Alice ‘Lavender’ Lee, ‘The Pictures Girl’: A ‘Star Search’ Competition of the Late 1910s

Abstract

This article examines the ‘The Pictures Girl’ star search competition, run by the film fan magazine Pictures and Picturegoer from late 1918 to early 1919. It charts the stages of the competition, demonstrates the gap between the promised prize and the actual outcome for the winner, one Alice ‘Lavender’ Lee, and shows what motives underpinned talent competitions and continue to underpin them now. It also cuts through a body of myth that emerged around Alice Lee in her later life, and shows how and why this body of myth emerged.

Dedication

To – of course – the memory of Alice Lee.

Acknowledgements

Thanks for help with various elements of this research are due to Mike Rickard at the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum at the University of Exeter, to Julia Ashby and colleagues at the Mexborough & District Heritage Society, to Nicholas Hiley and to Christine Saunders.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 On ‘star search’ competitions in the UK see Jenny Hammerton, ‘Screen-Struck: The Lure of Hollywood for British Women in the 1920s’, Crossing the Pond: Anglo-American Film Relations before 1930, ed. Alan Burton and Laraine Porter (Trowbridge, UK: Flicks Books, 2002), 100–105 (where Hammerton discusses both the 1920 Pathé Frères/Daily Express/Sunday Express competition and the 1922 Daily Sketch/Topical Budget/First National competition), Chris O’Rourke ‘“On the First Rung of the Ladder of Fame”: Would-Be Cinema Stars in Silent-Era Britain’, Film History 26.3 (Fall 2014), 84–105, 90–91 (where O’Rourke discusses the 1919 Sunday Express/Stoll competition and the 1922 Daily Sketch/Topical Budget/First National competition, as well as the competition that is the subject of this article), and Chris O’Rourke, ‘Imagining British Film Beauty: Gender and National Identity in 1920s ‘Star Search’ Contests’, Early Popular Visual Culture 19.4 (November 2021), 342–363 (where O’Rourke concentrates on the 1920 Pathé Frères/Daily Express/Sunday Express competition). Lisa Stead mentions the competition that is the subject of this article in ‘Letter Writing, Cinemagoing and Archive Ephemera’, The Boundaries of the Literary Archive: Reclamation and Representation, ed. Carrie Smith and Lisa Stead (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 139–156, 148.

2 Anon., ‘Pictures and Picturegoer’, Advertisers’ Protection Society Monthly Circular, December 1918, n.p. gave circulation figures for the magazine of: 14 September: 71,058; 21 September: 72,619; 28 September: 74,580; 5 October: 77,200; 12 October: 79,343; 19 October: 81,275. These specific figures were backed up by a chartered accountant’s certificate, one of the more reliable ways of evidencing circulation at the time. By March 1919 Odhams was guaranteeing circulation of over 100,000 per week (Advertisers’ Protection Society Monthly Circular, March 1919, n.p.). Julius Elias, managing director of Odhams, was sufficiently confident that Pictures and the Picturegoer had the highest circulation of the UK’s film fan magazines that in early 1917 he wagered £100 to any charity if the publishers of Picture News could demonstrate that they had a circulation of even 6,000 per week, less than one tenth of that claimed for Pictures and the Picturegoer at the time (Anon., ‘The Cinema Papers’, Advertisers’ Protection Society Monthly Circular, February 1917, n.p.). Copies of the Advertisers’ Protection Society Monthly Circular are held at the History of Advertising Trust archives in Raveningham; see https://www.hatads.org.uk/. On the launch of The Pictures in the Autumn of 1911 see Andrew Shail, ‘The Motion Picture Story Magazine and the Origins of Popular British Film Culture.’ Film History 20.2 (2008), 181–97.

3 See Rachael Low, The History of British Film Volume III: The History of the British Film 1914–1918, 1950 (London: Routledge, 1997), 83.

4 Though Pictures and Picturegoer did vary its title during the 1910s (e.g. it would even, for two issues in early 1920, go back to being just Pictures again), its contributors generally referred to the magazine in its own pages as simply ‘Pictures’.

5 The initial letter, from L.V.S. (London), was printed under the title “An English Mary Pickford” in ‘Bouquets & Brickbats’, Pictures and Picturegoer 14.228 (22–29 June 1918), 617. The first set of responses was printed in Anon., ‘An English “Mary Pickford”: “Pictures” to make an effort to find one’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.231 (13–20 July 1918), 67.

