The woman behind the veil: Debra Paget’s turn as Cleopatra

Debra Paget as Cleopatra in Princess of the Nile (1954, 20th Century Fox). One of several notable actresses to portray Cleopatra on screen through the years, Paget brought a particularly captivating blend of glamour, poise, and exotic allure to the role. Conceived as a colourful historical adventure rather than a rigorous depiction of ancient history, the film was originally intended to feature Marilyn Monroe in the lead. Budgetary constraints, however, reportedly reduced its scale, resulting in a modest second feature, or 'B-movie'. Nevertheless, released during the height of Hollywood's fascination with Biblical epics and exotic historical spectacles, Princess of the Nile helped raise Paget's profile. Two years later she appeared as Lilia in Cecil B. DeMille's epic The Ten Commandments (1956), and in the same year starred opposite Elvis Presley in the singer's film debut, Love Me Tender.

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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Dixie Lee, 4 November 1909 – 1 November 1952

Fox Films promotional shot

Born Wilma Winifred Wyatt in the pastoral environs of Harriman, Tennessee, Dixie Lee is remembered—when she is remembered at all—chiefly as the ill-fated first wife of Bing Crosby, and, regrettably, not a particularly felicitous one. Yet before her light was dimmed beneath the vast shadow of his celebrity, she had, in her own right, been a captivating ingénue of early Hollywood. Having won a singing competition, she was promptly signed by Fox Film and, for one brief but incandescent interval at the dawn of the talkies, outshone even her future husband in renown—most notably 1929’s Why Leave Home? in a lead role, and where her charm, poise, and melodic grace marked her as something of a luminary of the shimmering, transitional age.

She first encountered Crosby whilst he was yet an aspiring crooner, and, as was the custom for so many women of her generation, she soon relinquished her own burgeoning career in deference to his. They were wed in 1930, yet the polished veneer of Hollywood domesticity began to fissure almost at once. The marriage was fraught from its inception; scarcely months after their nuptials, in 1931, she resolved to petition for divorce on grounds of ‘mental cruelty’—a grave charge for the time—though the document, in the end, was never formally submitted.

Between 1933 and 1938, four sons were born to the union, yet the household was ever shadowed by turmoil. Dixie’s protracted and ruinous struggle with alcoholism exacted a grievous toll, and tales of discord within the Crosby marriage were a recurrent feature of the gossip columns throughout the 1940s. Less than two years after her final professional appearances—a modest guest turn upon her husband’s radio programme—and at the cruelly premature age of forty-two, Dixie Lee succumbed to ovarian cancer. She departed this world upon this very day, the first of November, 1952, a mere three days shy of what would have been her forty-third birthday. —Arthur Newhook, 1 November 2025.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook.

Pretty in pink, velvet and silence her two most loyal companions: the enigmatic Jean Peters, 15 October 1926 – 13 October 2000

20th Century Fox publicity shot, c. 1950. Via Getty Images

Amidst the gilded constellation of 20th Century Fox in the late 1940s and throughout the following decade, Jean Peters held a curious sovereignty—half siren, half mystery. Her renown was fashioned in the portrayal of women whose merest glance might unmake the soul of man: flint beneath velvet, desire alloyed with peril. With a smouldering intensity on screen, she could convincingly embody that species of femme fatale, wherein beauty and destruction are but two syllables of the same breath.

Yet, away from the klieg lights, the actress was consistently described as soft of speech and tender of spirit—a creature whose private nature stood in clear contrariety to the wanton heroines she was bidden to enact.  Mistress Peters did inwardly resist the very sexpot image the studio so assiduously cultivated, a quiet rebellion against her own commodification.

This nuanced tension, however, is wholly effaced by the photograph in question, circa 1950, wherein no hint of inward strife may be discerned. Instead, a vision of post-war splendour, wherein all private battle is transfigured into serenity beneath the alchemy of perfect light. —Arthur Newhook, 15 October 2025.

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Raquel Welch on the set of ‘Myra Breckinridge’, 1970

A shadow play of curious conceit, ‘Myra Breckinridge’ was a notorious box office and critical flop. I attempted to watch it during a TCM airing some time ago and tapped out quickly, its folly unbearable. Then, as now, the notion that someone as supremely feminine as Raquel Welch could have been a man strains all credulity. In 2024, sex reassignment and plastic surgery have only progressed so far in transforming men into attractive and functional women, or vice versa.

The alchemy to transmute a man to Venus, or a woman to Mars, remains elusive in earnest. Witness the metamorphosis of the former Ellen Page, a reasonably cute young lady who is now a very strange-looking, baby-faced man named Elliot. Science has simply not yet advanced to the point where any man can legitimately become as beautiful a woman as Raquel Welch, or any woman can transform into a rugged and handsome gentleman. Back in 1970, the concept was purely science fiction.

I know, everyone and their angry, MAGA hat-wearing uncles appear to be talking about transgender issues these days, and I am weary of the endless clamour. Almost never do I post on these issues, and perchance I shall rue this venture. Do what one will with one’s life and body; the world shall not crumble solely on this account (though society *is* teetering on the brink of ruin, make no mistake).

Yet, I cannot but marvel at the reasoning of those who wrought this spectacle, for who could be so beguiled as to credit such absurdity? For whatever it is worth, 77-year-old Mae West, whose star once shone resplendent, graces this unworthy film with her presence, a fleeting flicker in the twilight of her career. Gore Vidal, the wit who birthed this satirical tale in written form, recoiled in horror at its cinematic incarnation, deeming it ‘an awful joke’. Even within the realm of a ‘deliberately campy sex change comedy’, the notion of Raquel Welch, a living goddess with such proportions, having been born the opposite sex is indeed an awful joke.

Copyright 2024, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on X, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.