Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson,
Speaker 1: and today's topic is one I've actually been wanting to
Speaker 1: do for a little bit because it is the woman
Speaker 1: who really started the idea of celebrity trainers, and she
Speaker 1: also cemented the idea that Hollywood's beauties were aspirational figures
Speaker 1: for the average woman to try to achieve similar looks,
Speaker 1: which I there's a whole bundle of psychology to discuss there,
Speaker 1: but that is that is not a history podcast. That's
Speaker 1: a different podcast. There's some baggage, a lot of baggage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a ton of baggage, and it's fascinating. As we
Speaker 1: go through her story, you will hear a lot of
Speaker 1: things and practices and ideas that are very commonplace today,
Speaker 1: but we're not at the time at all. She is
Speaker 1: a mix of kind of interesting and trailblazing and also
Speaker 1: like there's some cringing. We'll talk. You'll hear about the
Speaker 1: cringing parts. Her name was Sylvia oh Back. You will
Speaker 1: see that spelled two different ways, sometimes with two l's
Speaker 1: and sometimes with one, and the reason is that she
Speaker 1: almost never used her last name. She went by Sylvia
Speaker 1: or Sylvia of Hollywood or Madam Sylvia, but in anything,
Speaker 1: even her books are written as Sylvia of Hollywood, you
Speaker 1: never see her actual name appear in them. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: also saw some places where it was spelled with an
Speaker 1: E instead of an A, so it's kind of all
Speaker 1: over the place. Yeah. Uh. And in the nineteen twenties
Speaker 1: and nineteen thirties she became a star in her own right,
Speaker 1: known for shaping up starlets to get them screen ready
Speaker 1: and heads up. Obviously, this episode is going to be
Speaker 1: talking about things like body image and weight loss in
Speaker 1: ways that are in some ways completely sensible and in
Speaker 1: others utterly ludicrous and really dangerous and unhealthy. So if
Speaker 1: that's a sensitive topic for you, just know that going in. Additionally,
Speaker 1: Sylvia was known to be really harsh and direct in
Speaker 1: her criticism of people's bodies, so that is a whole
Speaker 1: other angle. If hearing people be very mean to other
Speaker 1: people is problematic, this might not be the episode you
Speaker 1: want to hang out with yet, because she could be
Speaker 1: really harsh. One of the few photos of her that
Speaker 1: you can find on the internet is literally of her
Speaker 1: preparing to hit someone because they're slouching. Yes, I have
Speaker 1: the book that that photo appeared in. She's showing how
Speaker 1: you should teach your friends to do it. Well. Oh great,
Speaker 1: because her idea is that we don't talk about this
Speaker 1: a lot later, so I could say it now. A
Speaker 1: lot of her books where she's talking about things that
Speaker 1: she would do as a trainer, she wants like people
Speaker 1: to have a workout partner so they can do some
Speaker 1: of the stretches together and stuff, but also can hit
Speaker 1: each other in the back when they're not exhibiting good posture. Great.
Speaker 1: Like I said, it's a mixed bag. She was born
Speaker 1: Sylvia Waller in one and Oslo, Norway, to an operasing
Speaker 1: her mother and an artist father. Her grandparents were her
Speaker 1: primary caregivers and part because their parents both had really
Speaker 1: demanding careers, but also because she lost her mother when
Speaker 1: she was still a girl. Her mother, Emily, died in
Speaker 1: one when Sylvia was ten, and then Sylvia claimed in
Speaker 1: interviews that her family referred to her as an ugly
Speaker 1: duckling and that really catalyzed her interest in beauty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we should also say uh and We talked about this
Speaker 1: a little that Sylvia is also a little bit tricky
Speaker 1: because she crafted her persona very carefully in the media,
Speaker 1: So we don't know how much of the things she
Speaker 1: said about her life previous to becoming a well known
Speaker 1: uh figure in the United States are true versus how
Speaker 1: many are kind of crafted to developed that persona. So
Speaker 1: we don't know if they really called her an ugly duckling,
Speaker 1: but that's what she said. As a young woman in
Speaker 1: the eighteen nineties, Sylvia, against the wishes of her father,
Speaker 1: decided to pursue nursing as a career. I had read
Speaker 1: at one point that she had wanted to be a doctor,
Speaker 1: but that was not an avenue open to her. She
Speaker 1: claimed later on, when she was recounting her life, to
Speaker 1: have studied under a doctor l Rich in Copenhagen, but
Speaker 1: there is a little bit of fuzziness about whether she
Speaker 1: actually took any medical courses while she was there. She
Speaker 1: did learn massage during this time, and would describe what
Speaker 1: she learned as a sort of medical massage, manipulating the
Speaker 1: body for medical purposes. To be clear, the mid to
Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds were a time when massage was being
Speaker 1: integrated into an approach to wellness that involved massage and
Speaker 1: calisthenics is a way to improve your digestion and mood
Speaker 1: and fatigue, among other things, similarly to how a lot
Speaker 1: of folks talk about massage today. So it's really not
Speaker 1: especially unusual that Sylvia would talk about this link between
Speaker 1: massage and medicine. We just don't have any hard evidence
Speaker 1: that she had actual medical training. Yeah, and in the
Speaker 1: parts of Europe where she lived was where this whole
Speaker 1: idea of massage and wellness being linked and also physical
Speaker 1: activity was really getting sort of the most interest in research,
Speaker 1: So she was in the hot bed for that to
Speaker 1: be a very real discussion she would have been a
Speaker 1: part of, or at least had access to. Yeah, as
Speaker 1: a former massage therapist, I will also say it was
Speaker 1: a lot more common to call massage therapist massus is
Speaker 1: at the time, which will like come up later on
Speaker 1: in the episode. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I was
Speaker 1: looking up usage of that word, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people still use it, but other people find it not
Speaker 1: so good. Uh. I used it in her case because
Speaker 1: she used it about herself. Um. And sometime in the
Speaker 1: late eighteen nineties, while she was doing these studies, Sylvia
Speaker 1: met a man named Andrew Uhlback and the two were married.
