Evening Star Newspaper, February 23, 1930, Page 83

THE SUNDAY. STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C.,VWFEBRUARY 23, 1930. 5 “THE DIET CRAZE DIES OUT Hollyzwood Is Sponsoring a New Ideal Femi- nine Figure That Is a Few Pounds Heavier Than a Bed Slat, and as the New Fashions Call for Curves and See Beauty in a Bit of Plumpness, Women Can Again Eat Calories With Safety. HE bed-slat blond, the boyish brunette, and the rock-ribbed redhead are go- ing to pass out of the American scene at the end of the Dry Decade (1929- 30) like some unreal-fightmare of a Chinese famine. it is becoming fashionable for a woman tb look more like a woman, and less like an under- privileged boy of 14. And Hollywood, which has more influence over American fashions than Judge Landis has over base ball, is blazing the way toward bigger and better figures. Maybe it was the long skirts that brought back the desire for “dangerous curves.” Or maybe dieting proved too strenuous an ordeal. But, whatever the cause, the fact is that today ; S ¢ k. 1 " a piece of Melba toast is just as welcome p F 1 . . : Diet is still a fascinating topic, but now SRS SRS X & Sy Sago W8 M- it's being taken out of the clinic into m:{,-a-un cating is still going on, but the bird . ; : il Lot the kitchen. Lila Lee and Bebe Daniels I S e Rl is now an ostrich. Two factions are clairfiing : : : - conferring over heartening food. the credit. Casting directors say that because they now consider 118 or 120 pounds a good weight for the average girl, the girls have had to linger at table to put on the additional weight. But the stars themselves claim part of the credit. Many of them say that they discovered the fact that they looked better and felt better with a little more beef on their bones, and that that settled the matter. Quite a few of the best known women on the_screen, who used to pay more attention to their diets than their bank accounts, because the latter depended on the former, have said good-by to all that and now are eating three “squares” & day. Among them are Bebe Dan- jels, Betty Compson, Laura La Plante, Sally Blane, Joan Crawford, Dorethy Sebastian, Lila All of these girls once made efforts to exist on grapefruit and toasted pinochle cards or something else just about that nourishing, Now they're as likely as not to order steaks smothered in mushrooms. Nowmepointo{-ntmsi_lflutmm girls follow Hollywood's lead closer than a bridge player who’s out of ttump. And when the girls of Hollywood cultivate curves, it's curves that will grace the figure of your wife - and mine for 1930. “Hollywood is creating a new feminine type «—a type which will be much more beautiful than any of the past, and which will be adopted as standard for all American women.” It is Fanchon speaking, one of America's few woman producers, and one who has trained more than 10,000 girls for the footlights and the talkies. Considering that she has trained such stars as Mary Lewis, the opera singer; Muriel Stryker, Frances Williams and the Dodge Sisters, and such screen celebrities as Nancy Carroll, Joan Crawford and Janet Gaynor, Fanchon should really know & thing or two about feminine charm. . “Yes,” she continued enthusiastically, “Hol- Iywood, by demanding the slender willowy fig- ure with curves, is setting an example that is certain to meet with favor among women. Graceful feminine curves are being brought back into vpgue, in-fact are now a definite re- t for all film aspirants, because pro- ducers believe the public no longer looks upon the boyish figure as the ideal thing for any- body but boys.” Tfl!swryothnchonhenel(remuxen movie scenario. Ten years ago, figure,” was the passing brother Marco, as Fanchon and Marco, she illner’s death. was just another dancing number on the “Coming on the heels of the death of Bar- wvaudeville bills. La Marr, another victim of the reducing Today, still using the firm name of Fanchon & Marco, the sister and brother have a vast Molly O’Day, too stout for ingenue roles, may come back now. Ex-Dieter Sally Blane, at left, invented a method of frying oranges, but has gone back to eating. “I recall, too, what Haskell Coffin, the famous illustrator, had to say. ‘Modern girls of the boyish type are far from beautiful,’ decreed Mr. Coffin. ‘Bed-slat figures never quicken any one’s heart, and the pathetic imitation of youth in later life makes women ridiculous.’ dent in matters of that kind, Dr. Eugene Ly- man Pisk, director of the Life Extension In- stitute, compiled figures which he said con- vinced him that girls and young women be- tween 15 and 30 were dying off more rapidly " than young men and boys of the same age. He blamed, as least in part, the slenderizing lunch-counter meals consisting of a few crack- ers, an unsweetened drink and other guaran- teed non-energy-producing foods.” 'ANCHON paused a mament, asked me if I wouldn’t please help myself to the box of chocolates on the table, and then continued: “After a while,” she said, “Hollywood began to take stock. It found that Kathryn Grant had ruined her career and was an invalid from starvation. Lottle Pickford, it was said, took her life in her hands when she resorted to quick-reducing remedies. Evan Van Berne collapsed on the set after losing 10 pounds. Flobelle Fairbanks, niece of the famous Doug, the truth of her director’s statement that the public wanted to see them thin. But not so with Brigitte Helm of U. P. A, Germany's big moving picture company. Brigitte faced the same sort of fate as Mollie, but instead of giv- ing in and submitting to dangerous reducing diets and operations, she fought back. Her plea to the German courts was based on the established “medical facts that to go in for drastic weight reduction is to endanger the health and possibly the life of the person so "O.Al. Cochrane, English producer of musical among them Flo Ziegfeld and George White, began calling loudly for curves and turning away applicants who were starved into un- natural thinness. “During the first 15 years of the psesent cen- “TH! stage, poster girls and movies vied H A EE ik i Fi8 il e : g 85 fIRLRE ¢ 3 1 | figure that is compatible with good $45y.gpe finds & kaleidoscope of changing Styles. 1., wiw vis? vaudOUNEFighE: 1990 legged: fashion. Perhaps if she had not by ‘nature dances’ and n %8 !a?gfig 3