Unraving Beauty

She had sung in the church choir, played in home-town theatricals and won scholarships at college. But nothing like this had ever happened before to 19-year-old Iris Boyd of Brandon, Manitoba. Jack Robertson, proprietor of the drugstore where she works part time, had sent her picture in to a Dominion-wide beauty contest for Peggy Sage cosmetic clerks. Iris had been chosen "Canada's Raving Beauty."

The Peggy Sage people, who had only seen her picture, were a little anxious. They found they had nothing to fear. Iris can pass all the tests: curly brown hair, sparkling blue-grey eyes, a flawless complexion, a figure that rates perfect (height 5 ft. 7 in., weight 123 lbs., bust 34 in., waist 24 in., hips 34 in.). In Montreal she got the company's full beauty treatment anyway, plus a $600 wardrobe that included a pink nightgown and a black girdle.

Iris, who was born & raised in Brandon (pop. 17,383), had never been east of Fort William. She enjoyed herself. After Montreal came Manhattan, with a whirl of nightclubs, theaters and sightseeing. She was interviewed on the radio, photographed with Movie Star Robert Ryan and with the seals at Central Park Zoo ("I guess the seals reminded the photographers of Canada," said Iris). An unknown admirer sent roses to her room at the Waldorf, included a note reading "See you in Winnipeg," signed "Love, Alec."

As she started back for Brandon and lack Robertson's drugstore, Iris summed up for reporters. New York: "A kind of suspended excitement." American men: "Too fond of themselves." How it felt to be Canada's Raving Beauty: "Wonderfully exciting. But when something like this happens to you, you have to be careful not to go off the deep edge."

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