6 Fred Dangerfield announced his intention to organise a competition in F[red] D[angerfield], ‘Editorial’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.232 (20–27 July 1918), 93. Further responses to the original letter and to the prospect of organising a competition were printed in Anon., ‘The “Pictures” Girl: Some More Letters’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.233 (27 July – 3 Aug 1918), 116, Anon., ‘The “Pictures” Girl: More Letters from our Readers’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.234 (3–10 Aug 1918), 137, Anon., ‘The “Pictures and Picturegoer” Girl: Our Coming Competition’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.235 (10–17 Aug 1918), 163, Anon., ‘“The ‘Pictures’ Girl”: Our Coming Competition’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.236 (17–24 Aug 1918), 178, all accompanied by promises that the competition would be launched shortly.

7 Anon., ‘Who Will be The “Pictures” Girl?’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.237 (24–31 Aug 1918), 198. The rules, the prize and the coupon were all repeated in Anon., ‘The Lure of the Screen’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.238 (31 Aug – 7 Sept 1918), 222, Anon., ‘The Rush to Become the “Pictures” Girl’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.239 (7–14 Sept 1918), 246, Anon., ‘Girls! Girls! Girls!’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.240 (14–21 Sept 1918), 271, Anon., ‘The Coming New Film Star’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.241 (21–28 Sept 1918), 299, and Anon., ‘Any More for the Screen?’ 15.242 Pictures and Picturegoer (28 Sept – 5 Oct 1918), 330. ‘Readers’ Queries Answered’ sections in these made it clear that those aged 15 and those aged 25 were eligible.

8 Anon., ‘Who Will be The “Pictures” Girl?’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.237 (24–31 Aug 1918), 198.

9 Ibid., emphasis added.

10 In the 21–28 September 1918 issue, the magazine promised that “[n]ext week we shall announce the closing date” (Anon., ‘The Coming New Film Star’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.241 (21–28 Sept 1918), 299). The closing date of 7 October was finally announced in Anon., ‘Any More for the Screen?’ Pictures and Picturegoer 15.242 (28 Sept – 5 Oct 1918), 330.

11 These reports included ‘X’, ‘Finding the Girl of Girls’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.252 (7–14 Dec 1918), 588.

12 e.g. Anon., ‘Star Hunting at Walthamstow’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.259 (25 Jan – 1 Feb 1919), 117, Anon., ‘British Studios’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 31.619 (6 March 1919), 74–5, 75, Anon., ‘The “Pictures Girl”’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.265 (8–15 March 1919), 247. Anon., ‘One Out of 8,000’, Liverpool Echo 1527 (8 March 1919), 4, Anon., ‘The Winning Smile’, Derby Daily Telegraph 12,317 (10 March 1919), 2, Anon. ‘The New Film Star’s Ambition’, Leeds Mercury 24,780 (15 March 1919), 4.

13 ‘X’, ‘Finding the Girl of Girls’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.252 (7–14 Dec 1918), 588.

14 Ibid., 588.

15 Fred Dangerfield later claimed that this was because someone at Broadwest has mislaid these two photographs. F[red] D[angerfield], ‘Editorial’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.266 (15–22 March 1918), 281.

16 Anon., ‘The “Pictures Girl”’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.265 (8–15 March 1919), 247.

17 ‘X’, ‘Finding the Girl of Girls’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.252 (7–14 Dec 1918), 588.

18 Anon., ‘Star Hunting at Walthamstow’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.259 (25 Jan – 1 Feb 1919), 117.

19 Anon., ‘British Studios’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 31.612 (16 Jan 1919), 40–41, 40.

20 Anon., ‘Star Hunting at Walthamstow’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.259 (25 Jan – 1 Feb 1919), 117.

21 F[red] D[angerfield], ‘Editorial’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.261 (8–15 Feb 1919), 165.

22 Anon., ‘British Studios’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 31.616 (13 Feb 1919), 86–7, 86.

23 Anon., ‘British Studios’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 31.619 (6 March 1919), 74–5, 75.

24 Editorial, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.264 (1–8 March 1919), 237.

25 Anon., ‘The “Pictures Girl”’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.265 (8–15 March 1919), 247.

26 Anon., ‘British Studios’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 31.619 (6 March 1919), 74–5, 75. While this character sketch is somewhat fantastical, as we will explain below, Alice’s father George Lee’s job involved chauffeuring, so he may have taught Lee to drive. Similarly, Alice may have learned to ride by proximity to the St Quintins, the landowning family for whom her father worked.

