Silver Screen (Nov 1930-Oct 1931)

SET DOWN as it is in a beautiful sub-tropical clime, Hollywood appears soft and languorous. You'd think that beauty and health came for the asking in that environment. People shouldn't have to diet and exercise to retain that reputation for beauty which has made the film capital famous the world over. But there is no place under the shining sun where people are more careful of their health. There is no place where such drastic steps are taken to retain strong constitutions, good figures, and the clear brain which gees with the human machine when it's in good working order. The stars work harder than professional athletes to keep fit, and as a result Hollywood is so healthy that it annoys the doctors. But to keep that way, the stars have to be trained like college football players. These stars work terribly long hours under terrific pressure. I have known cases where companies have worked sixteen and eighteen hours at a time. Delicate looking girls wear a string of beads and a pleasant smile when the temperature is below freezing, and heavy fur coats when the pavements are blistering. Hollywood work is a constant strain on the mind, the nerves and the body. The average person would break under the demands made on these so-called "pampered darlings" of screendom. But the darlings don't dare break. You see, competition is great in Hollywood. The industry moves at a lightning speed, moves, and laggards are left behind. Brutal it may be, but the weaker ones are sacrificed. This is a big business, and there's no more Frank Albertson exercises on the beach. Garbo swims. Eddie Lowe punches the bag Pep is Personality* Health is Beauty, sentiment to it than there is in making farm tractors or mining coal. The stars have to keep their health, or they are passed by. How do they do it? Hollywood is a colony of health cultists who can't devote much time to physical exercise. The stars have no more time for that than stenographers or clerks. They don't waste the time they do have, however. In addition to simple exercises most of the stars follow a diet. Not a rigid, extreme diet, but a careful one. That craze cf harrrful diet, which sw«pt the movie coast in 1929 leaving plenty of acidosis in its wake, has died down. Joan Crawford's figure is much admired. A short time ago. Silver Screen elected her as the Hollywood Ventis. Every morning when~Joan arises she skips the rope for fifteen minutes. She has orange juice for breakfast, and a cup of hot coffee later when she arrives at the studio. She never touches starches or sweets. When she has the time, she swims and takes long walks. Joan spends long, gruelling hours at the studio. When she returns home in the evening she often has to take dancing lessons or learn lines for a new picture. That routine, day in and day out, would put most girls in the hospital. Joan has radiant health. She knows how to take care of it. Both Norma Shearer and Ruth Chatterton supplement their program of exercises with daily massages — thirty minutes of it, after they have finished a day at the studios. It relaxes the body and quiets the nerves. Ruth likes to play golf and tennis, but that frequently has to be sacri 30 Silver Screen