Speaker 1: The exact date of their wedding is not known. It's
Speaker 1: estimated to have happened sometime in nineteen hundred, probably, and
Speaker 1: the couple had two sons, uh and the way that
Speaker 1: marriage was uh and was characterized by Sylvia shifts a
Speaker 1: little bit depending on what interview with her you might read.
Speaker 1: So in some she describes it as a very happy union,
Speaker 1: but at other times she mentions that after Andrew returned
Speaker 1: from fighting in World War One, understandably he was a
Speaker 1: very different man and that affected their relationship and they
Speaker 1: were maybe not so close. Sylvia was a master of
Speaker 1: self promotion, and once she told a story to the
Speaker 1: Hartford Current about her relationship with Andrew leading her to
Speaker 1: a life of calisthenics and healthy eating. She claimed that
Speaker 1: she had put on some weight during their marriage, until
Speaker 1: she weighed more than a hundred and fifty pounds at
Speaker 1: five ft tall. After seeing Andrew flirting with a slender secretary,
Speaker 1: Sylvia vowed to learn about reducing and got her own
Speaker 1: weight down to five pounds, which was her weight for
Speaker 1: most of the rest of her life. It's really not
Speaker 1: clear if this story is true or if it was
Speaker 1: just more of a yarn spun by Sylvia to bolster
Speaker 1: her image as a weight loss expert. In the summer
Speaker 1: of Sylvia, Andrew and their children moved from Copenhagen to
Speaker 1: the United States. Before the war, Andrew had a successful
Speaker 1: lumber business, but the post war economy made it impossible
Speaker 1: to keep that company going, so they moved first to
Speaker 1: New York and then short thereafter to Chicago. In Chicago,
Speaker 1: Sylvia started working with the family of Julius Rosenwald, and
Speaker 1: if that name sounds familiar, he was mentioned in our
Speaker 1: episode on Sears History. He was a partner in the Sears,
Speaker 1: Roebuck and Company business. We've talked about wanting to do
Speaker 1: an episode on him at some point too. Sylvia was
Speaker 1: hired to help the family matriarch recover from an injury,
Speaker 1: and she exceeded all her expectations in that role. After
Speaker 1: Sylvia's massage treatment got the woman back on her feet
Speaker 1: in less than a week, the family put her on
Speaker 1: retainer as their massage therapist. Sylvia was paid a dollar
Speaker 1: and fifty cents daily for this role, which was a
Speaker 1: good income at the time, but through the Rosenwalds, she
Speaker 1: also had interactions with other wealthy and famous people who
Speaker 1: also became her clients. Yeah, their grandmother had apparently hurt
Speaker 1: one or both of her kneecaps when she fell, so
Speaker 1: she had had a lot of difficulty walking, and Sylvia
Speaker 1: apparently appeared as a miracle worker to them. Uh. And
Speaker 1: through those connections that she made through the Rosenwald family,
Speaker 1: Via eventually found herself pulled to Hollywood. She had made
Speaker 1: several connections to the entertainment industry while working for the
Speaker 1: rosen Walds, and eventually one or more the story of
Speaker 1: which celebrity or if there were several shifts a little
Speaker 1: bit urged her to move to Los Angeles and attend
Speaker 1: to the needs of the actresses there full time. So
Speaker 1: in Sylvia made the move to the West Coast. She
Speaker 1: was in a good position from the start for a
Speaker 1: number of reasons. For once, she had a lot of
Speaker 1: clients already waiting for her when she arrived. And for another,
Speaker 1: this was a time when there was a surge of
Speaker 1: body consciousness, which created a really fertile ground for a
Speaker 1: health and beauty business to grow. The ideal body type
Speaker 1: in quotation marks had shifted from the hour glass shape
Speaker 1: of the Victorian era and the Gibson girl to a
Speaker 1: more boyish and less voluptuous figure. A lot of women
Speaker 1: were eager to be told how to achieve a slim figure,
Speaker 1: and so this idea of reducing and we put that
Speaker 1: in quotes because that's what it was called at the time,
Speaker 1: was all the rage, and it was often marketed to
Speaker 1: women throughout the United States as the way to become
Speaker 1: happy and beautiful. Yes, that is totally damaging language. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is really a time when fat shaming as a
Speaker 1: means of advertising first became common in the US, and
Speaker 1: products to help women reduce were often downright dangerous. Related
Speaker 1: to our recent episode, for example, on radio iodine therapy,
Speaker 1: some women even turned to medication that would essentially put
Speaker 1: their bodies into a state of hyperthyroidism to lose weight.
