Dressed in Radcliffe Hall chic, with a necktie, a tailored suit and a mannishly-cropped bob, Leatrice Joy was the epitome of the 1920s no-nonsense career girl and sophisticated woman of the world. Petulant and perhaps too emancipated for the times, her liberated lady persona was ultimately ‘chastened’ by the will and love of her virile leading man. In historical context, Joy was the prototype for the Katherine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell strong women-feminist models in the late 1930s and 1940s.