Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1935)

PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE FOR DECEMBER, 1935 making suggestions, trying different things." They kept her hair at shoulder length, gave her a permanent wave, combed wispy little curls around her cheeks and forehead until her whole face was unbelievably softened. Every morning the hairdresser applied a lightening rinse to her hair — not a dye, a mild preparation that photographs like lustre. The effect of a new, very feminine hair-do made as much change in Eleanor as almost everything else they did put together. THEN they made neat little white porcelain caps to cover three of her crooked teeth. A skillful mouth makeup cut off, from the camera's eye, a thin slice of her lower lip. They plucked her eyebrows into a narrow line then shaved them vertically in two so that the outer halves might be drawn on to suit each makeup, each costume. They made her rest and gain twelve pounds. It filled in her legs, her neck and shoulders. It was a becoming improvement. Eleanor had always been a little on the thin side. In two places they padded her screen clothes to perfect her figure. At the chest, of course, and also over the shoulder blades. Hips, sideview, shrink to proper proportions when the shoulder blades are filled in. It's a smart discovery of Adrian's. They fashioned her nails (Eleanor had loathed fancy manicures before) into feminine rounded points and lacquered them to bright red perfection. They taught her how to do the right things with her hands — broad gesticulation was a habit she had to be broken of. There was a time when I could not have imagined Eleanor's telling anything without an energetic shuttling of arms and fingers through the air. Hollywood calmed that down. They encountered another difficulty with their new star too She's such a one for dancing all over that after two steps of a routine her carefully coiffed hair would be just so much mop flopping around her head. So they put a large-meshed invisible net over her finished coiffure, pulled a thin layer of hair through each section and waved it over the net The results were swell — only a froth of waves went bobbing and you couldn't see the net holding down the rest of her hair. Smart, this Hollywood. And they decreed that no matter what, glamorous pedicures notwithstanding, nothing but long shots should be taken of her bare feet Eleanor wears a size 6 shoe. Her feet are generously proportioned and well shaped but she has "toe dancer's toes" which are greatly oversized. A pair of clever beach sandals or mules could nicely conceal them in any emergency. When Hollywood was done with the tricks of its trade it leaned back beaming with pride over the transformation of Eleanor Powell. Justly so, for she walked away with honors in every one of her scenes in "Broadway Melody of 1936." The greatest beaming of all, though, was Eleanor's to do. She returned to Broadway a very different person from the tweeded, wholesomely homely, plain, boisterous youngster she used to be. She's few me, she's grownup, sophisticated in a more becoming way. And she's radiantly lovely to look at. Her skin, her smile, her clothes, her figure and her eyes are practically perfection. She kept the movie coiffure and manicure. She's letting the outer halves of her eyebrows grow back in again while she's starring in "At Home Abroad." She's keeping the twelve pounds by virtue of cream between meals and ten hours sleep every 99 night. And despite the fact that Hollywood gave her a "being-tall complex," as she calls it (since she discovered herself a fraction lengthier than Kay Francis and an almost tie with Garbo), she's still holding her shoulders and head high for the sake of her chest. There's much to keep doing and to accomplish over a periodof years. The braces must go back on her teeth, she must continue her short-muscle exercises, the business of bobbypinning uncteen waves in her hair each bedtime, her skin treatments and voice les?ons. "It takes me two hours every night to get ready for bed," she told me, "but it's worth it." In addition to the aforementioned items she must also include an eyewash, the doctoring and bandaging of her frequently irritated and blistered dancing feet, a hand-softener, twenty-five splits all the way to the floor, a saucer of hot milk toast, an alcohol rub and a final flop into bed. Which, all except the latter, is no girl's idea of fun. TJROADWAY, usually indifferent, is happy ^for the change in its Baby, for the healthy, natural looking, improvement-on-nature loveliness she's acquired. People, she tells me, have exclaimed, "Eleanor, not yon!" at her until she's beginning to feel miserably Exhibit A-ish. Well, she needn't. The only thing that could really justify her feeling like that would be for her to have gone and gotten prissy, fol-de-rol, doll-beauty beautiful. She hasn't. The last time I saw her she had on an old green Hoover apron and those "grandma" laced black practice shoes of hers, going through her exercises on the deserted stage of the Winter Garden. Her hair was a big brown tangle, her face scrubbed clean of cosmetics. And she still looked pretty. cientists have found the mildness of cigarette smoke depends not on the tobacco but on its preparation. The smoke from your Philip Morris cigarettes has been proven definitely and measurably milder than from ordinary cigarettes. This fact has been presented to, and accepted by, the medical profession. America's Finest fit** ., f 1 5< Cigarette Call tOT PHILIP MORRIS