The Hollywood Slant

People of the theatre have always known this simple fact, that you have to help your heart circulate. Blood flowing into the brain up into the neck and face. Myself for a few minutes each day , I stand on my head, I have been doing it for fifty years.
~Elsie Mendl~

A woman starts aging from the head down, so you must learn to give face, neck and shoulders more circulation, but luckily this doesn't mean you have to do headstands, although by all means do if you can.

Lean an ironing board against a low bed, put pillows under your bum and and heels on wall, reverse your angle on sofa or chaise longue, head down, feet up. Do anything to put your body on about a 30 to 45 degree upslant. Start off with 10 minutes at a time, work up to 20, then to a half hour a day.

Lie this way when talking on the phone, while waiting for your nail polish to dry, while you give yourself a facial or simply whilst daydreaming. But do it everyday, get a fresh supply from your own fountain of youth. All the delicate muscles of face and neck slide back up into positions that make a lovelier face. Jaw and cheeck contours firm up, down drooping lines disappear, chins undouble and you’ve fought off old age a bit.

Apparently everybody in Hollywood does it, to freshen themselves in the short breathers on location, to relax after a long day's shooting and to restore their looks and minds.

Ginger Rogers used to drop off for fifteen minute naps with her heels hung up over the head of her bed. Olivia de Havilland went over her lines with her head on the floor and her feet on the side of a couch. Eve Arden rested between scenes with her feet propped on the wall.

Old Books, New Tricks

As I mentioned in my first post, my years of rummaging old dusty book shops weren’t in vain, it was a fun and educational journey.

I have learned many wonderful, timeless, practical, fun and sometimes just downright weird ideas about how to look your best.

One of my favourite crazy tips is the instant facelift that you do yourself with bits of sticky tape and elastic bands.
You cut the tape into small pie shaped wedges and sew a piece of elastic to the narrow end of the wedge. Then stick the bits directly in front of each ear, pull the elastic bands tightly together and tie them together at the back of the head. Cover with hair... et voilà! 10 years younger!
I can't help but wonder what would happen if the elastic snapped half way through a tête-à-tête with a new lover, it could take his eye out and would definitely leave you lopsided and dying of embarassment.

Apparently the legendary Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper was a fan of these quick pick me ups.


Another priceless tip from the same book (The Masters Way to Beauty, George Masters 1977) is for married women.

This is how you keep the magic in your marriage past the wedding day. Each night before bed cleanse your face and apply fresh natural looking make up so you look enticing at bedtime. Hide a tiny alarm clock under your pillow and set it to wake you 20 minutes before your husband. Sneak out of bed, wash off your bedtime make up and apply your "fresh as a daisy" wake up make up (still keeping it natural), brush your teeth and get back to bed before your husband's alarm clock goes off....


In another book I found a 3-day grape juice diet. I needed to look good in a strapless ballgown and thought a couple of days would be just enough to flatten my tummy and make me feel thinner. I was very disappointed to discover that wine does not count as grapejuice and after 3 days of starvation and dizzyness I realised that all the weight had gone from my boobs, disastrous when the dress needs to fit like a glove in order to stay on.



Day 3 Beauty Habits

How to cream clean your face
First tie your hair back with a ribbon, remove lipstick and mascara with cream so you won’t push them back in your pores.
Apply cream generously with both hands so you don’t favour one side over the eother. Make sure every pore is covered, especially around nostrils, mouth corners, underlip and back of neck. Practice stroking with an upward-outward motion, gently so as not to stretch the skin.

1. At base of throat use right hand on left neck and vice versa, increasing pressure on up strokes

2. Repeat same motions from chin to ear

3. Repeat from nose to temples

4. Stroke up between eyes and out over forehead.

Finish by circling in under eyes and out over lidps very gently, This area where wrinkles show first needs constant soakiing with lubricating cream, eye cream, vegetable oils (!!) after you’ve passed thirty. Gently pat into eyelids
Let cleansing cream sink into your face a few seconds before removing with a tissue.
After you have cleaned off make-up your face should breathe overnight.

Deep Breathing

Remember every tissue and cell of your body need oxygen, be sure you take ime out once a day to get plenty of fresh air. Take at least 40 deep breaths.
Don’t be a sissy about outdoor sports. In winter dress warmly and ski, skate or walk. In summer don’t lie about exposed just to catch a male eye or a good suntan, play, swim, exercise.

