that of the matinee idol type with classically moulded features and ripply hair—is demonstrated on all sides of life in everyday life (writes Adelaide Foster in the Sunday Chronicle). A walk through the streets of any great city will convince the sceptic that it is the plain and homely, if not the forthright ugly man who captures the prettiest woman. . Some of the loveliest women in the world have married men with lopsided features and ungainly figures, while one reads almost daily of the incredible stories of women who have fallen beneath the spell of some adventurer who is as ugly as he is ruthless. « Strange Lure of Murderers. Not long ago in London there was produced a play called “Beauty,’ in which an ugly man won the favours of a beautiful womart, who preferred him to the dashing and handsome suitor who also laid siege to her charms. It is a situation which is repeating itself in real life every day. What is the explanation ? Why do so many women remain indifferent to the appeal of an attractive man, yet fall for an ugly one ? Ugly men are supposed to possess hearts of gold and tempers as serene as a summer’s sky. But that cannot be the secret of their strange lure. v Landru, the French Bluebeard, was a man of surly disposition and vile itemper, yet he made far more feminine conquests than any Adonis. Charles Peace’s Conquests. Bearded, ugly, lacking in personal charm, he treated women with ferocious cruelty. Every one who came under his spell he led a life of misery until, finally, he butchered her. But Landru never lacked a mistress throughout his bizarre career. Wherever he went there were always women, who, fascinated by his ugliness, were ready to throw themselves at his feet. What uglier man is it possible to imagine thah Charles Peace ? In most people’s eyes his bulging forehead, his piercing stare, and his sunken cheeks alone make him a repellent monster. • But the women of his time did not think so. Peace, in fact, was almost as big a success as a beguiler of women as he was a master criminal. At one period of his chequered career he even had a wife and two mistresses living together in the same - house. Another who possessed that strange “something” of the ugly man was Jerome Pratt, the second French -L Landru, as he was termed. Old, uncouth in appearance, and shabbilydressed, he exercised a remarkable domination over women. Three of his sweethearts he strangled with his ugly gnarled hands and buried them beneath the cement of his fireplace. Altogether he was alleged to have murdered fifteen women before the law claimed him, and letters from scores of other dupes were found in his rooms when they were searched. All these men were repulsively ugly and all of them possessed that inex--1 plicable attraction for women, an attraction so overwhelming as to bring ruin, misery, and even death to their • victims. ' An Irresistible Force. Probably the most outsanding example in recent memory of the victory of sheer personality over an intensely unprepossessing exterior is to i, be found in Rasputin, the infamous monk of Russia. His was a personality which stood for all evil and bad, yet which captivated the devotion — and even adoration —of all the wof men, and not a few men, who were unfortunate enough to come in contact with him. Great ladies of gentle birth—even the tragic Empress of all the Russias—women of culture and refinement, all fell beneath the dominant and sinister spell of this remarkable man, who had not even the redeeming features of cleanliness. B' Why ? Simply because there was ■ some tremendous force emanating from the man—a force so powerful and irresistible that it made his victims obey his commands in blind subjection. All ugly men, of course, are not scoundrels, murderers, and But they nearly all possess the same* strange lure for women. Remarried Three Times Willard Mack, the film star and' . actor, is far from prepossessing, yet he has had no fewer than four wives. Beautiful Pauline Frederick, whom Harrison Fisher, the famous artist, described as the “purest type of American beauty,” was one of them her predecessor being Marjorie Ramjjbeau, another lovely woman of the r American stage. But it falls to the lot of Kid M’Coy, famous pugilist and ladies’ man, to have the distinction of breaking the record in the matrimonial market. He has a list of nine marriages to his credit, three of them to the same wife. It is puzzling even to attempt to define the fascination this intensely ugly man had for the opposite sex. Certainly it did not depend an any monetary considerations he may have acquired in the course of his prizefighting career, for he was married for five years to a millionairess, a Mrs Estelle Ellis. After that he became the husband fef another woman, also a millionairess.

Even when on trial for murder Kid grown old-looking—held the jury spell-bound. There were nine women on the jury

and three men. But so great was his extraordinary appeal that the women of the jury caught their breath as he talked. He got off on a verdict of manslaughter, brought in after a seventy-eight hours’ deliberation. The jury were ten to two in favour of this verdict, and I wonder whether nine of the ten were women. D’Annunzio the Lover. Quite another type of man, but one which nevertheless illustrates the lure of the ugly man, is D’Annunzio, the great Italian poet and “lover, who has been called “the man with the hundred loves.” Throughout his life D’Annunzio has swayed the hearts of many women, some of them extremely beautiful. Eleanor Duse for a long time considered her love affair with him the greatest tragedy of her life. After breaking with him she solemnly vowed never again to see him, never again to appear in any of his plays. But when, after serious financial reverse, she was forced to return to the stage in her declining years, the only play in which she could feel absolutely sure of herself was one written by the man who had cast her love aside. Then—to everyone’s amazement — the broken romance was renewed, and the great tragedienne once more took her place in D’Annunzio’s capacious heart.