Arthur Murray's Popularity Book by Arthur Murray

Author:Arthur Murray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Arthur Murray’s Popularity Book: Vintage Advice and Wisdom from the Greatest Generation
ISBN: 9781783660094
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

“No matter what a girl looks like, she can become anything she wants”

by Kathryn Murray

PEOPLE of my age often say: “I wish I could be a child again, don’t you?” My answer is “No.” I’d hate to live my childhood over again.

My mother was a very pretty woman. She had red hair, blue eyes and a beautiful complexion. I was a sallow, tiny, dark-haired child — always the smallest of the group—always the homeliest. My uncle affectionately called me “Monkey.” How I hated him.

I adored beauty. My mother’s dresser drawers, fragrant with sachet, heaped with lacy, silky things held me spellbound for hours. My own finery consisted of a pair of black-and-white spangled shawls, discarded, out-of-date remnants. I loved dressing up and playing “pretend” over and over again. My favorite day dream was of myself, dressed in a frilly white net dress, over a pink satin slip, with rosebud trimming running ‘round and ‘round. In it, still in dreams, I would pirouette and dance for a great audience that would clap and cheer.

My mother had good taste in clothes. She knew her little Kathryn’s drawbacks and she dressed me in neat, crisp linens, calculated to swell out over my skin-and-bone build.

We had a goodhearted and loving girl living with us. Not exactly a maid or servant — more of a “mother’s helper.” She was so fond of me that I had beauty in her eyes. For Helen alone I would dance—no one else ever knew. Up in Helen’s little bedroom, I would dance in bare feet, in my little white slip and she would tell me that I was much better than the girl at the Orpheum. Once—I can remember it so clearly—we were at the seashore in the summertime; I had my first sunburn of the season and my thin cheeks were a glowing sunkissed red. My parents walked in the room and Helen, with loving belief said: “There, doesn’t she look just like Mary Pick-ford?” Though they loved me, my parents rocked with laughter.

Helen tried her best with her ugly duckling. She brushed my hair over her finger until it looked like the loops in Palmer penmanship. She would plead: “Just hold your head still until your curls dry.” Once, in a desperate attempt, she brushed my corkscrews with sugar water to make them hold. When it dried, my head was a stiff, flaky, grayish brush—and I was irresistible to flies.

My father was a clever newspaper man, but though quick-witted, he had no inkling of my childish yearnings. He would say: “Well, kiddo, when you were born, you sure were a homely little jigger . . . one look at you and I went out and took a strong drink. Don’t you care, baby, beauty is only skin deep—we’ll skin you and you’ll be just fine.” I used to laugh, the hearty pathetic laugh that is the defense of unhappiness and self-consciousness.

I suppose I was a fairly bright child. Teachers in the lower grades skipped me until my mother objected.

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