An Interview with Peggy Kurton: "The Beauty Who Likes Only Ugly Men"

Peggy featured in a page from The Bystander -- Wednesday, April 5, 1916. Photograph by Elwin Neame.

An interesting, amusing article with Peggy Kurton was published in the Boise Sunday Capital News titled, "The Beauty Who Likes Only Ugly Men." The dramatic headline is enough to capture one's attention, but it also looked like a rare interview, so I just couldn't help but get my hands on it.  

Peggy Kurton is no longer remembered today except by theatre historians and maybe a few other experts in that field. But in her day, she was a charming singer-actress whom the press swooned over. On most accounts, she was never vastly famous, but fairly well-known on the London stage for her work in musical comedies.  

Born Gladys Augusta Harriett Kurton on May 4, 1895, in Bristol, England, she was the only child of Edgar Agustus Kurton and Sarah Ann Ameilia Pettey. However, her father later remarried and had another son. Peggy's name appears on the 1911 UK census at the convent school of Notre Dame, Wandsworth, where she presumably attended high school. Peggy made her theatrical debut in The Dancing Mistress at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1912, aged 17. She had roles in successful plays such as Theodore and Co (1916), Mr. Manhattan (1916), Daddy (1917), and Tout se paie (1921). Her last performance would be in the musical version of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1925). She passed away on April 25, 1977, aged 82, in Southwark, England.  

 

October 12, 1916: Peggy Kurton Tells of the Flaws in Masculine Comeliness and Why She Has No Time to Waste on Very Good Looking Men 

If a vote were taken to decide who is the prettiest girl on the London stage, Peggy Kurton, they say, would be victorious. Raymond Hitchcock's fiancee in "Mr. Manhattan," the musical comedy success at the Prince of Whales Theatre, London, she is the blue-eyed, fair-haired favorite of countless cavaliers, most of whom in real life are eager to win her hand. "Ah, but to succeed with me you should be much uglier and more fascinating," is what she tells them all. Just as Polaire created a vogue for the ugly woman, so Peggy Kurton threatens to create a vogue for ugly men. Here she tells why.

By, Peggy Kurton

"There is something for me inexplicably fascinating about an ugly man. It is uncanny. The uglier a man is the more I like him. This is no new symptom. It developed long before I played my present part in 'Mr. Manhattan.' All my friends have known of my penchant for freak male faces for years. Often I am held spellbound -- almost hypnotized -- in the presence of a man many people might consider perfectly hideous! Although I am only twenty-one, I have seen enough of my life to believe in the ugly man -- not merely to believe in him, but to trust and admire him in preference to the man who is simply good-looking. The ugly man is far more likely to be endowed with that almost indefinite quality we call fascination than the masculine biped who is only a male beauty.  

Doesn't a pretty woman have enough of prettiness in her own attractions without wishing to confront it in a man's face across the breakfast table? Surely temperament, cleverness and force of will are infinitely more suited to a man who is really a man than features of classic mold. I don't think any pretty woman in her heart wants a pretty man. A thousand times, no! 

While an ugly man may have a fascinating personality, his ugliness may be a fascination in itself. Of course, there are degrees of ugliness. The kind which suggests determination or brain power, coupled with sex, is irresistible, and would defeat a rival, where I am concerned with the beauty of Adonis. My ideal ugly man must be charming, though, and rather amusing. Part of his fascination would certainly lie in his genuine attachment to the things which I am attached.  

For example, I like horses, dogs, and flowers. I adore sailing. Could he very well do less? My tastes are reasonable. His should also be reasonable, and above all, similar.  

If there were a Cyrano de Bergerac alive and at large in London, I think I should love him for his ugliness. He would have to become my fiance! And yet all through Rostand's play the poor fellow companions of his enormous nose! But what must my fiance be? I am fond of American boys better than any others due to their complete freedom from shyness, awkwardness of mind, or other evidence of the 'half-baked' stage of masculine development. They are men with the souls of boys. Full of 'go,' they seem to eclipse anything of the same age we produce in England. After thirty, my American boy is disposed to suddenly become serious and charged with affairs, his own business affairs.  

In the Englishmen from thirty up, the passion for business is never so acute or engrossing. He may become a member of Parliament and dabble in affairs of State, but his personal state of affairs doesn't worry him much. He is content to be amusing and to be amused.  

In England army officers, by the way, generally have a better time than naval officers. They are much more blase, as they are often about town. The ones in the Navy are jollier, as their outbursts of gaiety are not possible except at long intervals.  

