UNDER A REHEARSAL piano in a studio on the MGM lot in Hollywood in 1952, Debbie Reynolds crumbled. She was in the middle of preparing for Singing in the Rain, which would be her first leading role for the studio, alongside Gene Kelly, and the first time she'd have to dance, really. She was 19 years old, had three teachers, and was spinning around eight hours a day. It hurt everywhere, she wrote in her autobiography 60 years later, "most of all my brain and my feet." She lay there, under that piano, until Fred Astaire materialized to coax her back up. She wasn't going to die, he told her. If you're not sweating, you're not doing it right. So she shot "Good Morning" from eight in the morning till eleven o'clock that night. When it was over, she collapsed. For days, she didn't get out of bed at her doctor's behest.
The studio had its own MD, who wanted to administer what they called a "vitamin shot"-amphetamines. Possibly, the same ones, Reynolds wrote, that "ruined Judy Garland." Since its inception, Hollywood has been the land where unrealistic beauty standards collide with financial pressure that hinges on its stars keeping thin, energetic, and always ready to make more hits. And there's always been a quick fix or two. Since Reynolds's era, the nature of the fixes have evolved from "vitamin shots" and "pep pills" to phen-fen to Adderall to clenbuterol-a medication used to treat breathing problems in horses. That's to say nothing of the extra-medicinal aesthetic boosts by way of CoolSculpting, injectables, and Brazilian butt lifts, which suck pockets of fat from one part of a body and insert them into another, in order to create a generation of Instagram-age Jessica Rabbits.
It should have been no mystery, then, that when the people of Hollywood started dropping dozens of pounds in a matter of weeks, it wasn't that everyone had suddenly started practicing moderation and logging 10,000 steps.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
A House Divided
The Mellon dynasty has long been known for its old money refinement and discretion. But when TIM MELLON became Donald Trump's biggest donor many members of the family were mystified-and not afraid to talk about it
FUNNY BUSINESS
NEARLY 50 YEARS AGO, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE LAUNCHED A REVOLUTION THAT CHANGED COMEDY, TELEVISION, AND THE MOVIES. NOW DIRECTOR JASON REITMAN HAS RE-CREATED THE CHAOTIC HOURS BEFORE SNL'S FIRST EPISODE. LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S 1975!
BAD FAITH
From exiled actors to academics, influencers to intellectuals, VF gets under the hood of the Catholic right's celebrity conversion industrial complex
THE GE NERAL
How ELIZABETH PRELOGAR, America's low-key, high-powered solicitor general, is holding the Supreme Court's feet to the fire
THE BILLIONAIRE'S SECRET
THE GERMAN INDUSTRIALIST KLAUSMICHAEL KUEHNE, BORN IN 1937, IS ONE OF THE RICHEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, WITH MORE MONEY THAN KEN GRIFFIN, OR MACKENZIE SCOTT, OR FRANÇOIS PINAULT. WHERE DID HIS FAMILY FORTUNE COME FROM? THE NAZIS KNOW
GIVE AND LET GIVE
MELINDA FRENCH GATES is speaking out for the rights of women and girls, embracing her role as godmother to her fellow philanthropists, and getting political, even when it's a little uncomfortable.
VANITIES
MAISY STELLA knows how to think outside the box
Party PLANNING
Putin wants Trump to win, of course, and he's got big ideas about a new world order. Think Yalta-on Fiji
Boys and THEIR TOYS
Inside the hypermacho, Bible-thumping alt-tech universe trying to take on Silicon Valley-from El Segundo
STRANGER Things
The Democrats' short hot summer of \"weird\"