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No Padding. Those who had expected to see a gawky amateur make a fool of herself in public were surprised. The President's daughter had the poise of a professional. Nobody could call her beautiful, but her fine gold hair, easy smile and near-perfect complexion made liars of the gaunt-featured newspictures that sometimes appear in the papers. Smaller and trimmer than she looks in pictures, Margaret stands 5 ft. 4 in. high. Her shoulders are square and shapely, her waist a neat 26. On stage and off, her clothes are not notably "high fashion" (her father disapproves of tight fits and low necklines), but her Manhattan dressmaker, Madame Pola, says: "I never have to touch her figure. She needs no padding."
If Margaret Truman's first concert failed to establish her as a singer, it went far to prove her a person. Her friendliness was apparent to everyone. "Keep your fingers crossed for me," she had grinned at newsmen just before the concert. The hard-bitten journalists went to their typewriters inclined to do just that.
To those who had seen Margaret at Washington social functions, her naturalness with people of every sort was no news. In the round of Washington functions to which she was called, the President's daughter was seldom profound and seldom demonstrative, but she could chat in as friendly, casual a fashion with South Africa's late Prime Minister Jan Smuts as with an elevator boy. She was easy and self-confident. She was neither cowed nor over-impressed by the protocol that surrounded her. During a wave of petty pilfering which plagued the Secret Service, Margaret brightened a formal Blair House dinner by unobtrusively putting a presidential silver spoon in the pocket of Thomas J. Watson Jr., scion of International Business Machines.
The Pro. Margaret's second appearance as a concert artist was in the Hollywood Bowl in August 1947, before an audience of about 15,000. The indomitable Mrs. Strickler, who seemed to be running the affair singlehanded, despite the official presence of Conductor Eugene Ormandy and other notables, took pains to assure the press beforehand that her protégée's voice could fill the stadium easily and soar without effort to G above high C. After the concert, a technician at the sound controls deep in the stadium's heart gave Margaret's voice a decibel rate approximating that of Bing Crosby. The critics agreed that her voice was small.
The Bowl concert was followed by a tour through the South and Southwest, during which Margaret sang to packed houses in Amarillo, Pittsburgh, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Memphis, Tulsa and half a dozen other cities. "If there was a fire in Independence tonight," said a fellow townsman of Margaret's when the touring singer came to Kansas City, "there wouldn't be anyone there to see it."