27 Anon., ‘British Studios’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 31.619 (6 March 1919), 74–5, 75.

28 Anon., ‘The “Pictures” Girl’, The Era 82.4,200 (19 March 1919), 20.

29 Ibid.

30 Anon., ‘One Out of 8,000’, Liverpool Echo 1527 (8 March 1919), 4. Anon., ‘The Winning Smile’, Derby Daily Telegraph 12,317 (10 March 1919), 2. Anon., ‘A Promising Film Player’, Barnsley Independent 2,488 (15 March 1919), 5. Anon. ‘The New Film Star’s Ambition’, Leeds Mercury 24,780 (15 March 1919), 4. Anon., ‘A Cinema Girl: Film Firm’s Find’, Mexborough and Swinton Times, 15 March 1919, n.p. Anon., ‘Lavender Lee’, Lincolnshire Chronicle 4,960 (22 March 1919), 8.

31 Anon., ‘The “Pictures Girl”’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.265 (8–15 March 1919), 247.

32 F[red] D[angerfield], ‘Editorial’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.271 (19–26 April 1919), 393.

33 Anon., ‘British Studios’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 32.625 (17 April 1919), 90.

34 Anon., ‘British Studios’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 31.621 (20 March 1919), 86–7, 86.

35 Anon., ‘Film News’, Daily Mail 7183 (14 April 1919), 3.

36 ‘Dangle’, ‘Round the Studios’, Bioscope, 1 May 1919, 76.

37 Anon., ‘British Studios’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 33.639 (24 July 1919), 98–99, 98. Broadwest’s other adaptations of Nat Gould novels included A Dead Certainty (trade shown in April 1920) and A Rank Outsider (trade shown in November 1920) (Rachael Low, The History of the British Film 1918–1929 (London: Routledge, 1997 [George Allen & Unwin, 1971]), 152).

38 Lee’s purported ability to ride a horse was mentioned in Anon., ‘British Studios’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 31.619 (6 March 1919), 74–5, 75, Anon., ‘One Out of 8,000’, Liverpool Echo 1527 (8 March 1919), 4, Anon., ‘The “Pictures” Girl’, The Era 82.4,200 (19 March 1919), 20, C. Henry Rule, ‘With Lavender in the Foothills’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.269 (5–12 April 1919), 337.

39 Advertisement, ‘Walturdaw Releases 1920 Now Booking’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 33.639 (24 July 1919), 32. Only one contemporary source mentions another film: one local newspaper mentioned that Lee was “to be given a leading part in the forthcoming Broadwest film, “In the Gloaming.”” (Anon., ‘Mexboro’ Cinema Girl’, Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hoyland Express 2,004 (22 March 1919), 4), but no trade publications mention Lee in connection with the film (e.g. Bioscope’s review mentions just Violet Hopson, Cameron Carr, Jack Jarman, E. Bonfield and George Butler (Anon., ‘Criticism of the Films’, Bioscope 41.656 (8 May 1919), 63–74, 65)), and various mentions in the trade press indicate that In the Gloaming was finished before Lee could have been involved: in the 3 April 1919 issue of Bioscope Broadwest placed an advertisement that announced that the film was completed (Advertisement for In the Gloaming and Under Suspicion, Bioscope 41.651 (3 April 1919), 80), while Lee only reportedly arrived in Walthamstow on 14 April 1919 (see above).

40 This was mentioned in many articles, including Anon., ‘Forthcoming Trade Shows’, Bioscope 41.677 (2 Oct 1919), 118–120.

41 e.g. Advertisement for The Palace Picture Pavilion, Fleetwood Chronicle, Fylde News & Advertiser 5,166 (23 Jan 1920), 3, and Advertisement for Imperial Picture Palace, Hanley, Staffordshire Sentinel 17,257 (26 Jan 1920), 1.

42 e.g. Advertisement for the Coronet, Notting Hill Gate, West London Observer 65.3,376 (4 June 1920), 4.

43 The British Film Institute holds no versions of film (to which they have given the identifier 186047). See http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150188315.

44 Pressbook for A Great Coup, BFI Special Collections, PBS-186047. The stills also held by the BFI are copies of the stills in the pressbook.