Diet and Exercise 1950's Style

Day 2: Today we will take up caring for your body


During this course we're going to peel off a whole layer of tired you...find that smoother, better functioning skin that lives beneath your present one.

Mrs Colby then progresses to explain the benefits of daily showers and/or baths over 5 pages!

All so obvious and a boring that I won't repeat it. Tomorrow will be a bit of a dull day too, all about cream cleansing your face and proper breathing.
In fact the first few days of this course are not particularly entertaining. But later we'll learn about hairstyles, make up (we'll even measure our faces to figure out whether our faces are diamonds, oblongs, pears or something else...)how to talk to a man and all sorts of other wonderful things.

So while we are waiting for the interesting bits to start, let's talk about diet and exercise.


Watch those first three pounds and you’ll never be overweight

Sound advice, but for those of us who didn’t watch those first three pounds Anita Colby gives a 14-day eating plan….

You should eat every day:
A pint of milk
1 egg
A serving of meat and fish
Tomatoes or citrus fruits
Leafy green vegetables
Yellow vegetables
Other fruit and vegetables
Cereal, bread
Small amount of sugars
Small amount of fats
Eat 3 meals a day, following the low calorie diet <1400kcal

Diet combined with exercise will make you lose faster, If you are overweight you are overeating. Exercise alone won’t make you lose but it tightens and tones your muscles and can change proportions of you figure. I am giving you Special Exercises for Special Places, pick two of each of your spots that need attention and do them daily just before you go to bed.
Plus a 10 minute posture tone up and deep breathing before breakfast and a brisk walk during the day will improve your outlook and benefit your face and figure


The Special Places mentioned above are: bosom, waist, hips, legs

As I'm happy with my boobs and hips I picked waist and legs, these exercises should be repeated every night, no matter how tired you feel as apparently it is not so much physical tiredness as nerve tautness and these exercises will not only slim you but will also unravel nerves and make you sleep better.

For Joan Bennett's waistline: Apparently Joan Bennett's (see below) waistline is what we all should aim for, and this is how:
Stand up on your knees arms streched overhead. Stretch upward, puling your middle high and taut, now shove your right hip out as far sideways as you can pulling upward with clasped hands over your head. Roll body forward and down, then toward right, on around to the back, keeping your back straight, stomach muscles pulling for balance. Roll clear around to the left side, then front and up again in your right hip out position. Come to centre, relax on your kneese, repeat on left side. 6 reps per side. ???? I have no idea what I just typed means?
Joan Bennett

The Hollywood Fling: this move was devised by Jim Davies, exercise coach of Paramount Studions to make star's waists longer and supple.
In a sitting position, set legs wide apart, with toes pointing outward. Stretch arms out from shoulders in T formation , swing body forward and down twisting it to bring the right hand clear across and down to left foot, return to starting position and repeat to the other side, repeat 6 times in total. (can be also done from standing position)







Now some exercises for better legs. Fatty knees will will imporove with this: Lie on back, legs together, hands clasped behind neck. Now raise right leg, point toe, stiffen knee and at 45 degree angle draw circles in the air with your toe. 6 reps per side

For lovely slim calves: hold onto back of chair, with feet held together slowly lower yourself to a deep knee bend keeping on the balls of the feet with a straight back. Do not squat on your heels.








As a bonus I'm giving you Walking on hips, just because it looks funny and my husband nearly died of laughter when I bumwalked up and down the hall this morning. (Now that I've mastered the move my next goal is high speed!)

This exercise is so simple but effective that New York's most famous models as well as Hollywood stars swear by it.

Legs straight in front of you, stretch first your right then left heel as far ahead as you can edging your hips forward at the same time. After four weeks of this one your measuring tape will show a dramatic difference!

Four Week Beauty and Charm Course

A young starlet's ideal measurements in 1952:

Height: 5ft6 (1,68m)
Wrist: 6 1/4 inches (15,8cm)
Bust: 35 inches (88.9cm
Waist: 10 inches smaller (not over 26) (63.5cm)
Hips: 35 (not over 36) (88.9cm)
Calf: 4 or 5 inches larger than ankle (30.6)
Ankle: 8 1/4 inches (20.9 cm)

I wonder what these vital statistics would be in today's Hollywood?

