Every Woman Has Some Good Feature Says Margaret Bannerman

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 466, 22 September 1928, Page 26

Every Woman Has Some Good Feature Says Margaret Bannerman

HAVE never seen an ugly woman in my life, writes Margaret Bannerman, the famous actress. Every woman has some good feature —good eyes,

a beautiful nose, fine teeth, a beautifully moulded face, or a pretty mouth. Or maybe a charming complexion. Nature sees to it that there is compensation for all. Nature adjusts beauty and distributes it with a generous hand and a rare cunning. Nature is a darling, really. We all see beauty in a different way. “Each to his choice,” as Kipling says. But I rejoice the lot has fallen to me to see all my sisters through rosy glasses. Of course, sometimes people will say to me, “I can’t see what you see in her.” And sometimes I may say of a woman many people are praising, “I don’t see what vou are raving about.’’ But, on the

whole, in the universal scheme of things I believe that women come off very well.

As far as features alone go, I do not think that the race goes to the beautiful. While I cannot bring myself to use the word “plain” in connection with any woman, I do not believe that those less beautiful are handicapped in this world. I would be the last person to say that they are. There are certain classes of work that may demand a strict type of beauty. For example, on the stage it creates a good impression in the beginning. But even on the stage beauty alone will get you nowhere—well, nowhere beyond the front row of the chorus. Vivacity is a much greater asset than beauty, and grace—beauty’s half-sister—must be close at her side. Quite an ordinary face will be beautified by the set of the head upon the shoulders. Laughing eyes will have missed their meaning if they do not make you realise they go with a foreshortened nose. I have often been asked if I think

a plain woman has to work harder for her place in the sun than a pretty one. Obviously this is a question I cannot answer because it is one I do not understand. No face is plain to me, because every face is the indication of a character, and all character is interesting. And it is character that gets there in the end. Life may be made easy for the pretty girl for a while, but if she has nothing back of her prettiness she is going to come an awful crash before long. When that fatal hour comes discontent spreads an ugly veneer, even on the most perfect features. I advise her to start in young and cultivate her brains and her wit and her charm, and I would like to remind all pretty girls that it is just as bad to be selfconscious of their good looks as for the less good-looking to be self-

conscious of their lack of them. I would say the pretty woman has a pull for the first half-hour over her less perfect sister, but the vivacious woman will put it all over her in thirty-five minutes, and the woman of charm, no matter if her features are as mixed as a Christmas pudding, is the finest stayer of them all.