“Glamour Comes From Carefully Planned Program” - March 4th, 1960
Two women whose faces are their fortune agree that beauty is a present from nature. But the elusive quality called glamour comes from planning.
The two are Joan Crawford a spellbinder in the grand manner, and Lynda Lee Mead, who as Miss America of 1960 is a relative newcomer to the field.
The movie queen and the beauty queen met for the first time this week, when miss Mead, an English major at the University of Mississippi, came to New York for the annual Pepsi-Cola convention. The beverage firm, which Miss Crawford’s late husband Alfred Steele head, is one of the sponsors of the annual Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. Over soft drinks (what else?). the three of us sat in Miss Crawford’s suite at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for some “girl talk” on the ingredients of the beauty, glamour and sex appeal.
“Well,” said Miss Crawford of the big eyes and red-gold hair, “I don’t think that confection – like prettiness…that the candy box look…is beauty.
On the long haul, it’s bone structure that counts. And that, you’re born with.” Both dismissed the Brigitte Bardot types as something less than beautiful, male votes to the contrary.
“The baby doll face is not my idea of beauty,” said Miss Mead, “Nor is the unkempt look.”
“I’ll tell you the first ingredient of glamour,” said Miss Crawford. “It’s cleanliness.”
“Amen,” said Miss America, a 20-year-old brunette who looked like she had just stepped from the shower.
“And,” continued the actress, “glamour is planning.” She cited as an example hers for the convention, at which she was official hostess.
She had moved from her Fifth Avenue apartment to the hotel for the week.
“Every dress, every hat, purse, pair of shoes, jewelry. Everything planned right down to the last hanky.” She said. “Time consuming, yes, but you have to do it. You have to be so prepared that you walk into a room, completely relaxed, and no one realizes that all of this was no accident.”
Miss America demurred in trying to define sex appeal in a woman but said that in a man, cleanliness again is a major factor.
“Why is it,” asked Miss Crawford, “that men seem to think they don’t need a deodorant?”
Miss Mead laughed and added, “I know what you mean. You see a man who’s just dead attractive, and you’re dying for him to ask you to dance. And then you get close up on the floor…” she wrinkled her nose in disgust.