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Ginger's Susan Hayward Message Board: To reach If You Knew Susie by Trish Sharp, click the profile photo at www.facebook.com/susanhaywardclassicfilmstar and you will see the link.

Ginger's Susan Hayward Message Board
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Re: Susan and her Specs!

Yes a star being seen out and about in prescription glasses back then was considered decidedly unglamorous.
Curiously enough, it was Hollywood itself that dictated whether the look was 'in fashion' or not.

Apart from Dorothy Parker's 'Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses'- if we had the proverbial dollar for every movie where they are associated with being non sexy, we would be profoundly wealthy.

How many times has the secretary or librarian or schoolteacher fallen in love and whipped her hair from out of the unforgiving bun and thrown the glasses away and presented as a new and sexy person.
Even when the glasses are semi flattering and not frumpy - the message given out was that the girl wearing them was ' bookish', ' academic',' an intellectual' etc, all of which were not considered sexy since men (according to the plots anyway)were threatened by clever and over-educated women.

As you say it is no longer as much a no-no as back then. Nowadays we get quite young stars seen out wearing glasses. And many of the surviving Rock Gods and Goddesses of the sixties, the archetypes of street cool and anti-establishment chic and the darlings and role models for the youth of the era are now giving interviews on tv in their glasses.

But back when Susan was top shelf, you could have Eve Arden as the wisecracking best friend wearing glasses. You could have Thelma Ritter looking knowingly over them at you. But you could NOT have Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, Grace Kelly, Hedy Lamarr, Elizabeth Taylor and similar leading ladies including Susan Hayward - wearing prescription glasses in their romantic movie roles, nor out and about at premieres and Oscar events etc.
(It must have made simple things so unnecessarily difficult. Imagine squinting at the menu at the Brown Derby or Chasen's.........)

Re: Susan and her Specs!

Kerry

Apart from Dorothy Parker's 'Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses'- if we had the proverbial dollar for every movie where they are associated with being non sexy, we would be profoundly wealthy.

How many times has the secretary or librarian or schoolteacher fallen in love and whipped her hair from out of the unforgiving bun and thrown the glasses away and presented as a new and sexy person.
Even when the glasses are semi flattering and not frumpy - the message given out was that the girl wearing them was ' bookish', ' academic',' an intellectual' etc, all of which were not considered sexy since men (according to the plots anyway)were threatened by clever and over-educated women.


Hi Kerry!

Thanks so much for your response which really had me laughing. It is SO true that ANY film from that era (40's/50's/60's) had a woman wearing (gasp!) glasses ONLY if she was: A) a 'career-driven,' 'take-no-prisoners' journalist or professor, etc.etc.; or B) the "friend" of the star ala, as you mention, Thelma Ritter or Eve Arden.

And, Kerry, how on the mark you also are about the perennial plot of the bespectacled star tossing off her glasses and going from bun to bountiful tresses, totally mesmerizing the male star: "Why Miss Jones, you are BEAUTIFUL!" (And to my disgust as a little girl watching these films, the female star, no longer myopic, immediately gave up her great career to take on a hubby and a white picket fence.)

Little girls of my generation were so mixed up by Hollywood's dictating WHO women were and "should" be! I'm sure that's why I'm still enamored of performers like Susan who gave us no QUESTION of the "real" strength of a woman. No matter what role she played, she did it with a sense-of-self that truly bolstered her female audience and gave us a role model with which we could identify.

P.S. Kerry, how ironic (and sad) that Dorothy Parker's "passes/glasses" quote is perhaps the one that remains to this day the epitome of her wit. (I'D like the proverbial dollar for every time Ms. Parker no doubt had to put on a pair of glasses to type up her quips!)

P.P.S. "Squinting at the menu at the Brown Derby or Chasen's?!?" Eeeek! (Though from what I've read, Susan would never have had that problem. Not only was she short-sighted, I believe, but she would have left the menu closed and ordered "the usual" - blood-red steak and creamed spinach.
And on that note....I hope that she, at least once, got to Keen's in NYC - THE best steakhouse I've been to!)
(Aged....marbled.....crunchy on the outside, bloody on the inside....)
Oops! Time out while I clean a tad of drool off my keyboard.

Re: Susan and her Specs!

"how ironic (and sad) that Dorothy Parker's "passes/glasses" quote is perhaps the one that remains to this day the epitome of her wit. "

I agree completely. Ironic in that as you say, Dot would have popped on the specs no doubt herself, but more so it IS sad as she was one of America's most sparkling and witty writers of her generation and if the only thing people knew of her was that particular quote, they would be oblivious to her talents.

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No idea whether Susan ever made it to Keen's in NYC, but from your description, she would have relished it considerably.

She certainly never once seemed to ever have any weight problems during her adult life. I was always amazed that she gave birth to the twins in February 1945 and in May, three months later, she makes the noirish 'Deadline at Dawn' where her waist was its usual tiny span and her profile was as slim as always.


Re: Susan and her Specs!

Kerry,

Kerry
"No idea whether Susan ever made it to Keen's in NYC, but from your description, she would have relished it considerably.

She certainly never once seemed to ever have any weight problems during her adult life. I was always amazed that she gave birth to the twins in February 1945 and in May, three months later, she makes the noirish 'Deadline at Dawn' where her waist was its usual tiny span and her profile was as slim as always.

----------------------------------------------------

Wow! Having recently seen 'Deadline at Dawn' for the first time and noting Susan's trim and petite figure, it is INDEED amazing that the twins were born only three months earlier! I always knew she had amazing acting talent, but now I'll have to include a "kudos to her body's metabolism and flexibility!" (And this was before personal trainers and home chefs!)

P.S. If you're ever in New York and want to have THE best steak, then DO check out Keens Steakhouse. http://www.keens.com/

Re: Susan and her Specs!

Hi, Kerry, :-)

It's Lynn, Alice's 'older' twin sister by 8 minutes, who checked out the territory first.......then called back "Hey, Alice, c'mon out---the atmosphere's fine. Just looks a little blurry to me...."

Your conversation about Susan, Dorothy Parker, glasses, etc. suddenly brought back a 'cringe' moment, of just how little things had changed re glasses in the mid-1960's. When taking a summer course up at Cornell U, called "Abnormal Psychology" (wanted to see just HOW abnormal I REALLY was! LOL!), I was invitde to dinner by this guy I'd met on the campus.

As we sat down at the table, and the menus came, I took off my glasses, as I did not need them for close up--only for distant objects. And--would you believe--this guy actually had the nerve to stare at me and say "You know, you look much better without your glasses You shouldn't wear them out!!" Well, if only I'd said what I was seething over with. I just wanted to shove my chair WAY back from the table and say "Oh, yeah?! Well--some things are best left well out of focus!!" LOL!

You know, the first time I heard that Susan H had made that noirish film (also read somewhere that it was after 'Rawhide'?) only three months after the twins were born, I thought it was some inaccurate rumor! Wow, those must have been SOME 'Kryptonite' foundation undergarments she wore underneath her dress to pull THAT off! No wonder there were no wardrobe changes during the film!!

By the way, my favorite quote, that I THINK was another Dorothy Parker classic......Didn't she say, when the telephone rang in the peace of her home...."What fresh Hell is THIS!?!" (How true.....obtrusive....and way too relevant in today's computer spam--AND 'Invasion of the Telephone People'!!)

best, Lynn