Quote:
Originally Posted by CityBoyDoug
Unlike most male movie people of that era, Joe E. Brown, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. were in top physical condition.
Today in 2015 the ''buff'' look is ''in''. In 1930 it wasn't.
|
If they needed help in that area, there were people like Paramount’s fitness instructor to the stars Richard Kline!
Ebay (one of several)
According to a 1940 newspaper profile, he’d formerly been a strongman in a Chautauqua circus, then from 1925-1927 held open air beach fitness classes in Atlantic City. A “top movie executive” discovered him there and brought him out to Hollywood where he was Paramount’s physical director from 1927 to 1939.
In the late ‘30s he was also doing endorsements like these for Sportsways products (later Healthways Hollywood), like the Stretch to Health
box for a Stretch to Health.
Ebay
I used to come across these things at flea markets and antique shops fairly often- always looking suspiciously unused and new in the box.
Just think, fellows, if you stick with it and really apply yourself, after six weeks, you too could have a physique like Der Bingle.
This is what the dingus actually looks like.
(Like the
Hollywood Wolf Whistle, another fine product no longer proudly made in L.A.)
By 1940, Kline had left the studio and was operating his own bodybuilding business, at 5750 Hollywood Blvd.
LAT 1-5-41.
1-18-42
The last ad I found for him at 5750 was 1942. Richard was still around though, and from 1945-48 at least still representing Hollywood Healthways.
1945.
Chart:
Ebay (one of several)
As for 5750 Hollywood Blvd., after Richard, it seems to have been everything from a real estate office to a blueprint supplier. In 1954 you could get your kid a burro there from “Prospector Jack” or “Ranger Mack.”
LAT 12-9-54