The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-11-02
LONDON,s STAGE BEAUTIES.
Dorothy Dene, Kate Vaughan an
Other OueauS of the FOOtliQhts

Dorothy Dene, Kate Vaughan and
Other Queens OF the Footlights.
| london Letter to Louisville Courier-Jou7laI.
The beauty actresses of London are IN
countable. Every year adds to their num-
Der, for the stage is a beauty mart, where
| comeliDess brings its price. We have the
highest artistic assurance that Dorothy
Dene is beauty. Sir Frederick Leighton
has painted her, and that is the equivalent
OF a pronunciamento OF loneliness from the
president of the Royal Academy. Miss
Dene is rather below the medium hight and
somewhat broadly built, although she is
thin. Her face is childish, with large gray
eyes; light brown hair, cut short, curs
prettily all over her poll. Her efforts as an
| actress are more Indicative of a desire to
please than of an assured skill in doing SO;
but professional ability will come with the
i1penlng of her still immature beauty.
If, at the leading theeters of London,
| beauty in the actresses employed is the rule
and not the exception, what shall | say of
the mluor play houses, where personal
comellneSs is q sine qua NOM The bur
lesque stages of LONDON exhibit such galax-
les or loneliness as no other capital, ancient
or modern. 'as ever before shown IN its
tn aters. The supply OF this article, beau
tiful women, as a paid commodity, so
process of selection reduces the chosen to
troops of Hebes whom Jupiter would have
adored.
Long a burlesque queen, but now an
aepirant for comedy honors III the manner
of Mrs. Bancroft, is Kate Vaughan, the
floating, faify-like danseuse, who captured
the heart and wears the wedding ring of
colonel, the Hon. Frederick Wellesley son
of Earl Cawley. This marriage created
some CONSERVATION, as the general impress
sion was that Col. Wellesley was the heir to
the dukedom of Wellington, and the pros
pect of a burlesque dancer figuring es
Duchess of Wellington rather shocked the
senSbilities of the British taxpayer. The
two Wellesley families, though consanguin-
uous, are distinct, h owever, and the
Vaughan has no prospects of wearing a
strawberry leaf coronet. Another bur-
lesque beauty, Phyllis Broughton, has just
brought suit for breach of promise against
Viscount Dangan, who, oddly enough, is
nephew of Col. Wellesley.
One of the most widely discussed of Lon
don burlesque beauties is Constance
Gilchrist, Little Connie, who shipped into
fame and fortune, with her skipping rope,
from off the boards of the Oxford Music
Hall This is no place to discuss the ques-
ton whether Miss Gilchrist is, or is not,
the favorite of one of England's most
puissant dukes. Suffice it to say that the
girl is, as Pepys says of Nell Gwynne,
mighty pretty creature; and who adds to
her beauty of person an unexpected dis
tinction, even a hauteur of manner. which
shows in her remarkable aptitude to
seize what is best in the aristocratic male
society she frequents.
The names l have mentioned are only
those of a few Of the comparatively promi-
nent beauty players of London-those who
have more or less claim to he considered en-
titled to distinction by reason of their arts
tic standing. | have mag H. no effort to cata-
logue the hundreds upon hundreds of men
and women beauties who are artistically in
significant If | we're asked what is the best
passport to London favor on the dramatic
stage | should unhesitatirg ely answer.
beauty" The beauty cultus is the maddest
passion In London to-day. 1t has been grow
ing for ten year,, and is now wildly ranging,
A fascinating face will achieve dramatic
opening, will secure passionate alteration
in all classes of spectators, of a sort which
Sarah Siddons or David Garrick would fail
to command, could that mother and father
of English tragedy revisit the scenes Of
their former triumphs. The player of to-
dav, male or female, may or may not be
dramatically gifted; he or she must be
physically fine. If the London spectator
mad to choose between genius and beauty,
there is every indication to prove that he
would select beauty and let genius 90