Victoria Who?.

[answerbok]

What's an it girl? Is there an it man? [do you remember the 'It's' man?]

[FredPuli]

Elinor Glyn a rather scandalous novelist ; a contemporary verse went 'I'd like to sin/With Elinor Glyn/ Lying on/ A tiger skin''; wrote a novel called 'It' in 1927. In 1928 this was made into a film , starring Clara Bow, a sex symbol of her day. 'It' supposedly meant sex appeal. Clara Bow was billed thereafter as 'The It Girl'. This was all a bit coy. The public would know that 'doing it' and 'to do it' meant sex itself and the heroine was evidently meant to be 'one of those girls who do'. The term has been revived of late. Evidently the Press have taken to calling Lady Victoria Hervey 'an (or the ) It Girl'

[woofgang]

FredPuli has misremembered the Elinor Glyn Verse. It goes "Would you like to sin with Elinor Glyn on a tiger skin? Or would you prefer to err with her on some other fur? Does anyone out there know the author ?

[FredPuli]

I have indeed Woofgang. It doesn't seem that anyone knows who wrote it. It always appears as 'Anon.'. Evelyn Waugh quoted it in Men at Arms with the minor difference that his version has 'with her/to err'. An editor of that text states that this verse first appeared in 1907 but he gives no author for it either.

[woofgang]

Thanks FredPuli, I have also seen it as "err with her on a different fur" BTW Wasn't the original It Girl a silent movie star called Clara Bow?

[woofgang]

Ooops, just re read FredPuli's original post... put it down to monday morning cognitive skills, sorry

[woofgang]

Apropos of nothing in particular, a verse of Max Miller's much quoted by Roy Hudd I love the girls who say they will/and then they say they won't/I love the grirls who say they do and then they say they don't/but the girl that I love most of all and I think you'll say i'm right/is the girl who says she never does but looks as though she might.