Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1929)

Wrong A typical "star" luncheon, so fatal to health and happiness, demonstrated by Josephine Dunn. Crackers, 100 calories; cottage cheese, 50 calories; consomme, 13 calories; pineapple, 50 calories. Food fit for neither man nor beast! Q)lET By Rather ine Albert Why the average woman risks her health when she attempts to achieve a movie figure Unwittingly, the producers are modern Shylocks who, when they demand a pound of flesh, also demand a part of the life-span of the star; without realizing the grave responsibility they assume the producers point the way to the hospital and set an example that threatens to produce a race of anaemic, tubercular weaklings. H( 1. Right A satisfying meal for a girl who wants to lose two or three pounds a week — roast beef, baked potato, spinach, pickled beets, cucumbers, buttermilk and fruit cup. Remember, you can't do good work on a starvation diet DIET! It has put one world famous star in her grave, has caused the illness of many others, has wrecked careers and has become, largely through its practice in Hollywood, the Great American Menace! For as Hollywood does so does the rest of the world. It is a grim problem — this matter of diet — and it concerns not only every Hollywood studio but every home in the United States as well. High school girls of fifteen or si.xteen, who need wholesome, body-building food, are actually putting their lives in peril when they cut down their rations and refuse everything but a hard boiled egg and an ounce of spinach, or attempt to hve on nothing but lamb chops and pineapple. The wife of the household prepares well cooked, savory meals for her husband and then nibbles on a few "health" crackers in order to have a sylph-like figure! The fault may be laid at the doors of the studios! 30 OSPITAL reports show that there is more tuberculosis among women than ever before and that this is the direct result of diet! The foremost physicians declare that they treat thousands of cases of anaemia. Diet — a death's head wearing the mask of beauty — is again responsible! The stars have set the styles in slim figures. The correct weight for a girl five feet two inches tall is 119 pounds. The average screen player of this height weighs only 108 pounds. A survey of all the studios embracing the film plants of Culver City, Burbank, Westwood and Hollywood and including one hundred fifty of the most famous, most envied film celebrities, resulted in the compilation of a table of heights and weights showing that the players are from ten to fifteen pounds underweight, according to medical standards. This means that they have starved themselves for pictures, for personal whims, or to be fashionable untU they have lowered their physical resistance to the danger point and are unfit to do the strenuous, nervous, emotional work required of them! Barbara LaMarr died of tuberculosis brought on by weight reduction. Kathryn Grant ruined her career and was made an invalid from starvation. Lottie Pickford took her life in her hands when she resorted to quick reducing medicines and is today virtually an invalid. Eva von Berne collapsed on the set after trying to lose ten pounds; Flobelle Fairbanks, niece of Doug, caused her family much concern and endangered her health by indulging, secretly, in a lime juice diet. Lina Basquette has just come out of a gruelling, enervating reducing process. Molly O'Day, now one of the most famous of those waging the battle against avoirdupois, is convalescing from an operation for the removal of surplus flesh — an operation which has resulted disastrously for others. Excess weight ended the film careers of Clara Kimball Young, Mrs. Sidney Drew, Leah Baird and Katharine McDonald.