Show - ’"'! - s t V the salt lake tribune Sunday morning tdlyi is im ©' Oia- - w mu miiiiim — i—““ MwiwrwinroiwriinnriiM -- — — ( ‘"‘ Here is the inside story of a human repair shop where amusement world stars get overhauled for jumpy nerves and blubber most feared of all Fame’s diseases Words By GILBERT SWAN ’ Sketches Ry GEORGE CLARK OW do they stand the life?’ Wandering about the spots where Broadway plays until the dawn watching the playtn boy and the playgirli Worker and the the ipendert and the performer and the msstcrs the chiselrr of ceremome the tar and the chrfiber you’ll hear tire question asked a thousand time a year You’ll hear the columnist gagging about their tallow complexion You II hear them in the joking about how they took a week-en- d country got ome fresh air “and have been feeling rotten ever ince" You’ll men and the ee the chalk-facerouged girl to whom noontime ia “the middle of the night" You’ll hear itorie of tire nervou itrain of of the tenuon of long theatrical rehearsal opening night and the atrenuounei of learning You'll lee playejs who have had new routine hard night of acting now rounding out the rest of the night about dance floor and the play place Yet somehow Broadway Somehow on surviving goe these folk who appear to lead the most unnatural and atrainmg of lives manage to keep going Exto their traordinarily few are scratched off the lull and the program for illness in the course of a d to show up at the gymnasium pleading for reduction of gross tonnage The big shows are getting organized Actor and actresse are working tirelessly far into the Rehearsals are going on in night Some of the hows that halls and in theater are being rushed in to the theaters are rehearsPerformer go ing four and five times a day about muttering their ide-tre- line The percentage of breakdown doesn t eem to be particularly greater than elsewhere For take it from Philadel“these phia Jack O’Brien Broadway guy are easy to bend but hard to break" And Jack hould know because this famous ear smasher of yesteryear has looked after the physical condition of hundred of the main tem' most famous personalities for years He’ often been referred to a “die bird who keep Broadway in Then Even the veteran performers trouper who have hit the drama trail for dozens of mid-Fifti- tar have told me years that they never got over ness wing again and witches the floor show and then The old boys get gets to bed around dawn tlieir office and sit around late and to go up some more That’ where the blubber come in and the necessity for a little gym work” Hollywood has been invading his gymnasium and roof-to- Jfk v rkss Lorraine once the pride of the Ziegfeld glories had a broken nei and bae AW It isn't real solid think they're putting on fat It’ fat — it‘ blubber — just io much water and it' bad And there only one way of getting rid of it and that my lad is by the iweat of pour brow ‘You’d be surprised the people I get up here — there’ Many Richman the master of and Winnie Lightner and Betty ceremonies Law ford I’ve had Grant Mitchell the actor for years and Irene Delroy the musical comedy star and Evelyn Duncan and lawyers and and most of the Broadway crowd little blubber “But the girls who put on are the one who come worrying the most And Sometimes it’ as much you can’t blame them as their jvb is worth With a chorine it’ her weekly pay check “Do you have to give the Broadway bunch particularly strenuous treatment? I'd say the mot strenuous of all Of course everyone’ a Some of 'em are pretty different problem ti'ed when they finally get around here and you have to break them in easy politicians hut she survived training for a stage comeback ’ take the night club bunch for instance A lot of them have jobs just sitting around glad hvnding people and getting up once in a while to say a few words arid sitting down again And the crowd that play the cafes sits and sits and talks and once in a while gets up and dances and sits down in U (Coprlht 1930 try EvtryWeeg Ma Mine-Pri- nted p playground par- ticularly since the talking picture made some of the screen performers go in for dance and song routine Not so long ago Winthe screen nie Lightner hoyden of half a dozen hits came out from the Holly-woowith more than worries on her shoulders The Kales were balancing against her iShe had appeared in “Gold Diggers of Broadway” and tire box offices shouted for more After that the tropical indolence which sometimes overtakes performers between pictures had settled upon Winnie And when she came on the screen in ' She Couldn't Say No" the wagsters got together in choruses concerning her increasing heftiness ROADWAY awaited ss hve international fame for role played but with in the past the taking on of any new part the old fear haunt them again and performer have been at a