Adrienne Augarde

(Oakland Tribune [California, USA], 12th December, 1912)
ORPHEUM STARS WAGE STRUGGLE FOR BEAUTY
Helen of Troy Was Never Shown Honors Now Accorded Actress

SHE SHOULD WORRY

ADRIENNE AUGARDE says: I would much rather talk about Christmas presents than about beauty hints, for two reasons. First, I don't pretend to know a thing about beauty, and second, I am up to my eyes and ears in the Christmas present game, and I simply can't stop to think of anything else. Still, If something has to be written about how girls can become beautiful, why, I suppose as easy a way as any to fill the bill will be to say that beauty is really a matter of opinion and that anybody who really is anybody is almost sure to have a few people at least who love them enough to consider them very beautiful. I never worried a bit about beauty. Of course, as an actress, on tour almost constantly, I do have to take some special care of myself. I take exercises for deep breathing. I think that that helps the blood to circulate and always improves my feelings. I live quietly and simply and aim to just give nature a chance in physical matters. When I have done that I don't worry a bit about the rest.

BEAUTY IS RELIGION

ETHEL GREEN says: I have been asked what measures I found most beneficial as aids to preserving good health and good looks. I would never be so silly as to claim good looks, but the wise people who have studied this subject all say that a measure of good looks are pretty sure to follow good health. That is one reason, of course, why I try to take the very best care of my health. No woman alive but what wishes to be beautiful. Women of the stage are no exception to the rule. Possibly they need beauty more than others. At any rate I think it a girl's religious duty to study what good points she may have, develop them, and if possible become beautiful. I have proved in my own case that sensible hours, by which I mean an abundance of sleep, and systematic massage and simple foods will do more for the skin than anything else.

Two of the prettiest women on the American stage have been engaged during the last ten weeks in one of the oddest struggles for beauty laurels that has been pulled off since the days when Helen of Troy was given the blue ribbon by the young bloods of that period as the loveliest damsel in the community. The contest between these two American stage beauties is on this week in Oakland. The scene is the tage of the Orpheum Theater. The contestants are Miss Ethel Green and Miss Adrienne Augarde.

It began in Winnipeg, nearly three months ago, when Miss Green and Miss Augarde found themselves on the same program, at the Orpheum there. Each was beginning a tour of the Orpheum circuit. On the day of their opening, by an odd coincidence, one of the dramatic critics claimed Miss Ethel Green as positively the prettiest bit of femninity that ever glittered from behind the footlights in the Canadian City, while another dramatic critic, with eyes only for Miss Adrienne Augarde, the English girl, swore by all the deities of Canada that no fairer maid than Miss Augarde had up to date blossomed in the footlight region thereabouts.

There is a big American colony in Winnipeg and a bunch of American clubmen there got together, after reading the Winnipeg papers, and determined to get a big sheaf of laurels together and to hand them to Ethel Green. So they did, and big bunches of roses began to clamber over the footights for Miss Green, while letters were sent to the papers booming her stock as a beauty. And that was not all. The enthusiastic American clubmen got together and had a beautiful medal made on which was inscribed their opinion of Miss Ethel as a beautiful damsel.

All this time there was a big "how-de-do" on the part of the Canadians, who rallied royally to Miss Adrienne Augarde's standard, after hearing what the American boys were doing for the American girl in Winnipeg. There, were bouquets, and gifts and newspaper adulation for Miss Augarde and so the unique contest was waged.

The same old argument that had begun in Winnipeg was transferred to Calgary and Spokane, and then on through the Northwest in every city visited.

After Miss Green had been given a beautiful bracelet made out of gold nuggets in Spokane, by a millionaire clubman, each nugget having on it a diamond. Miss Green began to wake up and decided that she owed it to her enthusiastic admirers to see that she didn't lose out through any fault of hers.

And Miss Augarde had the same feeling when a Seattle Croesus, who had been written to by a Winnipeg banker to get busy in behalf of the lady, presented her with a glorious diamond brooch on which was inscribed a sentiment that, in the opinion of a lot of Seattle chaps - most of them English descent - Adrienne Augarde, the English maiden was, for them, the queen of the stage realm.

The endless chain of correspondence that started in Winnipeg has extended to Oakland. Three Oakland men who have clubmen friends in Portland, received letters asking them to see to it that Miss Ethel Green, the American girl, was acclaimed as the most beautiful girl on the stage while in Oakland, and the several admirers of Miss Augarde up in the Northwest sent the same message down to friends in San Francisco and Oakland.

That is why the bouquets have been slipped up over the footlights at nearly every performance, while Miss Green's dressing room and Miss Augarde's room, as well, resemble floral bowers of beauty. The jewelers are happy because they have received orders for golden mementos from the Oakland enthusiasts who propose to keep up their end of the game while Mlle. Green and Mlle. Augarde are in their midst.

In Los Angeles, during the final week of the Orpheum tour, it has been agreed by the girls that they shall submit a record of the tokens of esteem each has received during the tour, and the other actors and actresses on the program with them will then sit as a committee to decide which girl is entitled to the palm in this really unique beauty contest. Then there will be a big banquet given by the winner and that will be the culmination of the odd little affair.

Adrienne Augarde (1882-1913)

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