Speaker 1: We talked in that episode about how that is a
Speaker 1: dangerous state to be in for your body, so obviously
Speaker 1: not a good plan. The film industry was still in
Speaker 1: its infancy and it was taking off at this same
Speaker 1: time in a way that really created celebrity actors. So
Speaker 1: these standards of beauty were often really closely tied to
Speaker 1: these starlets who were appearing on screen as the aspirational
Speaker 1: figures that women should strive to emulate. And coming up,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about how one magazine actually tried
Speaker 1: to combat this unhealthy approach and the unhealthy products that
Speaker 1: were being marketed to women, and how that really set
Speaker 1: the stage for Sylvia's rise to fame. The first we're
Speaker 1: going to pause and have a little sponsor break. Just
Speaker 1: as quickly as these false claim weight loss products became
Speaker 1: regularly advertised, the American Medical Association denounced them as both
Speaker 1: fake and dangerous hogwash. Photoplay magazine, one of the most
Speaker 1: popular film periodicals of the time, ran a three part
Speaker 1: expos a on what was called reduced omnia, titled Wholesale
Speaker 1: Murder and Suicide, which opened with the line quote, in
Speaker 1: their efforts to reduce thousands of American women are ruining
Speaker 1: their health and preparing their bodies for tuberculosis and other
Speaker 1: diseases by lowering their resistance. The preface to this article
Speaker 1: made the magazines strong stance on this matter really clear.
Speaker 1: It said, quote Photoplay Magazine refuses to admit to its
Speaker 1: advertising columns any internal reducing preparations are questionable methods. Photoplay
Speaker 1: is going to fight to the end to force these
Speaker 1: dangerous preparations from the market. Why is the sale of
Speaker 1: mind and body wrecking drugs prohibited and the sale of
Speaker 1: dangerous reducing nostrums permitted? After its investigation and exposure of
Speaker 1: reduction drugs as completed, photoplay believes that national action will
Speaker 1: be necessary. Medical quacks must be prevented from killing American women,
Speaker 1: and American women must be prevented from committing suicide. In
Speaker 1: the Pursuit of Fashion and that series, written by a
Speaker 1: fairly well known journalists at the time, Catherine Brody, discussed
Speaker 1: the use of thyroid treatment as a weight loss aid
Speaker 1: women who developed mental health disorders as a result of
Speaker 1: their anxiety related to their bodies. And it even talked
Speaker 1: about the death of actress Barbara Lamar as it built
Speaker 1: its case against the dangerous claims the medical quacks that
Speaker 1: it sought to expose. She had died not long before
Speaker 1: this article from I Believe a heart failure, which is
Speaker 1: how it was publicized, But really she had been doing
Speaker 1: some very foolish things trying to become incredibly thin. That
Speaker 1: article also stated pretty clearly that there's no such thing
Speaker 1: as an ideal figure, but merely trends that shift and
Speaker 1: lead to these problematic situations as reduced so mania as
Speaker 1: a craze. And this whole series concluded with exercise tips
Speaker 1: that were from a more sensible approach to fitness. It
Speaker 1: was like, maybe you should if you want to be healthy,
Speaker 1: just eat well and take care of your body and
Speaker 1: don't worry about what people say it should look like.
Speaker 1: As the discussion played out in papers and magazines, the
Speaker 1: concept of a diet and exercise regimen that was meant
Speaker 1: to achieve a slim look rather than using a pillar
Speaker 1: a cream started to take shape and enter Sylvia all back.
Speaker 1: Sylvia was essentially already doing similar work to what Photoplay
Speaker 1: and other journals were touting as a more reasonable approach
Speaker 1: to health and beauty. She had developed a three part
Speaker 1: approach to health and beauty that combined a healthy diet, exercise,
Speaker 1: and massage. From the mid on, Sylvia was working with
Speaker 1: clients both in her home in Los Angeles and in
Speaker 1: their homes. She would go over what they were eating,
Speaker 1: give them massages, and teach them exercises to get and
Speaker 1: keep them in shape for their on screen work. And
Speaker 1: this is still an industry. She was a trailblazer in
Speaker 1: this regard, and if she built a client's hell and
Speaker 1: a reputation for getting results, she emerged as something of
Speaker 1: a celebrity in her own right. She started fielding requests
Speaker 1: for interviews to give advice and tips to magazine readers
Speaker 1: that would mirror the work that she was doing with
Speaker 1: celebrity clients. Yeah, this really like was where her career exploded.
Speaker 1: One of those celebrities that she worked with, incidentally, was
Speaker 1: May Murray, who we mentioned in our donut episode. Murray
Speaker 1: was the one that's given credit for inventing dunking by
Speaker 1: accidentally dropping a donut in her coffee. But she had
Speaker 1: hired Sylvia to go with her on her vaudeville tour
Speaker 1: starting in September of nine. In April, so just a
Speaker 1: few months later, their business relationship had fallen apart, and
Speaker 1: eventually they went to court. All Back said that the
Speaker 1: actress had failed to pay her and sued Murray for
Speaker 1: her unpaid wages, and the court found in Olbeck's favor
Speaker 1: and she won two thousand dollars. She also swore off
Speaker 1: exclusive contracts after that that desire to stay away from
Speaker 1: becoming one stars exclusive massus and adviser was just almost
Speaker 1: instantly problematic. Gloria Swanson desperately wanted to be Sylvia's only clients,
Speaker 1: even after Sylvia said no repeatedly. Eventually, Swanson appealed to
Speaker 1: Joseph Kennedy at Patay's Studios to step in. Kennedy did.