premiere best-know- stage-fng- She a funeral notice Newt-pap- er which never has been printed and latter-da- y columnist followed the course of her battle for life for a time— and then like o many who have come and he waa gone from the Broadway pageant awallowed by obscurity All the time she wa gamely battling back And once death had been ttaved off came the long courageous effort to regain the old and flexibility Well that' all back now She can bat a mean punching bag and up m "I'hilly Jack’t" she’a removing the last few surplus pound put cm in the month of idleness She’ headed for a comeback with a musical how and a vaudeville tour awaiting her ‘‘It’ blubber that most of them are fighwill tell you "That’ the Broadting" way malady — gag that one off! “But up here we call it blubber and it’ what I have to fight with most of them You see an aw ful lot of the Broadway crowd that come up here doe a lot of sitting around — no real outude exercise to speak of They nervous- may n of the known to suffer from Broadway performance '“You’ll ee a lot of the boy and girl around here about then" reports Jack “I have a bunch of special stunt aimed to let down the You don’t want to b too strenuous tension Some of with them when they're that way them come around with jumpy nerve and all noita of quiiks and the dope is to keep them relaxed and still harden them up a little to itand some it wa who “knocked ’em cold” night after mght and whose face and figure were exploited m the magazine and theatrical section across the country And one wintry night while hurrying away from the theater site liped on the ky pavement just at he wa about to hop into her taxicab Both her neck and back were broken It teemed certain she must die - Few have ever survived uch an experience B They earned old-tim- er light-studde- d night opening g g and for many a show has been half rewritten on tour and actors have found it necessary to lines and half their exits and enchange trance and cues and the rest up a couple of floor in in die e and almost any afternoon or any evening you’ll see an cast in the process of keeping fit for BroadYou may come upon your favorite moway tion picture star doing the ttrangest-lookintrick in the funmest-lookmmachine You may find the loveliest lady of the musical ihowt having a shapely leg massaged in what appear at a glance to be part of a laundry mangle Y ou might find the hero of the last film you taw refreshing hi fiitic memory while an who ha taken on some avoiidupoi during a couple of dull winter toil with amazing persistence to knock off 20 pound' in a few week Take a case out of life Some nine year ago or thereabouts the original and most famous of all the early Ziegfeld glorified gu he waa LilShe it wa who twung lian Lorraine far over the head of the audience m d show take work strenuous training” flower-bedecke- the to the road for a tryout before it come inTins mean to town OP a themselves feverishly a the opening day apFatigue ets proaches year in to They toss She was to come on to New York about time for a vaudeville engagement winch But by would have netted her a sweet sum the time she arrived she became slightly fearful of getting up before the public “in the flesh’ as it were and betraying how plump sire had been “Of course’ relates Philadelphia Jack “I got her on the rebound as I get most of them And believe me you when they're panicky don't know how panicky some of them can become You got to hand it to Winnie though that lTOU ® A) -- tire jtrain "T he Broadway bunch is alway interesting I never get tired working with them iTTOU remember back when ring? Well it’s always a kick to know the big street brigade is out watching you when you're in the ring and the Broadway bunch always has been a fight fan crowd ‘‘Back there when I was taking on Young Peter Jackson and Joe Chnynski and Kid McCoy and Joe Walcott and(Bob Fitzsimmons I could always bank on some cheers from friends in the theater buiness I set up my place right here in the middle of Broadway and the fellows and girls who come up here aren't just birds dropping Most of them are my in to punch the bag fi lends — and 1 get a real kick out of it when I do something for them “You know an awful lot of people will tell you that New York’s a terrible town on your that it'll get health — that it’s no place to live and the and all the theater — the clubs that you ret will get you "That’s a lot of bunk It get a lot of peoThe So does every place else ple sure! trouble with so many of the New Yorkers is that while they seem to be hustling around lazy lives they’re really leading pretty sluggi-- h They grab a subway or a taxi every chance T ou don’t catch many of them really they get walking for instance 'Tm telling you when y ui’re fit for Broadway you’re fit for anywhere in the world” “So |