Monday, Aug. 15, 1927: Why men prefer blondes
Posted on August 14th, 2007 – 7:47 PMBy Ben Welter
How many women does it take to write a best-seller that pokes fun at stereotypes of blondes and brunettes? One – and that’s not funny.
Actually, it is kind of funny 80 years later. Meet Anita Loos, a novelist and screenwriter who made it big in the 1920s with “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” which was later made into two popular movies. This uncredited wire story appeared inside the Minneapolis Daily Star:
Blondes or Brunettes Best Wives?
Moot Question Draws Fire of Women
Pastor’s Assertion Golden
Tresses Indicated Dumb-
Ness Starts Debate
New York, Aug. 15. – “The Rev. Mr. Loos is right about blondes,” says Anita Loos. “I’m not yessing him because we bear the same name, but because I know my blondes as well as he does. It’s true that the golden-haired girl doesn’t know what the score is – and that’s the reason why the blonde makes the best wife.”
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| Anita Loos |
The author of “Why Men Prefer Blondes” continued: “The American man likes his liquor strong and his women weak in the upper story. He may admire brains in his stenographer, or in the business or professional woman whom he meets. But when it comes to selecting a wife, he wants her without brains.
Model Wife
“Nothing is more fatal to happy married life than the wife who is ‘interested’ in her hubby’s career. And that’s where the dumb blonde has the big edge over the brainier brunette. The blonde doesn’t know what it’s all about – and doesn’t care! She doesn’t have to care – because she’s a blonde. And the girl who doesn’t give a rap about her husband’s business makes the model wife.
“If I were asked to give advice to the lovelorn, I’d simply say this: Dumbness is a gift of the gods. If you haven’t got it, strive hard to attain it. For, as Mark Twain should have said: ‘Be brainy and you’ll be lonesome.’
“The blonde has the advantage of protective coloration. Her tresses – or bob – save her from many a heartache that the brunette experiences. And getting this protective coloration is easy in these days of beauty parlors and drug stores and their marvelous facilities. In fact, the girl who years to become blonde and dumb will find it a lot easier to acquire the blondness.”
Ask Peggy, She Knows
To get the other side of the story we set out to find the best known blonde of ’em all – meaning, of course, Peggy Joyce. But Peggy’s in Southampton, mingling with the blue bloods, and rumor has it that she’s getting ready to swap “I wills” with Husband No. 6. Unfortunately, the identity of the 1927 edition of Mr. Peggy Joyce is still clothed in mystery.
Peggy could uphold the blondes’ end of the argument. And how! You can bet your last dollar that Peggy knows what it’s all about. Maybe she didn’t the first time she went to the altar, but she knew her little book long before she made her fifth trip with Count Gustav Morner.
Connie Talmadge was next appealed to. Connie was a blonde for a great many years, but just before we put the question to her, we learned that she’d acquired a very brunette bob. Whether Connie’s light or dark is a secret. She kept her locks completely concealed under a close-fitting hat.
‘Look More Angelic’
Connie distinctly emphasized the assertion that she “knew what it was all about” on both of her matrimonial ventures. Despite which then sailing for France to get one of those 24-hour divorces from Capt. Alaston MacIntosh.
“Blondes are more popular with men because they look more angelic than brunettes,” Connie philosophized. “But – and here’s the big but – after they’re married they’re anything but angelic.”
Connie smilingly declined to answer when asked if that observation was based on her own personal experience.
Texas Guinan took up the cudgels more vigorously: “I’m a blond,” she declared, “and if anybody thinks I’m dumb, they’re crazy. You bring that preacher over to the club some night and I’ll show him one blonde that’s not dumb. He’ll change his mind after he sees the check.”