45 e.g. ‘Sabretache’, ‘Pictures in the Fire’, Tatler 970 (28 Jan 1920), 104, Anon., ‘In Filmland’, Illustrated Leicester Chronicle 263 (29 May 1920), 6: “It is in this picture that the heroine, after some difficulty[,] obtains permission from the Jockey Club to ride in a race. The heroine in question is Poppy Wyndham, and no one who witnesses the film will be able to say that women could not become jockeys.”

46 Anon., ‘A Great Coup’, Bioscope 41.683 (13 Nov 1919), 63–4 (which listed just Poppy Wyndham, Gregory Scott, Stewart Rome, Cameron Carr and Arthur Bawtree (63)); Anon., ‘Reviews of the Week’, Kinematograph Weekly 34.655 (13 Nov 1919), 100–108, 103 (the trade paper had dropped the ‘& Lantern’ starting with the 6 Nov 1919 issue).

47 They provided accounts of the production of A Great Coup without any mention of Lee in: Anon., ‘Notes and News’, Pictures and Picturegoer 17.288 (23 August 1919), 229–230, 230 and B.B., ‘Behind the Scenes with Broadwest’, Pictures and Picturegoer 17.290 (6 Sept 1919), 307. They reviewed the film, again without any mention of Lee, in Anon., ‘Releases Reviewed’, Pictures and Picturegoer 18.330 (12 June 1920), 627: “A British sporting drama, well-played by a capable cast. The story is strong, and the film contains some very interesting racing scenes. Poppy Wyndham makes a fascinating heroine, and Stewart Rome and Gregory Scott are excellent in the respective roles of hero and villain”.

48 B.B., ‘Behind the Screen with Broadwest’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.265 (8–15 March 1919), p. 243; B.B. ‘Behind the Screen with Broadwest’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.270 (12–19 April 1919), 367. There is no mention of Lee in any of the remaining ‘Behind the Screen with Broadwest’ columns: in the 10–17 May 1919 issue, the 21 June 1919 issue and the 6 September 1919 issue.

49 Though the Internet Movies Database lists her as having had an uncredited role in Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill (dir. Lawrence Huntington, 1948), an adaptation of Hugh Walpole’s 1911 novel, starring David Farrar (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040615/fullcredits), she is not discernible in the film, even to her own descendants. This uncredited role is not mentioned by the BFI’s entry for the film at http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150029901. The film is currently available to view for free in BFI Player. Similarly, her claim to a journalist for the West Briton in September 1978 that she appeared in a film called And He Never Knew (Peter Bloxham, ‘‘So this will be, after a lifetime of adoration and unrequited affection, Goodbye Alice…’’, West Briton 8,163 (7 Sept 1978), 1) seems to be untrue: no film of this title was made in the UK from 1919 onwards, and the two US films with this title (one from 1921 and one from 1925) listed in the BFI National Archive cannot be connected to her.

50 Anon., ‘Marconigrams’, Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hoyland Express 2,032 (20 Sept 1919), 5.

51 Epsom is mentioned as a location in Anon., ‘Notes and News’, Pictures and Picturegoer 17.288 (23 Aug 1919), 229–230, 230.

52 On the publicity campaign that established Florence Lawrence’s stardom see Andrew Shail, The Origins of the Film Star System (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 124–148. On the use of prosody in film star names see Andrew Shail, ‘The Biograph ‘Anomaly’,’ Screen 61.1 (Spring 2020), 1–27, 26.

53 Anon., ‘Film Folk “Foot It” in Fairyland’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 32.629 (15 May 1919), 100.

54 Anon., ‘The Gymkhana’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 33.642 (14 Aug 1919), 74–5, 74.

55 Anon., ‘B. and C. Celebration Dinner’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 33.643 (21 Aug 1919), 90.

56 Lee’s working at the Kilver’s Steel Works was mentioned in Anon., ‘Sheffield and District Notes’, Bioscope 41.651 (3 April 1919), 104. The details on Lee’s father were mentioned in Anon. ‘The New Film Star’s Ambition’, Leeds Mercury 24,780 (15 March 1919), 4.

57 F[red] D[angerfield], ‘Editorial’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.267 (22–29 March 1919), 301. C. Henry Rule, ‘With Lavender in the Foothills’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.269 (5–12 April 1919), 337.

