MY WAY TO HEALTH AND BEAUTY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19060, 3 May 1930, Page 20 (Supplement)

MY WAY TO HEALTH AND BEAUTY .

Keeping Beautiful Amongst World’s Most Beautiful Women.

By

NORMA SHEARER

(The famous Hollywood film star.)

Imagine, if you can, a modern residential city, with gleaming white and stucco buildings, bathed in sunshine that only Hollywood knows. Picture to yourself the work centre of this amazing colony-—the film studios, where, day in and day out, thousands of people are battling for fame. Luxury brushes poverty, happiness passes tragedy on the way to the dressing rooms. Here is a city where wealth or penury visit individuals overnight. A struggling crowd player to-day may be a queen of the studios to-morrow. To-day she may be living in comparative poverty, to-morrow she may be riding in her own Rolls-Royce, with diamonds sparkling from her fingers and ermine swathing her beautiful shoulders. Wealth, to those born under a lucky star, may come easily, and there are many hundreds living in Hollywood who have achieved un-dreamed-of fortunes. It is little wonder that some of us lose our sense of proportion. Y r ou perhaps would do the same. But let it be said that those who achieve fame and fortune do not retain them if they forget how lucky they are. To retain one’s position in Hollywood’s world of screen fame—especially in the case of a woman—one must always look one’s best. That is the penalty fame makes, me pay, anyway. I must always look and appear to feel one hundred per cent—not only in the studio, but at social functions, and even when I am on holida) r . I could not afford, from a business point of view, to neglect my health, because health is beauty, and beauty means a lot to me from the commercial point of view. And it is possibly the best thing in the world for me. It may be for you, too. 1 can©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©[■L 1

not afford to allow my figure to “go to pieces," I cannot afford to permit my hair to become dull and straggly, my hands to show signs of neglect, my complexion to become unduly muddy or my skin coarse. It requires* effort to stay beautiful—but it is worth while. The sense of well-being is so satisfactory; I find it so, quite apart from its financial aspect. I think that the unwritten commandment should be “I believe in Nature’s way to health.” If more people would think seriously on those lines, our hospitals would not be so full. It is my endeavour to live in rhythm with life—it is the only way to enjoy it, but in order to keep pace with it, I find that I must keep perfectly fit—in mind, as well as physically. Forced energy soon takes its toll of my nervous system, as it doe 3 of anyone who is of the artistic turn of mind. I am no believer in drugging one’s way to health. Sunshine, fresh air, fruit and a plain diet can do mere to restoring one’s health than all the medicines in the world, providing one has no serious disease. I believe in plenty of exercise—l play golf, I swim and ride. Walking, too, is a favourite exercise of mine. Frequently when I have time to spare, I take my car and go out into the mountains. Leaving my conveyance at a road house, I tramp—in a short, serviceable tweed skirt and sweater and heavy shoes—into the woods, up hill and down at the same pace. Walking is an exercise in which any one with the use of their leg 3 can indulge. I am not really fond of swimming, but I make myself swim, because it gives one a graceful carriage and exercises muscles which no other sport touches.