Alice ‘Lavender’ Lee, ‘The Pictures Girl’: A ‘Star Search’ Competition of the Late 1910s

Abstract

This article examines the ‘The Pictures Girl’ star search competition, run by the film fan magazine Pictures and Picturegoer from late 1918 to early 1919. It charts the stages of the competition, demonstrates the gap between the promised prize and the actual outcome for the winner, one Alice ‘Lavender’ Lee, and shows what motives underpinned talent competitions and continue to underpin them now. It also cuts through a body of myth that emerged around Alice Lee in her later life, and shows how and why this body of myth emerged.