The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, August 2, 1930, Page 6

: DT TT | ACA mui | = = = = Keeping Fit Fo. IITTTTATTTTTTTTCATTAT MINUTE Here is the inside story of a human repair shop where amusement world stars get overhauled for jumpy nerves and blubber, most feared of all Fame’s diseases Words By GILBERT SWAN Sketches By GEORGE CLARK é é OW do they stand the life?” Wandering about the spots where Broadway plays until the dawn; watching the play- boys and the playgirls, the workers and the non-workers, the spenders ai the chiselers, “the performers and the masters of ceremonies, the stars and the climbers, you'll hear the question asked a thousand times a N year. You'll hear the columnists gagging about their sallow complexions. You'll hear them joking about how they took a week-end in the country, got some fresh air, “and have been feeling rotten ever since.” You'll see the chalk-faced men and the rouged girls to whom noontime is “the middle of the night.” ‘ You'll hear stories of the nervous strain of long theatrical rehearsals; of the tension of opening nights and the strenuousness of learnin; new routines. You'll see players who have ha a hard night of acting, now rounding out the rest of the night about dance floors and the play places. et, somehow, Broadway goes on surviving. Somehow, these folks who appear to lead the most unnatural and straining of lives manage to keep going to their four-score-and-ten. Ex- traordinarily few are scratched off the bills and the programs for illness in the course of a yeary The percentage of break- down doesn’t seem to be partic- ularly greater than elsewhere. For, take it from Philadel- ee Jack O'Brien, “these roadway guys are easy to bend but hard to break.” And Jack should know, be- cause this famous ear smasher of yesteryear has looked after the physical condition of hun- dreds of the main stem’s most famous personalities for years. He's often been referred to as “the bird who keeps Broadway in training.” ‘OP up a couple of floors in a building in the mid-Fifties and almost any after- noon or any evening you'll see an all- star cast in the process of keeping fit for Broad- way. You may come upon your favorite mo- tion picture star doing the strangest-looking tricks in the funniest-looking machines. You may find the loveliest lady of the musical shows having a shapely leg massaged in what appears ata glance to be part of a laundry mangle. You might find the hero of the last film you saw refreshing his fistic memory, while an old- timer who has taken on some avoirdupois during a couple of dull winters toils with amaz- ing persistence to knock off 20 pounds in a few weeks, Take a case out of life: Some nine years ago, or thereabouts, the eee and most famous of all the early Ziegfeld glorified girlies was Lil- lian Lorraine. She it was who swung far over the heads of the audience in a flower-bedecked and light-studded swing. She it was who “knocked ‘em cold” night after night and whose face and figure were exploited in the magazines and theatrical sections across the country. th And one wintry night, while hurrying away from the theater, she slipped on the icy pave- ment just as she was about to hop into her taxicab, Both her neck and back were broken. Tt seemed certain she must die. Few have ever survived such an experience. ROADWAY awaited a funeral notice which never has been printed. News- Papers and latter-day columnists followed the course of her battle for life for a time— and then, like so many who have come and gone from the Broadway’ t, she swallowed by obscurity. All the time she was gamely battling back. ¥ And once death had been staved off, came the long, courageous effort to regain the old sup- pleness and flexibility. Well, that’s all back now. She can bat a mean punching bag and, up in “Philly Jack's” she’s removing the last few surplus nds put on in the months of idleness. She's aded for a comeback, with a musical show and a vaude- ville tour awaiting her. . “It’s blubber that most of them are fight- ing,” Jack will tell you. “That's the Broad- way malady—gag that one off! jut _up here we call it blubber, and it’s what I have to fight with most of them. You see an awful lot of the Broadway crowd that ‘comes up here does a lot of sitting. around— no real outside exercise to speak of. They TUN _».. an old-timer who has taken on some avoirdupois . . ence to knock off 20 pounds.” + toils with amazing persist- Lillian Lorraine ++ + once the - pride of the Zieg- r feld glories. . . had a broken neck and back . . . but she survived. - Now she is training for a stage comeback, \ think they're pits on fat. It isn’t real solid fat—it's blubber. “It’s just so much water— and it's bad, And there's only one way of get- ting rid of it, and that, my lad, is by the sweat « Yo ts ised the le I ‘ou’ surprit people I get up here—there’s Harry Richman, the master of ceremonies; and ‘Winnie Lightner and Betty Lawford; I've had Grant Mitchell, the actor, for years, and Irene Delroy, the musical com- edy star, and Evelyn Duncan, and lawyers and SMU ee Dorothy Hall . 