Brenda Frazier - Fame

Fame

Frazier completed her education at Miss Chapin's School for Girls and Miss Porter's School. Sent to almost every social obligation she was invited to, she made great inroads in securing her picture everywhere. She had invented the famous “white-face” look. Powdered skin made a startling contrast to her very red painted lips combined with dark, dark hair, perfectly coiffed (Frazier's hair has often been described as "blue-black"; in fact, it was naturally a very dark brown; under low nightclub lighting and in black-and-white press photographs it appeared much darker). Brenda often developed a stiff neck, as she feared moving her head lest a hair fall out of place. She sported strapless gowns and made a sensation with that trend as well. During the year of her debut Brenda was at the beck and call of press agents worldwide. She was most often written about by columnist Walter Winchell. Occasionally, she did stop to think about where all this was coming from. In Debutante: The Story of Brenda Frazier by Gioia Diliberto, Frazier's daughter, Victoria Kelly, remembered her saying, “I’m not a celebrity,” she said, “I don’t deserve all this. I haven’t done anything at all. I’m just a debutante.” Her family was equally dumbfounded. "I fear Brenda's being spoiled," said a great-aunt at the time of her great-niece's debut. "I bemoan all this spectacular notoriety."

The press, both awestruck and vindictive, constantly wrote of “Poor Little Rich Girls”—such as Frazier, Gloria Vanderbilt, Doris Duke, and Barbara Hutton. As so many in Society lost their fortunes during the Depression, lineage was no longer the sole common denominator. “Publi-ciety”—a combination of money, social standing and news coverage also entered the Winchell lexicon. And then there were the “Glamour Girls”. In 1938 Brenda Frazier was dubbed Glamour Girl #1. In 1939 the word celebutante was coined to describe her.

Leading the pack, she had become a cottage industry. She posed in ads for Woodbury soap and Studebaker cars (even though she could not drive) among others. In November she achieved the apex of fame—her face on the cover of Life magazine. The article inside gave hardly a mention of Frazier but from it she secured international wattage.

The morning of her debut her face was puffy with fever and she was suffering from painful edema in her legs. All in all, however, the debut was a success carried on the front page of newspapers around the world.

Frazier's fame was noted in the introduction to the Rodgers and Hart song, Disgustingly Rich, the first act finale from their 1940 show, Higher and Higher:

Brenda Frazier sat on a wall.

Brenda Frazier had a big fall.

Brenda Frazier's falling down, falling down, falling down.

Brenda Frazier's falling down, my fair Minnie!