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The Old Hollywood Way to Physical Perfection
(Literary Digest, 1937)

The old flesh sculptor himself, Donald Loomis, late Physical Director for MGM Studios, let loose with some 1930s tips as to how he was able to make all those movie stars look so utterly fabulous – some are quite useful (some are pathetic).

Symmetry is the objective of Hollywood body sculptors. For bust-reduction, Loomis has a simple formula: Jump up and down with no support. Exercise in which the arms are forced backward and forward horizontally are used to develop the upper chest…


Click here to read an article about the demise of a popular 1940s hairstyle.

Where Did the Doughboys Board? Where Did They Land?
(Pictures of The World War, 1920)

A black and white map indicating the Atlantic ports up and down North America where the A.E.F. boarded troop ships, their trans-Atlantic routes and their French and British points of arrival. The map is also accompanied by a few facts concerning this remarkable trip across U-boat infested waters.


Click here to read an article about the sexually-transmitted diseases among the American Army of W.W. I…


When the Doughboys complained, they complained heavily about their uniforms; read about it here.

Swank in the Cold
(Quick Magazine, 1952)

The slobs who run this website are a slovenly lot, so don’t take our word for it – but we believe this hooded turtleneck sweater that showed up on fashion’s catwalks during the fall of 1952 to have been the proverbial bees knees!

Laurel and Hardy
(Photoplay Magazine, 1930)

An interview with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy:

They are the comedy sensations of the season. And all because they have learned, by a lucky stroke, that the public likes to see itself caricatured on the screen; that the public can laugh at the maunderings of a fat man who shakes a warning pudgy forefinger at a sensitive simpleton who is prone to weep

The Monstrous Movies
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1921)

By 1921 the city of Los Angeles began to seriously grow, and the expansion was not simply due to the arrival of performers and extras and all manner of craftsmen that are required to launch a film production – but the city was also bringing in the sorts necessary to support a wealthy urban environment. Every thriving city needs a support system, and Hollywood imported tailors, milliners, chefs, architects and various other tastemakers who in turn attracted realtors, contractors, merchants and restauranteurs.

Woodrow Wilson and the Repeal of Prohibition
(Literary Digest, 1919)

For some in the U.S. Congress and for President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) in particular, the prohibition of alcohol in the United States (passed by Congress on November 1, 1918) was simply viewed as an appropriate war-time measure guaranteed to maintain the productivity of an efficient working class. However, with the First World War coming to a close, President Wilson saw little need in keeping the entire law as it was written, and he suggested allowing the sale and distribution of beer and wine. This article will inform you of the political will of the dry members of congress as well as the strength of the American clergy in 1919

High Society Ladies’ Rooms
(Stage Magazine, 1937)

The New York café society of the Thirties was well documented by such swells as Cole Porter and Peter Arno – not so well-known, however, were the goings-on in the ladies’ bathrooms at such swank watering holes as El Morocco, Twenty-One, Kit Kat, Crystal Garden and the famed Stork Club. That is why these columns are so vital to the march of history – written by a noble scribe who braved the icy waters of Lake Taboo to report on the conversations and the general appearance of each of these dressing rooms.

The Rainbow Room, Waldorf, and Crystal Garden are modern and show a decorators hand, but the only really plush dressing room we know is at Twenty-One.

Strangely enough, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the ladies’ room of El Morocco, Roseland, or a tea room; the same things are said in all of them. First hair, then men, then clothes; those are the three favorite topics of conversation in the order of their importance.

George Bernard Shaw and Literary Recycling
(Vanity Fair, 1921)

Irish author, critic and dramatist, St. John Greer Ervine (1883 – 1971), believed that some of the dramatic characters populating the plays of George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950) were reoccurring characters who could be counted upon to appear again and again. He had a fine time illustrating this point and thinks nothing of stooping to compare Shaw with Shakespeare:

Shakespeare primarily was interested in people. Mr. Shaw primarily is interested in doctrine…

Thirty-five years later St. John Ervine would be awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his biography of George Bernard Shaw.

Click here to read various witty remarks by George Bernard Shaw.

Lana Turner
(Quick Magazine, 1949)

When this Hollywood profile first appeared on paper, actress Lana Turner (1921 – 1995) was all of twenty-nine years of age and about to begin working on A Life of Her Own
it was her thirtieth movie; her last four films had nearly grossed a record-breaking $20 million, and her smiling mug was on each and every Hollywood fan magazine that could be found.

Today, the sleek, gray-eyed Lana has shed the plumpness of two years ago, keeps her weight between to 118 and 127 lbs… Now Lana is as shapely as she was in those early days. She has the ‘perfect’ figure: 5 ft. 3 in., 34-in. bust, 24-in. waist, 34.5 in. hips.


The article is illustrated with photographs from eight of her pre-’49 movies and lists all the husbands that she’d collected up to that same period (she had acquired eight husbands before she was through).

Conversations With Pirandello
(Theatre Arts, 1928)

The back-and-forth that took place throughout a number of Florentine conversations between journalist Fredericka V. Blankner and Italian writer and drama theorist Luigi Pirandello (1867 – 1936: awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934) were printed in her 1928 article, Pirandello, Paradox:

I see life, says Pirandello, as a tragedy…

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