There's a reason why nobody wears silver pearls to church nor over fluffy cardigans nor to ladies-who-lunch teas. Silver pearls are the domain of temptresses, harlots, denizens of the night, and other sundry femme fatales...smoky eyeshadow and cocktails in the back of the limo are de rigeur. You will never see Barbara Bush in a long strand of baroque silver beauties. There is something about their sheen that evokes the rainbow spectrum on an oil slick, as if the very darkest of waters were shimmering with steel blue, peacock green, and bruised purple.
Or do I typecast? Anna May Wong, the first Chinese woman to be deemed a Hollywood star, knew a lot about being typecast. She was either Dragon Lady or Madam Butterfly, the scheming opium queen or the tragic goody-two-shoes. But to her credit, she always wore it well.
And she often wore it with pearls.
At the height of Anna May's power in Hollywood, when she was revered worldwide for her beauty and talent, her studio chose a caucasian actress to play the lead in The Good Earth, a story about a Chinese peasant family, effectively crushing Anna May's dream that she would ever be the dramatic lead in a Hollywood movie. Anna May did the dignified thing and left for Europe, where she played several plum parts that were critically acclaimed. I can't prove that she wore silver pearls as she tread the boards in Paris, middle finger raised toward California, but I can dream!
No comments:
Post a Comment