I am in Austin and it is the evening before I attempt a diet I found in a 1932 edition of Photoplay. The proponent of this diet is “Sylvia” – she doesn’t give her surname but we are told, “She made motion picture stars beautiful and kept them trim. She can do the same for you.” She tells it like it is, “The reason you’re fat is because you eat your head off and don’t take exercise”. She uses encouraging phrases like, “Come on, darlings, be beautiful and lovely and attractive! You can if you will.” and gives some exercises to do after tuning the radio “to a peppy band”.
So I’ve decided to stop expanding and start reducing. I shall attempt to follow Sylvia’s advice for two weeks and see how I get on. I shall report back on how it goes with nothing but melba toast and honey for breakfast…
Oh, the picture is not Sylvia by the way. It’s Ruth Etting – the namesake of my sister of the skillet. Bizarrely enough Sylvia was married to Edward Leiter, an actor who only appeared in one film – his co-star was Ruth…
4 responses
I realize this is a very old blog entry but I’m curious about this diet! Can you say what issue of Photoplay it was in? Perhaps I can find it on eBay!
Greetings! Oh my goodness, this seems like a lonnnnnnnng time ago. There is quite a lengthy Wikipedia entry for Sylvia of Hollywood and you’ll find lots of leads there. I have her book “No More Alibis” which is fabulous. I should really keep it somewhere visible as I use EVERY EXCUSE IN THE BOOK not to exercise. Sylvia would not approve. Good luck finding it, let me know what you think of the actual diet, from memory, I think it was pretty sensible, but I think I ate a lot of melba toast!
I realize this is a very old blog entry but I’m curious about this diet! Can you say what issue of Photoplay it was in? Perhaps I can find it on eBay!
Greetings! Oh my goodness, this seems like a lonnnnnnnng time ago. There is quite a lengthy Wikipedia entry for Sylvia of Hollywood and you’ll find lots of leads there. I have her book “No More Alibis” which is fabulous. I should really keep it somewhere visible as I use EVERY EXCUSE IN THE BOOK not to exercise. Sylvia would not approve. Good luck finding it, let me know what you think of the actual diet, from memory, I think it was pretty sensible, but I think I ate a lot of melba toast!