Speaker 1: He offered Sylvia a contract to work exclusively with the
Speaker 1: studios Stars, including a clause that Swanson had to get
Speaker 1: priority over everyone else. And Sylvia took that job and
Speaker 1: it became something of a stepping stone for her career
Speaker 1: because she had carved out this unique space for herself
Speaker 1: in Hollywood. She was also a source of fascination for
Speaker 1: the press. She was in the job less than two years,
Speaker 1: but gave dozens of interviews during that time, and her
Speaker 1: message in those interviews resonated with the public. She felt
Speaker 1: that beauty was in your mind first, and that you
Speaker 1: had to work on your confidence to achieve the body
Speaker 1: that you desired. She focused on health as a means
Speaker 1: to achieve beauty. Sylvia was said to work miracles through
Speaker 1: a very direct, no nonsense approach that did not baby
Speaker 1: her clients. She could be sharp and critical, but people
Speaker 1: found this appealing instead of off putting. Her tough truthfulness
Speaker 1: was a departure from the ways stars were used to
Speaker 1: being treated. Additionally, her promotion of a healthy lifestyle was
Speaker 1: a breath of fresh air at a time when Hollywood
Speaker 1: was seen as being indulgent and debaucherous. Yeah, she really
Speaker 1: sort of became a good bit of pr for Hollywood
Speaker 1: when it was like, no, we're employing this woman who
Speaker 1: talks about not drinking and not eating bad things and
Speaker 1: not being self indulgent, and aren't aren't we the paragons
Speaker 1: of good healthy living? Um, So it was it was
Speaker 1: in the studio's interest to promote that they were working
Speaker 1: with her. But while she was in her studio contrast,
Speaker 1: Sylvia also got caught in the middle of a bunch
Speaker 1: of Hollywood drama because of her clients, which she did
Speaker 1: not enjoy. When Gloria Swanson's husband's mistress, if you can
Speaker 1: follow all of that, whose name was Constant Bennett, was
Speaker 1: signed on as a talent with the studio, Gloria and
Speaker 1: Constance started battling over everything, including Sylvia's time and attention.
Speaker 1: And just to be clear, this is not a case
Speaker 1: where Swanson was a spurned wife acting out of hurt.
Speaker 1: She was having her own affair with the head of
Speaker 1: the studio, Joseph Kennedy. It was a big morass of
Speaker 1: people all cheating on one another and being devious and
Speaker 1: having just terrible relationships. At one point, Bennett, according to Sylvia,
Speaker 1: even tried to bribe her to be her exclusive missus
Speaker 1: with an expensive sapphire ring. Sylvia was loyal to Swanson
Speaker 1: and refused, but this tug of war that the two
Speaker 1: women were playing over her just exhausted and frustrated Sylvia.
Speaker 1: It started a sentiment that Hollywood just might not be
Speaker 1: worth the trouble. Yeah, she definitely reached a point where
Speaker 1: she thought Hollywood was getting more out of the relationship
Speaker 1: than she was. Uh. In another case of perfect timing,
Speaker 1: just as she had kind of landed on the Hollywood scene,
Speaker 1: as this desire to shift away from some of the
Speaker 1: more foolish approaches to to losing weight was happening. When
Speaker 1: the nine crash happened, it really didn't damage Sylvia's business.
Speaker 1: That signaled the end of the Flapper era and the
Speaker 1: excess of the Roaring twenties, and so her more sensible
Speaker 1: methodology was actually bolstered and her business continued to thrive,
Speaker 1: although it did go on a different path. Instead of
Speaker 1: treating individual clients, she took her advice on health and
Speaker 1: beauty to the masses by starting a writing career. By
Speaker 1: the time Sylvia left her studio gig in nineteen thirty,
Speaker 1: her name had significant star power of its own. In fact,
Speaker 1: when she left her studio contract behind, almost every other
Speaker 1: studio in Hollywood started making her offers, but she didn't
Speaker 1: take any of them. She had initially told the press
Speaker 1: that she wanted to work with anybody she pleased and
Speaker 1: not be limited by exclusivity d was with the studio,
Speaker 1: but she never really re established her client based business
Speaker 1: and said she started writing articles for the weekly general
Speaker 1: interest periodical Liberty, and these articles were actually touted as
Speaker 1: being written by Sylvia's quote indiscreet secretary, which was actually
Speaker 1: ghostwriter James Whittaker. Presumably they were published that way in
Speaker 1: an attempt to shield Sylvia from blowback because she told
Speaker 1: a number of Hollywood secrets in her article series, which
Speaker 1: ran for two months and was titled A Masseuse looks
Speaker 1: at the Stars. The article series was also adapted into
Speaker 1: a book called Hollywood Undressed, which came out of ninety one,
Speaker 1: and despite the effort to claim the info was leaked
Speaker 1: by a secretary, Sylvia of Hollywood became a contentious figure
Speaker 1: in the film industry. The book adaptation contained both anecdotes
Speaker 1: of her time working with film stars as well as
Speaker 1: the diet and exercise advice that she gave to them,
Speaker 1: and in the process she talked in detail about the
Speaker 1: private lives of the rich and famous. She mentioned her
Speaker 1: feud with Maim, and she described the actress's bad marriage
Speaker 1: and hinted that May's husband was abusive. She also called
Speaker 1: out various entertainers as fat and lazy, and she outed
Speaker 1: people for various minor illegal activities. She pointed out who
Speaker 1: in Hollywood broke prohibition, for example, and it seemed that
Speaker 1: she had turned and bitten the hand that had been
Speaker 1: feeding her for years. Some actors actually called for a
Speaker 1: boycott of all back, and those who did not were
Speaker 1: still pretty vocal that her career in Hollywood was over.