Day 1 Cleansing and Posture.

You will clean, lubricate and stimulate your skin every day, every single day, two or three times. You will make your beauty routine constant, regular

The equipment required:
Fanatically clean, hospital clean hands
A pure bland soap (no!)
Soft water
A clean fluffy washcloth (my beauty routine staple already!)

First you need to identify your skin type from one of these three categories:

Normal
Very Oily
Very Dry

I decide my combination skins fits under normal, so my cleansing programme will be: Cleansing my face, by first using a hot washcloth on nose and chin and then gently massaging with soap, with circular upward motions, rinse three times, last with cold water.

This I need to repeat at least twice a day, every day.

Anita Colby firmly believes soap and water are best, well they probably were back then, but I don’t want to risk it so will stick to my modern day cleanser, toner and moisturiser. I promise to use them twice a day, religiously, whether I’m wearing any make up or not.

After your face is glowing it’s time to fix your posture

She recommends hanging a weighed string down the centre of a long mirror, the aim being to get this line to bisect the body through middle of head, ear lobe and running straight through the main six joints:

Shoulder
Elbow
Wrist
Hip
Knee
Ankle

Hmm, I tend to lean forward when I’m walking (headfirst to new adventures as my dad used to say), so need to pay attention to fix this.

Diet:
I have a problem with the 14-day diet. I have been poring over it for days but I cannot see a glass of wine or champagne anywhere! What kind of diet misses out a complete food group?

So after careful consideration I’ve decided to swap some of the milk (there's gallons of it) to glasses of wine, it works better for me and the calorie content is about the same.

I will also add some snacks (nuts, seeds and fruit), to the recommended 3 meals a day as I need to be fed and watered in regular intervals or all hell breaks lose!

Hmmm, it's only day 1 and I am already rebelling...

I'll talk more about the diet and exercise plan 1950's style, tomorrow.

About Anita Colby:
Anita Colby was a model and actress who became the Feminine director of David O. Selznik Studios, her job was to teach young starlets comportment and earned her a nickname “one woman charm school".

Anita Colby c.1943

Anita Colby’s Beauty Book

You have a wonderful heritage of good body, good bones, good brains. There is no reason for you to be an obscure, unremarkable unjoyus girl.

-Anita Colby-

I grew up on a diet of old Hollywood movies. I worshipped Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner, loved the hourglass figures, feminine dresses, the grace and style of these amazing women and I absolutely adored the femme fatales and vamps of film noirs, in fact I grew up aspiring to be a true femme fatale but 1980's Helsinki just wasn't ready...

One day in the late 80's I stumbled upon Anita Colby’s Beauty Book, devoured it in one sitting and have been trying to find a copy of this 1950's classic ever since, in fact if I'd applied the same level of effort and persistance to my career as I did to finding this book, I'd probably be a CEO of a major company by now...

My search has taken me to many dusty antiquarian shops over the years and I have been rewarded with many great books about beauty, style and fashion, in fact I have gathered quite a collection (and learned heaps), but this elusive number escaped me until last week when finally my years of rummaging paid off and I could take this treasure home! It is in pristine condition (considering that it’s 57 years old) and now the pride of my bookshelf.

Anita gives detailed advice on skincare, make up, diet and exercise, how to be the perfect hostess, how to charm a man (!!!), how to cultivate a charming personality and reveals Hollywood's best kept beauty secret the Hollywood Slant.

There are 4 full pages dedicated on how to stand, walk and sit. Until now I have mistakenly thought that as long as I manage to get my bum on seat without falling over or flashing my knickers I'm doing ok, but no, apparently correct sitting takes a lot of practice.

Anita Colby claims that by following her Beauty and Charm course for 28 days, I too can look like, act like and feel like a true beauty.

If it was good enough for Jennifer Jones, Ingrid Bergman and Rita Hayworth (who apparently was on the chubby side and her hairline was too low to ever make it big…) it is good enough for Madame MG. After all who wouldn't want to become a true beauty in 28 days? What the heck, it takes longer than that to recover from plastic surgery.

So to celebrate this momentous occasion and to pay homage to the great Mrs Colby I’m starting the new regime tomorrow and will track my progress here.

Your face tells the first story of you to the world. Take care it doesn't tell an ugly story....

-Anita Colby-