The Day I Went to Paper Doll Heaven by Marilyn Henry

 

Article from Paperdoll Review magazine issue #10, 1995.

"Now that's eerie," I said to myself when I happened upon an article in an old issue of Paperdoll Review. Back in 1995, in Issue 10, Marilyn Henry wrote an article called "The Day I Went to Paper Doll Heaven." My dear friend and long-time co-editor passed away in 2020, and if there's a Paper Doll Heaven, Marilyn is there in all her glory. The story she wrote in 1995 is a sweet one, about the day she received a treasure-trove of paper dolls from her older brother's friends. Shown above is the article as it appeared in the magazine. And below is the text with full color versions of the paper dolls shown in the article. 

The Day I Went to Paper Doll Heaven
by Marilyn Henry

If we have been collecting long enough, most of us can recall a day when we hit it lucky, when the sun shone on us and we found a cache of wonderful, rare paper dolls to add to our collections, all in one big load. Add to that a nominal price (or even no price!) and you have paper doll heaven!

That day came to me when I was still a little girl, maybe nine or ten years old. My life at that time was completely focused on movies and paper dolls, and one of my greatest joys was going downtown with mother and finding a new movie star paper doll with matching coloring book in the dime store rack. My other greatest joy was going to the movies and seeing those stars and then drawing their costumes when I came home. For me, crayons were the greatest toy ever invented. 

My brother was in college and he had two friends who were dating two sisters. Evidently my brother had mentioned in passing that his little sister was nuts for movies and paper dolls. The sisters were ready to dispose of theirs, so they offered and my brother took me over to their house to pick up my booty. I was excited, but I didn't yet know just what astonishing luck I'd had.

Bob loaded three or four large cardboard boxes into the car and when I got home and went through the first box, I was sure I had died and gone to heaven.

Each set was cut, but oh, so carefully and neatly, and each was in a paper folder placed inside the original covers, with all the accessories tucked into small envelopes. Each doll was perfect, as if it had never been played with at all, thought the bent tabs said otherwise. They were all perfect and complete, bought between 1934 and 1942, and most were sets I didn't have. I hadn't even seen most of them before, being too young in the ’30s. 

And what pure treasure: every Shirley Temple set printed, including the Masquerade set, the life-size one and the one with all her screen costumes, right up to 1941's New Shirley Temple, Alice Faye, the five doll Gone With the Wind, all the Deanna Durbin sets, the early Sonja Henies, all the Jane Withers sets, Jeanette MacDonald, Joan Carroll, two Gloria Jean sets, Baby Sandy, Carolyn Lee, Queen Holden's Four Starlets and her early Judy Garland, Linda Darnell & Tyrone Power, all the Let's Play House Quints, The Princesses, and many, many more. So many more that my mind boggles to try to remember them after more than fifty years.

 Of course, mixed in with these wonderful movie stars were some "civilian" sets, but since those didn't interest me, I gave them to my best friend and can no longer remember them. I kept a few, but only what struck me at the time as particularly good artwork: the Bride and Groom Military Wedding set and the earlier Double Weddingset, both by Merrill, and a couple of other great Merrill sets such as Navy Scouts and College Style, etc. 

What, you may be wondering, was in those other boxes? Clippings. Full page portraits of 1930s and early ’40s movie stars from old movie magazines, most in color. Truly the mother of all lucky days, that day!

Article from: Paperdoll Review Magazine Issue #10, 1995.
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