Speaker 1: There were a handful of exceptions that were like, ah,
Speaker 1: that's just Sylvia, but for the most part she was
Speaker 1: quickly becoming persona and garta. Sylvia vehemently denied that she
Speaker 1: had done anything wrong and argued back and forth with
Speaker 1: various Hollywood figures through reporters. She was insistent that she
Speaker 1: was not about to back down because the very people
Speaker 1: that she had called spoiled were mad at her for it.
Speaker 1: She gave statements to the press that anyone was welcome
Speaker 1: to come and talk with her or even give her
Speaker 1: a sock in the jaw. She also said that people
Speaker 1: could be as mad as they liked, but they still
Speaker 1: needed her treatments just the same, whether she had intended
Speaker 1: to all along or if it was precipitated by all
Speaker 1: the conflict, Sylvia moved away from Los Angeles, and there
Speaker 1: is some debate also about just how much of the
Speaker 1: writing that went into Hollywood undressed and the articles that
Speaker 1: preceded it was really the work of ghostwriter James Whittaker.
Speaker 1: Whittaker was the ex husband of actress Ainah Claire, and
Speaker 1: he had his own access to grind in Hollywood, so
Speaker 1: some people shifted the focus off of Sylvia and onto him,
Speaker 1: claiming that Sylvia could not have understood some of the
Speaker 1: nuances of cutting phrasing that were used in the book
Speaker 1: because she was a non native speaker. Of English. We'll
Speaker 1: talk next about the evolution of Sylvia's career after her
Speaker 1: break with Hollywood, but first we'll take our own break
Speaker 1: and here from one of the sponsors that keeps the
Speaker 1: show going. It turned out that Sylvia spilling Hollywood gossip
Speaker 1: was really a pretty brilliant business move. Whether she truly
Speaker 1: disdained the famous people who had come to her for
Speaker 1: help in her time in Hollywood, in calling them spoiled, frivolous,
Speaker 1: and indulgent cinema children, she appealed to a much broader
Speaker 1: audience of readers who were dealing with the early years
Speaker 1: of the economic depression and had their own negative opinions
Speaker 1: about the spoiled entertainers of the film industry. The time
Speaker 1: when all of this was going on was a significant
Speaker 1: moment in Sylvia's life for other reasons too. When she
Speaker 1: left Hollywood to move to New York, she did so alone.
Speaker 1: Her husband Andrew, and their two sons, who were adults
Speaker 1: at this point, all stayed in l A. Yeah, her
Speaker 1: sons were both working in the entertainment industry, not as actors,
Speaker 1: but in various other roles. Um and Sylvia's life in
Speaker 1: New York involved a lot of efforts in different areas.
Speaker 1: She made appearances at department stores to talk about health
Speaker 1: and beauty, and she had started a line of cosmetics
Speaker 1: with which Andrew was basically running that part of the business,
Speaker 1: and so she would go and promote those cosmetics and stores.
Speaker 1: But she also dabbled in new areas, including writing a
Speaker 1: satirical play about Hollywood with playwright Edith Ellis for Ness
Speaker 1: and even appearing on stage and a couple of vaudeville acts.
Speaker 1: That play that she wrote never was actually produced, by
Speaker 1: the way, But in the end, it was her status
Speaker 1: as a health and beauty expert that kept her afloat
Speaker 1: even as the depression wore on. In two the year
Speaker 1: after she arrived in New York, she started working for
Speaker 1: Photoplay magazine as a regular columnist. She wrote for the
Speaker 1: magazine for three years, using that platform to continue and
Speaker 1: share her knowledge about exercise and healthful eating. And it's
Speaker 1: interesting to note that even as she advised women on
Speaker 1: how to achieve the figure they desired, she tended to
Speaker 1: focus it on women making themselves happy. It was never
Speaker 1: about pleasing or catching a man. We have to note here, though,
Speaker 1: as we said at the top, there's some conflict because
Speaker 1: even though she was insistent that there was no single
Speaker 1: ideal body type, she did insist that you had to
Speaker 1: be slim, so it is a little bit of a
Speaker 1: mixed bag. She was very clear that women had to
Speaker 1: get over the easiness of their bodies and minds if
Speaker 1: they wish to reduce and she remained her very direct
Speaker 1: and sometimes quite harsh self. At one point, in response
Speaker 1: to read her questions, she she didn't do like a
Speaker 1: direct reply, but she wrote in her article, either get
Speaker 1: some brains or stop reading my stories. I'm sick and
Speaker 1: tired of the silly questions A lot of you ask,
Speaker 1: not the most nurturing. And this reminds me a little bit.