58 C. Henry Rule, ‘With Lavender in the Foothills’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.269 (5–12 April 1919), 337.

59 I[van] P[atrick] G[ore], ‘Jazzmania’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.276 (24–31 May 1919), 538 and Anon., ‘“Pictures” at the Ball’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.276 (24–31 May 1919), 539–42.

60 Anon., ‘Cinema Screen Coiffure’, Pictures and Picturegoer 17.284 (26 July 1919), 112–113, 112.

61 Anon., ‘Film Actress’s Adieu’, Yorkshire Telegraph and Star 10,511 (15 June 1920), 4.

62 Alice Lee and Charles Hyde’s marriage was registered in: Register Office, District of Richmond, County of Surrey, no. 150, 18 June 1921.

63 “Next on the Broadwest list comes The Great Coup [sic], a Nat Gould story, and a very thrilling one. A new film player in the person of Poppy Wyndham will make her secret debut in this picture” (B.B., ‘Behind the Screen with Broadwest’, Pictures and Picturegoer 17.290 (6 Sept 1919), 307).

64 On Margaret Leahy see, for example, Anon., ‘Daily Sketch Girl is Chosen’, Daily Sketch 4,262 (14 Nov 1922), 2; this issue featured a photograph of Margaret Leahy on its front cover. For the story of this competition see Luke McKernan, Topical Budget: The Great British News Film (London: BFI, 1992), 115–117, and Luke McKernan, ‘Just a Brixton Shop Girl’, The Keaton Chronicle 19.3 (Summer 2011), reprinted with revisions at https://lukemckernan.com/2020/03/25/just-a-brixton-shop-girl/.

65 Rudi Blesh, Keaton (New York: Collier, 1966), 218, italics in original; Blesh tells the story in some detail on 217–218. The process of switching Leahy from Within the Law to The Three Ages can be noticed when reading between the lines of Margaret Leahy, ‘Margaret’s Film-Land Debut’, Daily Sketch 4,290 (16 Dec 1922), 6, where she notes that, in spite of still being certain that she would be in Within the Law, “I heard I was soon to be Mr. Keaton’s “leading woman.” I do hope so.” She reported being given the female lead in The Three Ages (describing it as if it was a promotion from the plan for her to play alongside Talmadge in Within the Law) in Margaret Leahy, ‘Margaret Gets a Great Surprise’, Daily Sketch 4,306 (6 Jan 1923) 6.

66 The first of these columns in the Daily Sketch was Margaret Leahy, ‘On the Way Over’, Daily Sketch 4,278 (2 Dec 1922), 6; the second was Margaret Leahy, ‘Our Girl’s Week End Letter’, Daily Sketch (9 Dec 1922), 5; the third was Margaret Leahy, ‘Margaret’s Film-Land Debut’, Daily Sketch 4,290 (16 Dec 1922), 6, and so on every Saturday until the last, Margaret Leahy, ‘Margaret as a Stone-Age Maiden’, Daily Sketch 4,348 (24 Feb 1923), 6; the series of diary entries cuts off without giving any indication that her work on The Three Ages is over.

67 Pictures and Picturegoer claimed that Lee was 19 in, for example, Anon., ‘The “Pictures Girl”’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.265 (8–15 March 1919), 247. Local newspapers reprinting this date included Anon., ‘One Out of 8,000’, Liverpool Echo 1527 (8 March 1919), 4, Anon. ‘The New Film Star’s Ambition’, Leeds Mercury 24,780 (15 March 1919), 4.

68 Register of Births in the District of Doncaster, 1894, entry 150. Baptisms solemnized in the Parish of Holy Trinity, Upper Chelsea in the County of London in the Year 1896, 16, no. 125.

69 1901 Census of England & Wales Returns: London, Fulham, North East Fulham, schedule 45.

70 1911 Census of England & Wales Returns: London, Wandsworth, Southfields, schedule 47.

71 In the 1921 Census Sheila’s age is given as 4 years and 2 months. 1921 Census of England & Wales Returns: Mexborough, Doncaster, schedule 145. Surviving marriage certificates and marriage banns for the name ‘Alice Lee’ during the 1910s do not seem to pertain to our specific Alice, as the ages on the date of marriage do not line up with a specific birth date of 18 July 1894 or even a general birth year of 1894.

72 1921 Census of England & Wales Returns: Mexborough, Doncaster, schedule 145. The census return records Sheila living in Mexborough with Alice’s mother Sophia Lee and maternal grandmother Harriet Butler.

