deprofundis

sin tids mest fotograferade stjärna, lillian russel, sjöng operetter, skådespelade och vägde 91 kg och var himmelskt vacker. kämpade också för kvinnors rättigheter. 

 Lillian Russell was a very popular singer and performer of her era. Considered the ideal of beauty, she had strong opinions about priorities, and was often annoyed at people who fawned over her looks.

The following is taken from a 1914 newspaper interview:

"[Russell thanks the interviewer out of the blue.] "What for?" I inquired.

"For not having asked me a single question about the way I preserve my good looks. Everyone always asks that first. For a few minutes you have let me forget my face, and I want to forget it. I get very tired of it--very, very tired of it. I hate a mirror sometimes.
"What, after all, is there great in being beautiful? To be a great woman, a great person, one must have suffered, even suffered in great crises. What have I done that I should be famous--nothing but powdered a bit gently the cheeks that God gave me and smoothed the hair that I was born with, laughed and proven a faultless set of teeth. Any grinning idol, well painted, can do as well, but the real women, the big women, are those who toil and never write of it, those who labor and never cry of it, those who forfeit all and never seek reward. Begin this article with the name Lillian Russell, but end it with the name of such as was Cynthia Leonard." "

Russell later became an advocate for woman's suffrage.