Speaker 1: I think it was about a net Kellerman, who was
Speaker 1: the woman who made swimming a lot more accessible to
Speaker 1: other women, particularly mostly white women at the time, and
Speaker 1: how she also got into like some beauty tips as
Speaker 1: part of her thing. And it was like she would
Speaker 1: sort of simultaneously say, there's nothing wrong with you, it's
Speaker 1: society's expectations of you or what's to blame. But at
Speaker 1: the same time she would be sort of like, but
Speaker 1: here's how to meet those expectations. There, Yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like Sylvia in some ways invented the concept of the
Speaker 1: tough love trainer. Um. Yeah, she could be very, very harsh.
Speaker 1: She did make some interesting connections between physical wellness and
Speaker 1: mental wellness, though though sometimes that really turned out to
Speaker 1: be about how crying makes your skin puffy and unattractive.
Speaker 1: She was also a proponent of positivity and obviously hard work,
Speaker 1: and she told readers that these were just as valuable
Speaker 1: to being happy as any weight that they might lose.
Speaker 1: In two, after thirty one years of marriage, Sylvia shocked
Speaker 1: her husband Andrew by asking for a divorce. While she
Speaker 1: had moved to New York alone, they had remained married
Speaker 1: and seemed to be pretty amicable at that point. It
Speaker 1: is always, of course, unclear what a relationship is truly
Speaker 1: like from the inside, and we don't know if there
Speaker 1: were troubles before this, but in the press at that
Speaker 1: point Sylvia and Andrew had seemed very contented together. But
Speaker 1: once she was in New York, Sylvia met someone. That
Speaker 1: someone was actor Edward Lighter, who was twenty two years
Speaker 1: younger than Sylvia and who really swept her off her feet.
Speaker 1: At the end of June two, Sylvia and Andrew were
Speaker 1: divorced in Mexico, and three days later she married Lighter,
Speaker 1: who stayed with her for the rest of her life.
Speaker 1: As Sylvia continued to write, she still used her Hollywood
Speaker 1: experiences as material, even though she had left Hollywood behind.
Speaker 1: She wrote a series in which she used famous actresses
Speaker 1: as examples of different body types and advised readers on
Speaker 1: how to achieve a similar level of fitness. It was
Speaker 1: an early sort of synergistic journalism where photoplay could use
Speaker 1: this popular column to then promote the latest entertainment. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like its own little custom content studio going
Speaker 1: on and in a later series, she wrote as though
Speaker 1: she were writing two celebrities to tell them what was
Speaker 1: wrong with them and how to fix it. These are
Speaker 1: to me troubling to read because she's basically like, here's
Speaker 1: what's wrong with you. She would tell an actress, for example,
Speaker 1: that her face was too fat, and then outline a
Speaker 1: plan to address the issue of her critique. In all
Speaker 1: Back found herself in a new role, which was radio host.
Speaker 1: General Eldrick and Ralston sponsored the radio show Madam Sylvia
Speaker 1: of Hollywood. On each show, Sylvia recounted working with the
Speaker 1: specific celebrity starting with the story of how any given
Speaker 1: woman came to be her client, usually at the urging
Speaker 1: of studio executives. These stories were played out as re
Speaker 1: enactments with actors. Sylvia herself only briefly appeared each week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would be like, here's what happened, and here's how
Speaker 1: I fixed it. Tada happy. Ending is that she was
Speaker 1: beautiful in this film. A second book by Sylvia was
Speaker 1: published in ninety four. This one, titled No More Alibis,
Speaker 1: became a bestseller and the opening chapter extols the virtues
Speaker 1: of a healthy lifestyle, and it is a mix of
Speaker 1: Sylvia's stern and direct manner. For example, she writes, quote,
Speaker 1: stop being lazy, stop wishing for good looks when all
Speaker 1: you have to do is get them by making the effort.
Speaker 1: And it's also got a healthy dose of encouragement. For example,
Speaker 1: she writes, quote, and believe me, I'm for you. I
Speaker 1: think every one of you who really tries is swell.
Speaker 1: The world is your or take it. It's your right.
Speaker 1: She lays out a very clear ideology in this text.
Speaker 1: People eat too much and moreover, eat unhealthy foods and
Speaker 1: then don't get enough exercise. It's the same simple advice
Speaker 1: that a lot of trainers still give today, and she
Speaker 1: also touched on elements of mental health in the book,
Speaker 1: particularly noting that nervousness was a normal reaction to the
Speaker 1: demands of modern life. She wrote, to be ambitious is fine,
Speaker 1: but there is such a thing as being eaten up
Speaker 1: with ambition. She recommended massage to counter nervousness and anxiety.
Speaker 1: That works for me. The massage advice is great, and
Speaker 1: the diet that Sylvia recommended for reducing in the book
Speaker 1: was fairly straightforward. It featured a breakfast of grapefruit or
Speaker 1: orange juice, black coffee and melba toast or rye wafers
Speaker 1: with honey but no butter. Lunch was liquids only, tomato juice,
Speaker 1: and a large bowl of clear vegetable soup with black
Speaker 1: coffee or tea with lemon to drink no sugar, of course.
Speaker 1: For dinner, the Woman's Aking to Reduce could have a
Speaker 1: fresh fruit cup, lettuce and tomato salad sprinkled with parsley,
Speaker 1: a small portion of broiled or roasted meat, potato skins
Speaker 1: seasoned with a little salt only, and for dessert, gelatin,
Speaker 1: a baked apple or stewed fruit, no sugar added. I
Speaker 1: would cry on this diet. Um, there are some problems there.