73 In the 1939 Register, conducted on 29 September 1939, her name is given as Sheila Hyde. 1939 Register, Enumeration District: Surrey, Urban District of Esher, sub-district 30.2, entry 80.2.

74 1921 Census of England & Wales Returns: Mexborough, Doncaster, schedule 145.

75 For an example of a come-as-you-please contest see: Handbill for a film show at the Town Hall, Hartlepool, April or May 1909, RWC.DF.WOD.4717, reproduced in Andrew Shail, The Origins of the Film Star System (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 239. As is clear from reading Luke McKernan’s account of the 1922 Daily Sketch/Topical Budget First National Pictures competition, the most significant upshot of that competition was the provision of attention-grabbing content for both the Daily Sketch and the Topical Budget newsreel, both before and after the result was decided (Luke McKernan, Topical Budget: The Great British News Film (London: BFI, 1992), 116).

76 Anon., ‘The “Pictures Girl”’, Pictures and Picturegoer 16.265 (8–15 March 1919), 247.

77 The week after launching the competition, Pictures and Picturegoer stated that as a result of the Daily Express reporting on the competition even before it was formally announced, they had received many applications not accompanied by a coupon, which they had to reject (Anon., ‘The Lure of the Screen’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.238 (31 Aug – 7 Sept 1918), 222).

78 Anon., ‘Pictures and Picturegoer’, Advertisers’ Protection Society Monthly Circular, May 1919, n.p..

79 Advertisers’ Protection Society Monthly Circular, June 1919, n.p.. As the magazine increased its advertising charge to £30 per page from 4 October 1919, in line with a further increase in circulation to 250,000, the magazine’s circulation was probably growing anyway, but the ‘The Pictures Girl’ competition probably contributed to this growth. See Advertisers’ Protection Society Monthly Circular, October 1919, n.p..

80 Chris O’Rourke, ‘Imagining British Film Beauty: Gender and National Identity in 1920s ‘Star Search’ Contests’, Early Popular Visual Culture 19.4 (Nov 2021), 342–363, 344–345.

81 Dangerfield insisted that the ‘The Pictures Girl’ competition was not a beauty contest in F. D., ‘Editorial’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.254 (21–28 Dec 1918), 637.

82 Anon., ‘An English “Mary Pickford”: “Pictures” to make an effort to find one’, Pictures and Picturegoer 15.231 (13–20 July 1918), 67.

83 Jenny Hammerton, ‘Screen-Struck: The Lure of Hollywood for British Women in the 1920s’, Crossing the Pond: Anglo-American Film Relations before 1930, ed. Alan Burton and Laraine Porter (Trowbridge, UK: Flicks Books, 2002), 100–105, 102–3.

84 Peter Bloxham, ‘‘So this will be, after a lifetime of adoration and unrequited affection, Goodbye Alice…’’, West Briton 8,163 (7 Sept 1978), 1.

85 Aubrey Chalmers, ‘We’re Miss Worlds apart…’, Daily Mail 28,642 (25 July 1988), 15. Other publications copied this for their own version of the article shortly afterwards, e.g. Rafe Klinger, ‘Still a beauty at 94!’, Weekly World News 30,587 (6 Sept 1988), 29. Six years later this US uber-tabloid printed a modified version of the article claiming that she was born in 1870, that she had won the first Miss World competition in 1888 and that she was now aged 124, even though she had actually died in July of the previous year (Anon., ‘Still a beauty at 124!, Weekly World News, 22 Feb 1994, 2), and did so again two years later, this time getting her birth date right but making all the other mistakes and claiming that she was still alive aged 102 (June Sawyer, ‘Still a beauty at 102!, Weekly World News, 28 May 1996, 35).

86 BBC Children in Need, BBC1, 18 Nov 1988, 7pm. A clip of the relevant segment is currently available on Box of Broadcasts at https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/RT41ACB2?bcast=119900735, 16.34, and on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFN9EQE3nTQ, 4.55.

87 On the first Miss World contest see Harriet Atkinson, The Festival of Britain: A Land and Its People (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), p.164; Richard Cavendish, ‘The First Miss World Contest’, History Today 51.4 (April 2001), https://www.historytoday.com/archive/first-miss-world-contest; Anon., ‘Contestants 1951’, Miss World, https://www.missworld.com/#/contestants; Anon., ‘Winners’, Miss World, https://www.missworld.com/#/past_winners.

