“There are no ugly women, only lazy ones,” Helena Rubinstein once famously observed. That motto served her well as she moved from poor Polish-born immigrant to the head of an extravagantly successful global beauty enterprise. The only person who threatened her dominance in that field was Elizabeth Arden (born Florence Graham), whose eponymous salons dotted the country with their “beauty culturalists” in uniforms spouting the pseudo-science of makeovers and treatments.The duo — who both died at an advanced age within 18 months of each other in the 1960s — were fierce rivals, and that contest of wills and self-promotion is now the subject of a new musical, “War Paint,” which will bow next summer at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. Starring will be the only two actors who seemingly could do justice to these larger-than-life personalities: Tony Award winners Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, the former as the feisty, art-loving Rubinstein, and the latter as the ambitious, Canadian-born Arden, who borrowed her secrets from the salons of Paris.“War Paint” will be produced by the same creative team as the acclaimed 2006 musical “Grey Gardens”: direction by Michael Greif, book by Douglas Wright, and songs by Michael Korie and Scott Frankel. Like “Grey Gardens,” the musical is based in part on a documentary, “The Powder and the Glory” (2009) by Armie Reisman and Ann Carol Grossman, which was in turn inspired by the book “War Paint” by Linda Woodhead. In a statement, Goodman artistic director Robert Falls said, “We are proud to produce the world premiere of ‘War Paint,’ a bold and exciting new musical about two fearless women who broke new ground in luxury beauty.” Indeed, before the advent of these two entrepreneurs, cosmetics were largely the province of actors and the lower classes. Rubinstein and Arden effected the makeover in attitude by adding the patina of science and overpricing. Rubinstein was often pictured in a lab coat, even though the extent of her familiarity with that field was the couple of months she spent in a French beauty spa. She was also an art lover and collector who opened a museum in Tel Aviv and commissioned works from Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Marie Laurencin, Raoul Dufy, Andy Warhol, and Graham Sutherland. She also published D. H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterly’s Lover,” a scandal in 1928, with the small publishing house she established with Edward William Titus, her husband at the time.“War Paint” will open on June 28 and, given the talent involved, the fur will almost certainly be flying on Broadway soon thereafter.
↧