Speaker 1: That was my weary sigh. Yeah she I mean for
Speaker 1: the time, her ideology was that no, I'm I'm putting
Speaker 1: together a balanced menu, but we know a lot more
Speaker 1: about nutrition, um, and that not the same nutrition will
Speaker 1: work for every person, whereas she was pretty much like
Speaker 1: do this everybody well, and even the whole idea like
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things that claim to be
Speaker 1: about nutrition but are really about weight loss, like right, yea.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of times people are marketed these things
Speaker 1: in a way that it makes it seem like it's
Speaker 1: the same thing when it's really not. There are also
Speaker 1: plenty of exercises aimed at reducing and in sculpting various
Speaker 1: parts of the body. In a lot of cases, massage
Speaker 1: is also prescribed to melt away the pounds. This whole
Speaker 1: book is full of quips like a fat back mars
Speaker 1: your figure and posture and makes people think you're older
Speaker 1: than you really are. There's also a chapter dedicated to
Speaker 1: the needs of people who need to put on weight.
Speaker 1: She also advises to have a friend give you a
Speaker 1: hard whack on the back if they see you slouching,
Speaker 1: which we talked about at the top of the show. Yeah, please,
Speaker 1: don't any of my friends whack me on the back,
Speaker 1: just tell me I'm slouching. I also just want to
Speaker 1: know that there's a difference between like you and a
Speaker 1: friend deciding to do something together to support each other,
Speaker 1: and like policing your friend's behavior, which seems to be
Speaker 1: more her jam here. Yeah, I mean, I think she
Speaker 1: wants to be the person that police is your behavior.
Speaker 1: She does kind of make it like you should have
Speaker 1: a friend do this stuff with you, but she wants
Speaker 1: to yell at you about your posture first. Sure. Um.
Speaker 1: The second half of the nineties saw a lot of
Speaker 1: activity in Sylvia's writing career, both in terms of volume
Speaker 1: and in terms of where it appeared. She abruptly left
Speaker 1: Photoplay magazine and started writing for a competitor, Modern Screen,
Speaker 1: but then she went back to Photoplay as the beauty editor,
Speaker 1: in part because they had received so many letters from
Speaker 1: people wanting her to come back, and she also wrote
Speaker 1: articles for Physical Culture. Her articles during this time followed
Speaker 1: the same sorts of formulas that her early writing had,
Speaker 1: often using stars as examples and then telling readers how
Speaker 1: to get similarly pleasing figures, although she did always warn
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't try to make yourself a carbon copy
Speaker 1: of anyone, but just be your best self. Her writing
Speaker 1: topics expanded though, to include her thoughts and advice on
Speaker 1: parenting and marriage. She wanted parents to teach their children
Speaker 1: about a healthy lifestyle from the very beginning, to set
Speaker 1: them up for a healthy life. When it came to marriage,
Speaker 1: it was less progressive, essentially urging women who found themselves
Speaker 1: in lackluster marriages to recapture their youthful figures to reinvigorate
Speaker 1: their husband's interests. Yeah, she did talk a lot in
Speaker 1: her writing about how, um, I am more than twenty
Speaker 1: years older than my husband, but I look so young
Speaker 1: that that's how I keep him, and like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of that going on. So uh, and she did
Speaker 1: look very young for her age, but yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of like this is how you stay happy in
Speaker 1: your marriage. Um. In ninety six, she wrote the book
Speaker 1: Pull Yourself Together, Baby, which discusses diet and exercise but
Speaker 1: in the framework of a person's personality. It made the
Speaker 1: case that your personality was a reflection of your physical health,
Speaker 1: and this was sort of intended as a follow up
Speaker 1: to No More Alibis, employing a similar work ethic to
Speaker 1: cultivating character once your physique is in pretty good shape,
Speaker 1: all with the idea of becoming as beautiful as any
Speaker 1: of her Hollywood clients. All Back's last book was Streamline
Speaker 1: Your Figure in ninety nine, and was published after she
Speaker 1: had stopped writing articles for magazines. Was once again a
Speaker 1: return to her more body focused advice and less about personality,
Speaker 1: but it was really last in a series of efforts
Speaker 1: to try to stay relevant. In the late nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: the Nazi ideology of a physically superior race and talk
Speaker 1: of physical perfection made it hard for someone in the
Speaker 1: business of telling people how to make their bodies as
Speaker 1: perfect as possible to stay in favor in the United States. Additionally,
Speaker 1: as the world found itself in a very serious conflict
Speaker 1: beauty culture, even Sylvia's relatively sensitive approach to it started
Speaker 1: to feel frivolous. After the publication of Streamline Your Figure,
Speaker 1: Sylvia stepped away from the spotlight entirely. On the nineteen
Speaker 1: forties census, under occupation, she was noticed as a housewife.
