San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1926-01-10
<<DEARL will come back to me and
Broadway some day, a sadder and


Broadway some day, a sadder and
wiser girl which is all right,
but she will also be poorer and older.
Love in cottage won't work-it can't
work in her case You can prove it by
arithmetic
This is the prophecy of Mrs. Mathida
Howell, mother of Pearl Howell, the nine
teen-year-old, S350-a-week> Follies beauty
and dancer, with big butter-and-egg men
and titled foreigners within her reach, but
who tossed everything away to marry
$45-a-week clerk who must pay ten dol
. lars a week alimony.
Mrs. Howell forecasts the return of her
| beautiful and talented daughter from the
obscurity and poverty of domestic life to
the bright lights as confidently as the
astronomer predicts the return of a comet
il to the sun-and she ought to know.
As mother-manager of a beautiful stage
star, which is said to be a tougher job and
with a much smaller split of the profits
- than managing prize fighter, Mrs. How
ell seems to have done pretty we'll Of
course, as can be seen from the pictures
on this page, she had unusually promising
raw material but look how fast she
worked, and prize beauties and prize
fighters have to get to the top early or
never.
PEARLS mother entered her in prize
beauty contest in their native Brooklyn,
and she won it, also in film beauty con-
test and she won first mention i'll one for
! the most popular girl. Other beauties have
won such contests and out of them drawn
only sorrow and disgrace.
But not Pearl Her mother had pre-
pared the child for this very moment and
was ready to capitalize it in the right way
Callers with intentions, serious or other
wise, were confronted by sensible, bust
ness-ike mamma, who knew Just what lit
tie Pearl wanted or ought to want, and
they soon realized that they were losing
time.
Mrs. Howell. however, lost no time in
laying before Florenz Ziegfeld the theory
that her daughters face and beauty would
add to the popularity of his Follies. But
the beauty expert does not pick his bright
Jewels by theory, and explained that he
had found most prize beauties beautiful
and dumb, with squeaky voices and no
| place to 90 but wrong. When he found
that Pearl was trained dancer with,
trained voice he reached for his pen and
made her Follies girl. Thus was Mrs.
Howell ready and waiting with iasso
when opportunity knocked at daughters
door.
The moment she stepped onto that stage
it gave Pearl title in the aristocracy OF
beauty that would be recognized all over
the world. AT this point mothers duties
Ill
tiplied. From her Brooklyn home it had
been easy to shoe away the gentlemen
good, bad and ndifferent-who had ar
rived in three flocks, one after each OF the
contests. Now it was different. There
was steady pressure of big butter-and-
egg men, and even titled foreigner or
two.
These were big bugs who could not be
brushed away like mosquitoes from the
screen door. They called in Rolls-Royces,
said it with orchids, and were anxious to
repeat in diamonds. Some of these per
sons might have the markings of an ideal
husband and had to be looked over, even
at the risk of being stung, something
which Mrs. Howell felt herself quite able
to prevent.
The mother rapidly separated the goats
from the sheep and saw that Pearl inter
ested everyone, but did not herself get
too interested. She was always present
at all dinners, drives and other entertain
ments, and was careful after each event
to de-bunk the talk of any male fascinator
who seemed to make an undue impress
sion. In this way she thought she had
vaecinated her daughters heart against
sudden infatuations.
Meanwhile the girl climbed rapidly to
the heights. Next season she stepped out