Spectrophotometry of 55 Wolf-Rayet stars is presented in order to determine the dependence of their intrinsic colors on spectral subtype. These data are the first with both sufficient photometric precision and spectral resolution to determine magnitudes and colors without contamination from emission lines. It is found that the effect of emission lines on previous ubvr filter photometry did occasionally amount to as much as 0.3 mag in the colors. These data do not confirm earlier reports of ultraviolet excesses for WN stars, nor do they support the claim of differences in colors for WN and WC types. The differences in the intrinsic colors of W-R stars from subtype to subtype is small compared to the considerable variation present among stars of the same subtype. Despite the improved accuracy in determining the continuum colors, reddening-free indices still show scatter far in excess of the observational uncertainties, particularly at shorter wavelengths.
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Philip Massey (1984) studied this question.