My fiance -- off the stage I have not got one at present! -- must be dark and Spanish-looking -- he must be as dark as an onion-seller and as charming as a grandee! I don't want you to think that ugliness is always ugly. It may in a way be beautiful, as it attracts or fascinates. Take Polaire -- la plus polie laide de France. Men go mad about her. Isn't it quite reasonable also for women to go mad over certain ugly men? When I do see the man I want to marry I will just introduce him to every pretty girl I know and beg him to take one after another to supper! That is the way to hold a male in a grip of mail -- yes, in a mailed fist!  

Peggy and George Grossmith perform the fox trot for To-Night's The Night -- June 13, 1915. Photograph by Foulsham and Banfield, Ltd.

I get proposals of marriage by every post. Often they even take the shape of telegrams, to say nothing of telephone messages. The other night I received a note from a man who offered to settle $10,000 a year on me -- for life -- if I would have supper with him! Imagine such a frenzied impatience! At such a rate he would have wanted to be married to me after breakfast! He gave me directions in his notebook to look for him at a certain box at the theatre. I did! Alas, he was very handsome! So I didn't like him -- his courtship began and ended with the offer! 

When I was in New York I knew six of the dearest boys imaginable. We used to meet every Saturday night at Sherry's and have supper. I felt I was engaged to all six. They were simply sweet, every one of them. I suppose I always have had a soft place in my heart for Americans. When I was a little girl I wanted to marry a cowboy -- in sheepskin trousers. 

I developed this passion through going to the cinema shows. There was something I couldn't resist in the lithe, hard-faced heroes who rode mustangs and rescued pretty maidens. The sheepskin trousers added the finishing touch to my feeling of admiration. Yes, I was mad about the cinema horsemen of the Far West. They left such a vivid impression of my youthful imagination that I was keen on going to America because it was their country. While I actually got there, I found six dear boys of the Saturday night parties. They proved an excellent substitute for my Buffalo Bills. Sherry's was quite nice too! 

By the way, James Montgomery Flagg came to the Schubert Theatre and wanted to sketch me. "Come, he said, "Be quick! We will go to the Astor to tea!" But I didn't realize that he was a famous artist and so I refused -- I've been sorry ever since! 

Another artist, Harrington Mann, did a lot of crayon sketches of me. I believe they are still in his studio. One afternoon he made a sketch of me, before I knew how clever he was, and I touched it up in places myself! When he saw what I had done, he was horrified -- and so was I when I learned that he was so very well-known! Ahem, I shall never marry an artist! 

I think it is absurd for any fiance to allow her fiance to be fickle. One thing I can say! If he were, you see, he would cease to be my fiance! There is not a scrap of use falling on a man's neck and saying you love him madly. It serves the purpose of the novelist and the dramatist, but it is no good to an actress -- off the stage. An actress has a heart just like anybody else; still, she must have a head too. To win a declaration pour le bon motif, you have to give the man as much tackie as a fifty-pound salmon! Let him take the bait in his mouth and dive deep into the depths, up and downstream, and all over the place. When he gets tired, wind up your reel and land him at your leisure.  

I assert that the ugly man should become a popular institution, a principle, a habit -- in short, a necessity. He is not so spoilt as the handsome hero who trades on his looks. He is less 'off-hand,' more assiduous, and his manners are always more charming, for he depends on them to a certain extent to make headway to a pretty woman's heart.  

Peggy photographed by Malcom Arbuthnot for The Sketch Supplement — published on February 6, 1918.

From what I have written, you might think I had nothing to occupy my time except finances and admirers. I have, though, distinctly. For instance, I have ambition. I want to act for the cinema in California, the wonderful land beyond the prairies and mountains. I have never been there, yet I feel its loveliness intuitively.  

Americans from all over the United States have been my good, hospitable friends, and I am very fond of them as a race. I know some Chicago people who are intensely charming. New Yorkers as a body are like their own great city -- cosmopolitan and delightful. 

My present fiance -- no, not in real life, merely on the stage! is an American. Raymond Hitchcock is an ideal comedy lover, because he is not good-looking! He is just as popular in London as he is across the ocean. I expect 'Mr. Manhattan' will last for an age yet. Everyone seems to think so. 

I love antiques, if you are still interested in my tastes. But whether you are or not, my fiance will have to be -- which in this case, means that he must become a connoisseur in old things! There is one possession, in which is not an antique, I want this wonderful man to get for me: a string of pink pearls! Yes, I am mad about pink -- rose-pink -- pearls. The string will cost about $300,000."