Let These Hollywood Experts Chart Your Beauty Course

Beauty—or even the illusion of beauty—is all a matter of proportion. Here you have the considered opinion of two Hollywood experts. One of these gentlemen is Adrian, the great dress designer who has dressed practically every one of our glamour girls since 1925, beginning with Garbo and Joan Crawford and coming up to Garson and June Allyson. The other is James Davies, the physical culture director of Paramount Studios for the past years, who has slimmed everyone from Dietrich to Betty Hutton.

Adrian and Jim refer, of course, to body beauty, but proportion applies equally to facial beauty. As every bright girl knows, you can give the illusion of exquisite facial proportions by the right use of make-up. But Adrian can also dress you—at a faintly astronomical price—so that you look taller and slimmer, or shorter and thicker.

Jim says you can’t buy his ideal, that you must work for it. He has exercises to give your body whatever it lacks, except for adding actual inches in height, and you can even seem to accomplish that with correct posture. It’s Jim’s argument that most girls’ main trouble lies in the fact that they do not know the right proportions they should have for their individual heights.

So this month we have sought out six varied beauties from statuesque Pat Neal, down to little Debbie Reynolds. Here are their measurements and weights. Here, to go along with Adrian’s theory that even a one-inch doll can look chic if dressed proportionately, is their outstanding rule for dressing smartly. Here also are some of their personal beauty tricks.

First check yourself on Jim Davies’s height and weight chart. Jim feels it is not encugh to be merely the ideal weight for your height. Dreamily, your waist should be ten inches smaller than your bust measurements—like Elizabeth Taylor’s—but your hips should be exactly what your bust tapes (a la Betty Grable).

Tip-topper among today’s stars, Patricia Neal manages that bust-waist proportion —but her hips are two and a half inches slimmer. Here, for comparison, are Pat’s measurements:

Height 5‘8“

Weight 135

Bust 35½

Waist 25½

Hips 33

 

Clotheswise, Pat never goes in for frills. When she dresses informally, she looks like the average college girl, flat shoes, often dungarees and a shirt, cardigan sweaters. But even for cocktail parties, or real formals, she goes in for a classic line. Since she holds herself beautifully and moves with grace, this “goddess” look is perfect for her. For at-home parties, she likes luxurious pajamas.

She makes her mouth up generously with bright, bright lipstick. She puts her perfume on the pulse at the wrists, renewing it every two hours or so. This is a wonderful trick that lets the scent emanate subtly. She prefers her hair its natural brown, with little or no wave, but often has to dye it for a picture. In the evening she emphasizes her eye make-up, but at no time does she use a conspicuous make-up.

Jane Russell is next in altitude to Pat, though height is not what has made Jane famous. Here is Jane’s range:

Height 5‘7“

Weight 135 (drop ten pounds! orders Mr. Davies.)

Bust 37

Waist 25 (If Jane added an ideal two inches here, what would this do to her box-office value?)

Hips 37

Jane likes to wear all black, and surprisingly enough, off screen she prefers high-necked dresses, with long sleeves and slim, plain skirts. Her dramatic sense is expressed by way of stoles. She has these in nearly all colors, though she adores red and, unlike many a girl, she carries a stole beautifully, draped about her shoulders or tossed over one arm.

Jane is one of those rare girls who are more beautiful off-screen than on. She follows every doll’s Standard beauty routine—the daily bath, careful food choices (though she likes Mexican food a bit too well), lots of sleep and plenty of exercise in the open air. She neither drinks nor smokes, not caring in the least for either of these indulgences, but she says the absence of tobacco and alcohol helps her maintain her sparkling eyes and fine complexion.

Gene Tierney looks less than her actual height. This is probably due to that flower-petal face of hers, which, somehow, suggests delicacy and daintiness.

Actually Gene almost exactly meets Jim Davies’ Standard. Thus:

Height 5‘5½“

Weight 113

Bust 36

Waist 26

Hips 35¼

Being married to a very famous dress designer, Oleg Cassini, Gene is provided with one of the loveliest wardrobes imaginable. Both she and her husband like simplicity in dress and Oleg, with loving cleverness, designs all her outfits to emphasize her exquisite face, her year-round sun-tan, and her innate patrician quality.

Gene seldom wears anything but solid colors—and almost always it’s all-white for evening, all-black for day. Her gowns rarely have any trimming, but all are designed to set off her jewels, which are outstanding.

 

Gene uses shades of pink rather than red for lipstick, rouge, and nail polish. With her skin’s tawny overcast, this is very provocative. Sometimes she experiments with eye shadow in different shades, brown, gray and even blue, thus emphasizing the fascinating contrast of her gray eyes to her dark skin, yet she never goes to extremes. With her naturally exotic look, she realizes the dramatic virtue of understatement. Result: She is usually the most distinctive girl in any room she enters. (Note: Gene never eats sweets—but eats at least two apples a day.)

Exactly the reverse of this social technique is displayed by Ruth Roman. And displayed is what I mean. Here is a beauty and an actress, whose assault on the eye is the kind that every average girl wishes she had.

There is only one way in which you can use the word “average” about Ruth. She is of “average” height.

Here are her measurements:

Height 5‘4½”

Weight 120 (Davies disapproves; Ruth argues this is sexy.)

Bust 36½

Waist 26

Hips 34 (These narrow hips Ruth really fights for.)

Milo Anderson, of Warner Bros., who has dressed Ruth ever since that studio signed her, says that Ruth “wears” her clothes, and not vice versa. In other words, Milo says Ruth makes you see her first and the gown she’s wearing second.

