A Tragedy of the Stage

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 44, 16 May 1930, Page 24

A Tragedy of the Stage

MPRULY it is said that one half of the world knows not how the other half lives, and few who have enjoyed the entertainments in America by Ziegfeld’s "Follies" can have realised the rigorous life imposed on the performers. In the case of one of the "Follies" most famous beauties, it has just ended in tragedy of the saddest description, when Miss Allyn King, realising her inability to keep her weight to the dictates of her contract, jumped from the fifth story of an apartment house in New York. In Miss King’s contract was a clause that should she at any time increase her weight by more than 16lb., or deerease by more than 10lb., or to allow the dimensions of any part of her figure to vary more than half an inch from those stated, the contractor should have the right to cancel her contract. She was leading lady three years after she started with the Follies in 1916, and found it necessary to diet strenuously all the time. In 1926 she collapsed on the stage, and for two years was a patient in a sanatorium, on account of a nervous breakdown. Surely there is something radically wrong with the scheme of things when the entertainment of any part of the community demands such sacrifice.-‘‘Terp-sichore,"’ Auckland. ane tem ti etiat te NEL EUEUEMSURUSIIEITELLEULEULRUIG!SIBIIEIIRIIEIIBUSIEIEURIIBIEIBIIBIE