Re-quote notes: Burchill also reused a version of the quote in a 2011 column for The Independent:

“It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it’s not – it’s a visa, and it runs out. It can even, if the Israelis are to be believed (and I ALWAYS believe the Israelis), be a burden, as good-looking women who add a photograph to their CVs are less likely to be interviewed than their plainer competitors.”

[Source: Julie Burchill, “Julie Burchill: Supermodel to super-role-model: what women can learn from Cindy Crawford” (20 April 2011) The Independent; online via The Independent, www.independent.co.uk]

Extended excerpt [Column essay]:

“What are Pierette Le Pen, Jessica Hahn, Fawn Hall, Donna Rice, Angie Bowie and Fiona Wright supposed to do the rest of their lives? It has been said (by Shelley Winters) that a pretty face is a passport. But it’s not – it’s a visa, and it runs out fast.” (p. 55)

Source notes: Although Burchill credited the simile “a pretty face is a passport” to Shelley Winters, the saying predates the actress. Two earlier examples from American & British newspapers:

“They obtained positions as ballet girls at the Grand Opera House, and both became familiar figures to the habitués of that theatre, particularly Mary, who called herself Alice Pierrepoint, and whose pretty face was a passport to favor.”

[Source: “Pop” Mary, Pedler” (19 December 1883) Commercial-Gazette, Cincinnati; reprint in The Boston Globe, Vol. XXIV, No. 170, Boston, MA, 20 December 1883, p. 5, column 1; online via Newspapers.com [subscription service] www.newspapers.com]

“Garry Allighen, the film publicity expert, has just forwarded a copy of his new book “The Romance of the Talkies” and in this he boldly declares, “The day of the pretty face as a passport to the screen is ended.”

[Source: Garry Allighan, “film publicity expert,” cited in “Stage and Screen” (2 October 1929) The Journal, Nottingham, England, p. 3, column 5; online via The British Newspaper Archive [subscription service] www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk]

Source [Featured quote]: Library – Sex and Sensibility (1992) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-00-637858-7

Source link [Burchill 2011 requote]: “Julie Burchill: Supermodel to super-role-model: what women can learn from Cindy Crawford” (20 April 2011) The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/columnists/julie-burchill/julie-burchill-supermodel-to-super-role-model-what-women-can-learn-from-cindy-crawford-2270504.html

Source link [Pretty face/passport – 1883 example]: “Pop” Mary, Pedler” (20 December 1883) The Boston Globe; online via Newspapers.com [subscription service]: https://www.newspapers.com/image/428524183/?terms=%22pretty%2Bface%2Bwas%2Ba%2Bpassport%2Bto%2Bfavor%22

Source link [Pretty face/passport – 1929 example]: “Stage and Screen” (2 October 1929) The Journal; online via The British Newspaper Archive [subscription service]: https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001898/19291002/058/0003

Extended excerpt [Tribute to British intelligence agent Harold ‘Kim’ Philby]:

“Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly, completely successfully or just completely, the correct response to death’s perfect punctuation mark is a smile.” (p. 46)

Source: “Julie Burchill on Kim Philby” (5 August 1989) The Independent Archive, 1986-2012, via Gale Group [library; subscription database]

Extended excerpt [Essay]:

“The freedom that women were supposed to have found in the Sixties largely boiled down to easy contraception and abortion; things to make life easier for men, in fact, things to make women more like chums and less like millstone medallions. But the gains of the Seventies grew out of what women wanted for themselves, drawn up out of a shopping list of bitterness and old silence.” (p. 3)

Source note: From the Damaged Gods publisher page:

“Born Again Cows’ first appeared in The Sunday Times, February 1984, in much smaller (one thousand words) form.”

To date, Repeat Right has not been able to locate the Times edition of the essay to verify if the quoted section appeared in the initial publication.

Source: Editor’s copy – Damaged Gods (1986) International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 0-09-946990-1