Accordingly, Milo gives Ruth tight-fitting gowns of solid color with neckline or bustline emphasis. Her formals are low-cut for visibility reasons. She seldom wears accessories of any kind. Her make-up is quite deliberately exaggerated. With her dramatic flair, she gets away with it. She wears dark, rich lipstick, nail polish of such a dark red it’s virtually black. She puts her rouge on along the cheekbone that runs just under the eye socket, and recommends this trick to other girls who want to emphasize their eyes. The technique is to feel this bone with your fingertips, blending in the cream rouge from about the center of the eye, upward and cutward toward the ear, so carefully of course that no beginning or finishing point is visible.

When you come into the cute, little-trick department, that doll of dolls, June Allyson, is for the first time being paced by another cute little trick named Debbie Reynolds. In height there’s barely a half inch between them—and both of them have dream measurements.

Take Junie, first. She may be on a small scale—but that’s the very thing that Adrian and Jim Davies point out: You can be small and still be flawless. Mrs. Dick Powell’s figures line up thus:

Height 5‘1“

Weight 99

Bust 35¼

Waist 23

Hips 34½

Junie is one of those lucky lasses who can eat and eat—and still not put on an ounce. Some of this may be due to the way she goes for steaks—which, as you know, have plenty of proteins and few calories. A lot of it may be the way she bounces around, always active, singing, dancing, running her home, her new baby, her career, her very active social life. (The Powells don’t go in for Hollywood society half as much as they do for the ultraconservative, very deluxe Los Angeles society.)

height and weight chart By James Davies Physlcal Cni türe Director, Paramount Studios
Height	W’eight	Bun	Waist	Hips
5′	100	32	22	32
5’1″	10214	321/4	22%	321/4
5’2″	105	321,4	22%	321/2
5’3″	107i/2	32%	22%	32%
5’4″	110	33	23	33
5’5″	1121/4	34	24	34
5’6″	120	35	25	35
5’7″	125	36	25	35
5’8”	128	37	27	36

June always looks freshly scrubbed, entirely natural. She isn’t quite—which is a wonderful art when you can achieve it. For example, her hair is naturally quite curly. She likes it to appear almost straight. So she brushes and brushes it. She never has any sort of permanent or wave put into it, but to give it “shape” before parties, or for camera appearances, she puts it up in about six very loosely rolled curls. She rolls them up on bright colored ribbons, which she ties in bows, so that even if Richard, as she always calls Dick, comes in, she still looks cute. Her hair will curl with twenty minutes of this treatment and needs no drying under artificial heat, or even sunshine. June washes her hair daily, using a vegetable oil shampoo.

 

She uses a bit of mascara, at evening, the lightest touch of eye shadow. She goes in for colorless, liquid nail polish, and a not too dominant lipstick color. She never uses a powder base, but she puts a darker powder tone on her face than she does on her nose. The lighter tint, there, makes her pert small nose even more pert.

She has had to learn about wearing clothes. She now looks like a junior fashion plate—and she still doesn’t like it much. If she followed her natural inclination, she would wear nothing but sweaters and skirts, with loafers or saddle shoes and she still wears this outfit around the house, whenever she’s by herself and knows she can get away with it. She loves black and white in separates or even in two-piece dresses.

Debbie Reynolds, a mere five feet and one-half inch likes being—well—not a clothes horse but let’s say a clothes pony. She always wears the short, full-skirted evening gowns that are strapless. For her height, she has well-nigh faultless proportions. Look at this:

Height 5‘½“

Weight 102

Waist 22

Bust 33

Hips 33

Debbie chooses skirts that swing, to show her lovely legs, and by day she is apt to wear cottons in blue and white or red and white checks, knowing they suit her type and her impudent mood.

She makes up according to her mood and the occasion. Sometimes she makes herself look like the most casual high school girl, but it also amuses her—particularly at formal parties—to change this look by adding a chignon to her hair and false eyelashes around her laughing eyes —and emerge as “Little Miss Dynamite.”

The only trouble with these six belles is that their figures are God-given. But there are girls in Hollywood who didn’t start out with ideal proportions—but who attained them. You can, too. Check these six girls and find the one nearest your type. If your proportions aren’t ideal there are corrective exercises.

Jim Davies says that for over-all figure improvement nothing equals swimming. It is his argument that any girl, regardless of her age, can make her figure virtually flawless if she will swim—and swim hard for a minimum of a half hour daily. So—with vacation-time Corning on, remember to swim; not just in a relaxed floating way. Make it a good hard routine.

Now for the Davies figure correction exercises for waistline and abdomen.

Begin all exercises moderately—five times the first day, ten the next, on up to twenty. After twenty, make yourself work out every day, without exception.

To reduce your waistline: Exercise one: With your knees stiff, touch the toes of your right foot with the fingertips of your left hand. Then touch the left toes with your right-hand fingertips. Alternate briskly from one position to the other. This is an oldie, but it gets results.

Exercise two: With hands on hips, body erect, heels together, tummy contracted, make a low bow (as low as you can), then rotate torso as far to the sides, as low to the back as possible.

To flatten your midriff: Sit on the floor, your feet hooked under a bedrail or a chair that won’t tip, then gradually bend backwards till you are lying flat, then pull up to a sitting position, then forward till your head as nearly touches your knees as you can make it. This is a tough exercise. You should do it carefully and slowly. By the time you can do it twenty times daily, you’ll be so flat and limber you won’t know yourself.

Pat Neal is in “Raton Pass,” Jane Russell in “His Kind of Woman,” Gene Tierney in “On the Riviera,” Ruth Roman in “Strangers on a Train,” Debbie Reynolds in “Mr. Imperium,” June Allyson in “Too Young to Kiss.”

THE END

 

It is a quote. PHOTOPLAY MAGAZINE JUNE 1951