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11
They Are Clay In Her Hands
Sylvia— : Holly wood^s most famous masseuse—has given stern orders to more stars than have most Hollywood directors
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Mary Lewis, the opera star under conlracl to Pathe, is friend and client of Sylvia's, getting her weight down fine," says Sylvia of Mary, "but if she puts off another appointment with nie — " Sylvia stands no nonsense
Here you see Eddie Quillan in the act of getting it in the neck from the queen of the massage. We can't blame Eddie for looking scared — Sylvia is no sissy in her methods.
By ALMA WHITAKER
FIVE feet tall, with atms of steel, and the chest of a bantam prize-fighter, stands Sylvia, spanker-in-chief to the "Hollywood stars. That woman has spanked and pummelled more celebrities than Jean Nathan or H. L. Mencken.
She's forty something, has sons twenty-seven and twentytwo years old respectively and looks as flapperish as Mary Pickford whom she strongly resembles.
And Sylvia gets $400 a week at the Pathe Studio, where she is under contract to keep the stars beautiful, male or female. Oh, but it is ghastly what Sylvia knows about Hollywood's famous ones — the exact state of their tummies, livers, kidneys, eyesight, hearing, chins and dispositions, and it is part of her job to keep them looking properly romantic.
Never a celebrit)' who can awe Sylvia. She would flop the
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Prince of Wales himself over on her massaging board, spank him, tickle him, and bully him for drinking cocktails when she had specifically ordered that he never touch another.
WILLIAM SISTROM, general manager of Pathe, was to learn this. For Sylvia practices her magic on executives, too. 'William, who is rocky ori keeping appointments, failed Sylvia . . . and he got the bawling out of his life over die phone, and meekly obeyed her curt summons.
And Sylvia's power all came about because a physician in a Copenhagen hospital discovered she had soothing hands. He made her give up trained nursing to specialize in massage . . . and she learned all about glands, nerves, blood vessels, diet, bones and muscles thereafter.
Her first patient in this country was Julius Rosenwald, Chicago banker. But Hollywood called in 1925, and Marie Dressier was her first screen client. Marie swears by her.
After that, business boomed. Mae Murray came early on the list. By a stern series of pummels, spanks, diet, exercise and facials, Mae was transformed from a matron to a flapper for all to see. (Sylvia's lawsuit with Mae completed her fame, so that studios began to compete for her.)
GLORIA SWANSON, gazing in her mirror, shuddered to see an ^approaching sag beneath her chin. Sylvia banished it — not alone with massage, but with stern, early-tobed and dietetic rules. Woe betide the beauty, male or female, who would thwart Sylvia's magic with disobedience. For Sylvia has a swift tongue, and can roll rhe zi^iughtiest