Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-357) and index

Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Part One. A Comic History of Dames -- 1 Fast-Talking Dames -- 2 Female Pygmalions -- Part Two. Hot Heiresses and Working Girls -- 3 Blonde Bombshells: Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, and Ginger Rogers -- 4 My Favorite Brunettes: Myrna Loy, Jean Arthur, and Claudette Colbert -- Part Three. The Grande Dames -- 5 Missing Links: Bringing Up Baby -- 6 The Lady-Dame: Irene Dunne and The Awful Truth -- 7 Garbos Laugh -- 8 Female Rampant: His Girl Friday -- 9 The Lady Eve and the Female Con -- Conclusion: Blondes Born Yesterday -- Notes -- Index

There is nothing like a dame, exuberantly declares the song from the multicultural world of "South Pacific", and proclaims, too, that a dame is a specific American creation, one of the things worth fighting for in our culture. This book validates that claim. It celebrates the fast-talking dames of thirties and forties screen comedy, women of lively wit and brash speech who became the most impressive model of indepedent, articulate American womanhood. Coming of age during the depression, they were quick on the uptake and hardly ever downbeat. They seemed to know what to say and when to say it. They weren't afraid of slang nor shy of the truth. In their fast and breezy talk seemed to lie the secret of happiness, but also the key to reality

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