ABSTRACT
No matter how consummate the artist, pre-eminent the favourite, and modest the woman, the actress could not supersede the fact that she lived a public life and consented to be ‘hired’ for amusement by all who could command the price. For a large section of society, the similarities between the actress’s life and the prostitute’s or demimondaine’s were unforgettable and overruled all other evidence about respectability. She was ‘no better than she should be’.