2 hug Die eo se ing of todays musical comedy stage . . . has survived Broadway's hilling pace. politicians, and most of the Broadway crowd. “But the girls who put on a little blubber are the ones who come worrying the most. And you can’t blame them. Sometimes it’s as much as their job is worth. With a chorine it's her weekly pay> check. “Do you have to give the Broadway bunch particularly strenuous treatment? I'd say, the most strenuous of all. Of course, everyone’s.a different problem. . Some .of ‘em are tireth when they finally get around here, : an you have to break them in easy. : 66 U take the night club bunch, for in- stance. A lot of them have jobs just sitting around glad-handing people and getting up once in a while to say a few words and sitting down again. - And the crowd that plays the cafes sits and sits and talks, and once in a while gets up and dances and sits a machine . . . that looks like a laundry mangle . . kneads away surplus poundage. The dance team in a night club. . Pa . submits her fair figure to the ministrations of + but which again and watches the floor show. and then gets to bed around dawn. The old boys get up late and‘ go to their office and sit around some mo at's where fen blubber oe in, and the necessity for a little gym work.” Hollywood has been in- vading his gymnasium and roof-top playground, par- ticularly since the talking pictures ‘made some of the screen performers go in for dance and song routine. Not so long ago, Win- nie Lightner, the screen hoyden of half a dozen hits, came out from the Holly- woods with more than worries on her shoulders. The scales were balancing against her. She had appeared in “Gold Diggers of Broad- way,” and the box offices shouted for more. After that the tropical indolence which some- times overtakes performers between pictures had settled upon Winnie. And when she came.on the screen in “She Couldn't Say No,” the wagsters got together in choruses comcérning her increasing heftiness. ' She was to come on to New York about that time for avai lle engagement_which would ‘have netted a sweet sum. But by the time she arrived. she became slightly fearful of getting up before the public “‘in the flesh,”” ae were, and betraying how plump she had n. “OF course,” relates Philadelphia Jack, “1 got her\on the rebound, as I get most of them when they're panicky. , believe me, -you don’t know how panicky some of them can be- come. You got to hand it to Winnie, though. (Copyright, 1930, By Every Week Magazine—Printed in U. 8. A.) eI UT MU MUU UN ae | | OULU UU At {QUAL si ALLL CUT A TOLL . may get plenty exercise . u only ones who do. .°. . The rest just sit and hang blubber on their frames. sie me i x 4 . «but they are the 66CVHE didn’t sit around weeping; she got in and-trained like the dickens. We erased 20) pounds in three weeks.” It’s early in the theatrical season, says aa when many of the more intricate cages in to show up at the gymnasium, pleading for re- duction of gross tonnage. The big shows are getting organized. Actors and actresses are working tirelessly far into the night. Rehearsals are going on in side-street halls and in theaters. Some of the shows that are being rushed in to the theaters are rehears- ing four and five times a day. Performers go about muttering their lines to themselves. They toss feverishly as the opening day ap- proaches. atien sets In. Then the show takes to the road for a try- out before it comes in- to town. This means strenuous work, — for many a show has been half re-written on tour and actors have found it necessary to re-learn half their lines and change exits and en- trances and cues and all the rest. Even the veteran performers, trou pers who have hit the drama trail for dozens of years, have told me . that they never got over Philadelphia Jack — opening_night nervous- ae pte ness. Ml y Frade fought ti est in earne Internationa! his day. . .. Nok — fame for roles played he trains others for in the past, but with a different battle, the taking on of any new part, the old fears haunt them again, and some of the best-known performers have been known to suffer from stage-fright at a premiere Broadway performance. 1 “You'll see a lot of the and girls around here about then,” reports Jack. “I have a bunch of special stunts aimed to let down the tension. You don’t want to be too strenuous with them when they're that way. Some of poe er aed Goh mn Ring sorts of quirks, and tl is to m relaxed and still harden them up a little to stand strain. «The Broadway bunch is always interesting. I never get tired working with them. 66 1U remember back when I was in the ring? Well, it’s always a kick to know satis Sto cee end se Boers . Iw: Tnch always has been a fight fan crowd, , bunch always has been “Back there, when I was taking on Young Peter Jackson, and Joe Choynski and Kid Mc- Coy and Joe Walcott and Bob Fitzsimmons, I could always bank on some cheers from friends in the theater business. F 2 “So I set up my place right here in the mid- dle of Broadway, and the fellows and girls who come up here aren't just birds in to punch the bag. Most of them are my friends—and I get a real kick,out of it when T do something for them. “You know, an awful lot of people will tell you at od Yocis 9 trite rabisicta on heal t it’s no to li it rll Yoo that the theater and the chibe aad all tbe rest will get you. pee ons af bunk. Jeqee a ap . sure! Joes e lace else. trouble with so many of the New Yorkers is that. while they seem to be ax he around, they're really leading pretty sluggish, lazy lives. They grab a subway or a taxi every chance the ts ALS don’t catch many of them really wal fe rr ince. “T'm ilies ve when you're fit for Broad- way, you're fit for anywhere in the world, ‘ intr dropping - = sa TTT ATT mmRTTTTT y > ; ‘= | I, | I , rf ) 7 4 L * a