Almost a decade ago, when I began research for my biography of Elinor Glyn (1866–1943), the notorious redheaded British sex novelist turned early-Hollywood doyenne, I came across a photo from 1930 of photographer Sir Cecil Beaton dressed as Glyn. Two generations younger than the woman he impersonated, Beaton captured Glyn as a modern siren.
When I first saw the photo, I knew Glyn only from writing my first book, Go West, Young Woman! The Rise of Early Hollywood, which touched upon her last, great act as a scriptwriter during the Roaring 20s. But given Beaton’s status as perhaps the 20th century’s sharpest eye, the image clinched her status as the It Girl whose style shaped so many others to come. Indeed, she was the founding mother of all her era’s It Girls. Hollywood stars such as Gloria Swanson and Clara Bow boldly inhabited the love scenes she wrote in her novels, which were later adapted into movies.