Speaker 1: Her life after that was apparently quiet and little is
Speaker 1: known about it in terms of specifics. She and Edward
Speaker 1: bought a house in Santa Monica, California, where they lived
Speaker 1: out the rest of their lives. Edward died in February
Speaker 1: five and Sylvia died a month later at the age
Speaker 1: of ninety four. Reading any of Sylvia's writing which I
Speaker 1: sort of have an almost guilty pleasure level of it,
Speaker 1: like I really like reading it, but it is definitely
Speaker 1: a mix of yeah, these are good ideas and complete
Speaker 1: and total cringes. Uh. In many ways, her rhetoric is
Speaker 1: so much about empowerment and positivity and getting what you
Speaker 1: want out of life. But then she also writes things
Speaker 1: along the lines of saying the Great Depression was actually
Speaker 1: good for Americans because it made them stop being physically
Speaker 1: and mentally soft. She also could be incredibly harsh, writing
Speaker 1: things that always suggested that any bodily issues were the
Speaker 1: individuals to overcome, even when they were things like actual disabilities,
Speaker 1: like she talks in some of her books about like,
Speaker 1: if you have very severe bow legs, if you just
Speaker 1: work out and get the outside of them thinner, then
Speaker 1: you'll look almost normal. Like it's a little dicey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So she definitely does not give any leeway for people
Speaker 1: to have anything but a pretty healthy, standardized life and
Speaker 1: figure like she puts all of the onus on you,
Speaker 1: as though any problem or defect you have is kind
Speaker 1: of your own fault. Yeah, well, an idea that then
Speaker 1: people are automatically healthy, it's just not true. Nope. There
Speaker 1: are though some gems you can find reading her work.
Speaker 1: Some of them come off as funny just because she's
Speaker 1: so curt, and then some of them do seem like
Speaker 1: pretty good advice. So we thought we would close with
Speaker 1: a handful of them. So first, as um, I legitimately
Speaker 1: love this advice. There is a funny side to everything
Speaker 1: that happens. Look at that side. Then there's eat properly,
Speaker 1: live properly, exercise regularly and properly. I might add, use
Speaker 1: your noodle and stay away from quackery and hocus pocus.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good advice. Um. The next is you've got
Speaker 1: to have courage and grit to be beautiful, and you've
Speaker 1: got to stop whining. I think that might maybe should
Speaker 1: go on a shirt. Yeah, every woman can be charming
Speaker 1: if she'll let herself be. And then uh, this one,
Speaker 1: remember this self assurance, the self respecting kind is a
Speaker 1: first and ever present necessity of personality development. Finally, there's
Speaker 1: this opening passage from her first photoplay article titled any
Speaker 1: Woman Can be Beautiful. I say any woman can be beautiful,
Speaker 1: and I mean it. You can't all have lovely features,
Speaker 1: but you can be beautiful. Whoever said beauty is only
Speaker 1: skin deep as a fool? Beauty begins behind your forehead,
Speaker 1: and the beauty of some of the loveliest women I
Speaker 1: know can never be registered by a motion picture camera.
Speaker 1: Now here's the amazing part of it. You can make
Speaker 1: yourself beautiful. You can if you have the nerve and
Speaker 1: the courage do it all yourself. That's kind of like
Speaker 1: the best of Sylvia, because then you know you'll find
Speaker 1: something less delightful if you keep reading. Yes, she's such
Speaker 1: a mixed bang that that's part of what's really fascinating
Speaker 1: about her to me. Like I said, I'll read her
Speaker 1: stuff and be like, yeah, that's Oh what did you
Speaker 1: just say? No, that's all it was, Sylvia. Do you
Speaker 1: have some listener mail for us? I do? I have
Speaker 1: a postcard from our listener, Jane. She writes, Dear Holly
Speaker 1: and Tracy, thank you so much for the amazing show. Recently,
Speaker 1: I went to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and
Speaker 1: this painting on the front caught my eye. When I
Speaker 1: looked at the artist, it was Visis Leblin. I was
Speaker 1: amazed to see what a great artist she was. My
Speaker 1: mom was surprised when I started spewing a bunch of
Speaker 1: facts about her, but it was so cool to know
Speaker 1: part of the story behind a cool painting. Could I
Speaker 1: request more Asian history? Also some more sad Royal childhood's
Speaker 1: because I'm a terrible person. Thanks again, doesn't make you
Speaker 1: a terrible person, it just makes you interested in those. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's a beautiful picture of princessa at Vocia Ivanova
Speaker 1: gold Cina that was painted in It's absolutely beautiful, I UM.
Speaker 1: I had been sharing on social media as we traveled
Speaker 1: through France my trip to the Louver, in which I
Speaker 1: stood in front of the four visions that they have
Speaker 1: all in one room, crying like a chi olds. I
Speaker 1: like lost it, full grade um because her artwork is
Speaker 1: so beautiful, like no one captures light and skin the
Speaker 1: way she does. I absolutely love it. So I'm always
Speaker 1: glad when anybody discovers a piece of art. Tracy and
Speaker 1: I've talked about it recently as well. Um, if you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us, you should do that,
Speaker 1: whether that's about art or anything you would like. You
Speaker 1: can do that at History podcast at how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find us everywhere on social
Speaker 1: media as Missed in History. Missed in History dot com
Speaker 1: is also the website you are l where you can
Speaker 1: come and find us and check out all of the
Speaker 1: episodes of the show that have ever existed, including show
Speaker 1: notes for any that Tracy and I have worked on together.
Speaker 1: You can also subscribe to this podcast I think you should.
Speaker 1: You can do that on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: at Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get podcasts. Stuff you
Speaker 1: Missed in History classes a production of I Heart Radios
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
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