“Like beauty, stardom too is skin-deep.”

"The Triumph of Assurance", Orthodox Paradoxes, Or, A Believer Clearing Truth by Seeming Contradictions (1647), p. 41. Compare: "Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in fine gay colours that are but skin-deep", Mathew Henry, Commentaries. Genesis iii.

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

"Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, I Don't Want to Hear One Word Out of You"
The Snake Has All the Lines (1960)

The sad truth is that attractive people do better in school, where they receive more help, better grades, and less punishment; at work, where they are rewarded with higher pay, more prestigious jobs, and faster promotions; in finding mates, where they tend to be in control of the relationships and make most of the decisions; and among total strangers, who assume them to be interesting, honest, virtuous, and successful. After all, in fairy tales, the first stories most of us hear, the heroes are handsome, the heroines are beautiful, and the wicked sots are ugly. Children learn implicitly that good people are beautiful and bad people are ugly, and society restates that message in many subtle ways as they grow older. So perhaps it’s not surprising that handsome cadets at West Point achieve a higher rank by the time they graduate, or that a judge is more likely to give an attractive criminal a shorter sentence.
Source: A Natural History of the Senses (1990), Chapter 5 “Vision” (pp. 271-272)

Source: Following the Equator (1897), Ch. XLI

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet

"The Return of Jimi Hendrix"
Dream Harder (1993)
Context: He was young and black and beautiful
big eyed, perfect skin an'
he played my guitar like a lightning storm
like twirlin' feathers in the wind
he could make it sound like the end of the world
a fire, the flick of a knife
he could squeeze it slow and masterful
like the hand that brought the world to life

Source: White Teeth