Picture Play Magazine (Sep 1920 - Feb 1921)

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74 The Man Who Made Himself Over people should pay a great deal of attention to deep breathing — that builds up the chest, and they should take exercises to develop their arms and legs." I hadn't thought before to ask Mr. Russell just how he acquired his strictly scientific knowledge of what to do and how to do it, in regard to health and hygiene. "I was with a school of physical culture for three years," he told me, "and later I was an instructor at Muldoon's establishment. Then I went on the stage — I won second prize for the most perfectly built man in America at Madison Square Garden, and later I became the amateur boxing champion of America. In those days the care of the body was more than a hobby with me, I was a fanatic about it. Whenever I saw a man or woman who was too fat or too thin, I'd think to myself — 'How unnecessary that is ■ — why don't you get to work and put yourself in proper shape ?' I had a pretty good chance to study humanity in the flesh when I was life guard at the Chicago Beach Hotel. Oh, yes, I've done a little bit of everything. I've bronzed radiators for twenty-five cents an hour, have been a boxing instructor, and once had ambitions to be a jockey. My first work on the stage was in a boxing act. Later I became ambitious to be a real actor. I studied every book and theory of dramatic expression and the technique of acting. In fact, I went to work to learn acting just as I worked to gain Russell's first stage experience was in a boxing act. health and muscle. Gee, the knocks I got, and the disappointments." He paused soberly, with a reminiscent expression. "But the thing that helped me most was the belief that I was going to achieve what I had set out to accomplish. Right thinking has more to do with health and success tkan athletic training. If it hadn't been for my faith in overcoming difficulties, I'd never have had the determination to make myself over." I asked Mr. Russell if his picture work gave him much opportunity for keeping up his physique. "Almost none," he replied. "I could get flabby in two months if I'd let myself do it. But I won't. I often dismiss my car and walk downtown just to keep in trim — I do shadow boxing every morning, and I always fast for ten days in the spring to clear out my system." Mr. Russell criticized the way women try to keep beautiful by means of cosmetics. Exercise, he said, and His lore of out-of regular hours would do more for the figure and door life has helped i . i F u~ him keep his splen complexfon than a whole avenue of beauty did health. parlors. Continued on page 92