88 For example, a July 1991 article in the Evening Sentinel claimed that Alice had won the Miss World contest in 1911 and then immediately entered and won an unnamed competition to find an English Mary Pickford, and was thereafter visited by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks (who tried to persuade her to stay in the UK) and Charlie Chaplin (who gave her his hat and cane and tried to persuade her to move to the USA) (Anon., ‘The first Miss World needed real stamina’, Evening Sentinel, 23 July 1991, 16). (While it is unlikely that Alice met Chaplin, Alice may have been misremembering meeting a Chaplin impersonator at the August 1919 film trade gymkhana, a person who is mentioned anonymously in Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly’s account of the event (Anon., ‘The Gymkhana’, Kinematograph & Lantern Weekly 33.642 (14 Aug 1919), 74–5, 74.) A 1992 article in the Evening Mail added the further inventions that her prize was a world trip and that she danced with Fred Astaire (Anon., ‘The first Miss World’, Evening Mail, 21 Jan 1992, 17, 18–19).

89 The £500 figure is given in Aubrey Chalmers, ‘We’re Miss Worlds apart…’, Daily Mail 28,642 (25 July 1988), 15.

90 Calculated using Lawrence H. Officer and Samuel H. Williamson, ‘Five Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a UK Pound Amount, 1270 to Present,’ MeasuringWorth, 2023.

91 England & Wales Civil Registration Birth Index 1916–2007, Births Registered in July, August and September 1922, 188; Births Registered in October, November and December 1924, 164. A 2007 memoir about the life of one Caroline Blount includes a segment where Blount recalls working as a housemaid for Alice Lee in Scarborough at some point during the 1920s (Julia Ashby and Ann Rayner, ‘Caroline and the First Miss World’, Mexis: The Official Newsletter of Mexborough & District Heritage Society, Feb 2007). While this memoir contains various falsehoods about Lee as ‘reported’ in newspapers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the elements about Caroline working for Lee in Scarborough, as related to her daughter Ann Rayner née Blount, seem more reliable, though while the memoir claims that Blount worked for Lee at a guesthouse, research in all available issues of Kelly’s Directory of the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire from 1921 to 1937 turns up no evidence of a guesthouse in Scarborough with the name Alice Lee, Alice Hyde or Charles Hyde associated with it. There is therefore insufficient evidence to say with a reasonable degree of certainty that Alice acquired a lump sum from Broadwest. Thanks to Nicholas Hiley for this research on Scarborough.

92 England & Wales Civil Registration Birth Index 1916–2007, Births Registered in January, February and March 1930, 500; Births Registered in April, May and June 1933, 483. England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index 1916–2007, Register 44C, sub-district 3651, entry 82, July 1995, gave a birth date for Karl of 17 January 1930; Register 19D, Sub-district 712.2, entry 77, Jan 2004, gave a birth date for Ivan of 25 March 1933.

93 1939 Register, Enumeration District: Surrey, Urban District of Esher, sub-district 30.2, entry 80.1.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Shail

Andrew Shail is a Senior Lecturer Film at Newcastle University. His body of work on early cinema includes his books The Origins of the Film Star System: Persona, Publicity and Economics in Early Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2019) and The Cinema and the Origins of Literary Modernism (Routledge, 2012), his edited collection Reading the Cinematograph: The Cinema in British Short Fiction 1896–1912 (University of Exeter Press, 2011), five special issues of journals, contributions to edited collections such as the Blackwell Companion to Early Cinema (2012) and articles in Screen, Early Popular Visual Culture, Film History, The Senses & Society and Critical Quarterly. He was co-editor of Early Popular Visual Culture from the beginning of 2011 to the end of 2022.

Marie-Claire Rackham-Mann

Marie-Claire Rackham-Mann gained her master’s degree in Practical Archaeology in 2018 from the University of the Highlands and Islands. She was involved in winning an £80,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2020 for renovation of facilities around the Stones of Stenness in Orkney. Marie-Claire is the owner and director of Aegis-Scot Archaeology Ltd., based in Kirkwall. She is an accredited member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists and an accredited unmanned aerial vehicle pilot with the Civil Aviation Authority. She is currently preparing several archaeology papers for publication and writing a book on the life and times of her grandmother Alice Hyde (née Lee).