The Golden Age Hollywood Diet That Starved Its Famous Starlets — And Then America

In April 1929, a new diet took over Hollywood. 

At first, its details were vague. Charles J. Estcourt Jr. dribbled out some of the first nationally available information through his syndicated New York Skylines column. Under the headline “A New Diet from Hollywood,” he wrote about how it was rumored to have been devised for an unnamed Hollywood star, and intended to help that individual lose one pound of weight each day for 18 consecutive days through the consumption of cucumber, undressed lettuce, a little bit of lobster and a couple of olives.

As innocuous as this initial revelation had been, a readership consisting primarily of women clamored for more information. In fact, by the time June rolled around and the intricate details of the diet were fully divulged to the press, it seemed as if every woman in the country was already intimately familiar with the diet. “If [the diet] is really working, there should be a startling drop in the national poundage, as the diet is being spread by a chain letter system,” wrote Lemuel Parton in his San Bernardino Sun column. “And women, particularly, are taking it up by the thousands.”

Parton went on to detail how the new “Hollywood Diet” had caused a surge in purchases of lettuce and grapefruits, and a similar rise in the levels of concern felt amongst the owners of meat shops and delis as demand for their products had plummeted.

It was at that point that Louella O. Parsons of the Los Angeles Examiner published the full details of the 18-Day Diet in her nationally syndicated column, which I’m adding here for no other reason than to overwhelm you with just how restrictive it was in terms of calories:

Day One

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: ½ grapefruit, 1 egg, 6 slices of cucumber, 1 slice of melba toast, tea or coffee
• Dinner: 2 eggs, 1 tomato, ½ head lettuce, ½ grapefruit, coffee

Day Two

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: 1 egg, lettuce, 1 slice melba toast, tea
• Dinner: Broiled steak (plain), ½ lettuce, 1 tomato, ½ grapefruit, tea or coffee

Day Three

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: ½ grapefruit, 1 egg, lettuce, 8 slices cucumber, tea or coffee
• Dinner: 1 lamb chop, 1 egg, 3 radishes, 2 olives, ½ grapefruit, lettuce, tea or coffee

Day Four

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: Pot cheese, 1 tomato, ½ grapefruit, 1 slice melba toast, tea or coffee
• Dinner: Broiled steak (plain), watercress, ½ grapefruit

Day Five

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: Orange, 1 lambchop, lettuce, tea
• Dinner: ½ grapefruit, lettuce, 1 tomato, 2 eggs, tea 

Day Six

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: Orange, tea
• Dinner: 1 poached egg, 1 slice melba toast, orange, tea

Day Seven

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: ½ grapefruit, 2 eggs, lettuce, 1 tomato, 2 olives, coffee
• Dinner: 2 lamb chops, 6 slices cucumber, 2 olives, one tomato, ½ grapefruit, tea or coffee

Day Eight

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: 1 egg, lettuce, 1 slice melba toast, tea
• Dinner: Broiled steak (plain), ½ lettuce, 1 tomato, ½ grapefruit, tea or coffee

Day Nine

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: 1 egg, 1 tomato, ½ grapefruit, tea
• Dinner: Any meat salad

Day 10

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: ½ grapefruit, 1 lamb chop, lettuce, tea
• Dinner: ½ grapefruit, 1 lamb chop, lettuce tea

Day 11

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: Cinnamon toast, tea
• Dinner: Broiled steak (plain), celery, olives, tomatoes, tea

Day 12

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: ½ lobster, crackers, grapefruit, coffee
• Dinner: 2 broiled lamb chops, cole slaw, tomato, 1 orange, 3 olives

Day 13

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: 1 egg, 1 slice toast, grapefruit
• Dinner: Broiled steak (plain), lettuce, celery, grapefruit, coffee

Day 14

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: 1 egg, toast, grapefruit, coffee
• Dinner: Broiled steak (plain), tomato, grapefruit, coffee

Day 15

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: 1 egg, tomato, grapefruit, 1 slice toast
• Dinner: 2 lamb chops, ½ spoonful tomato catsup, 1 slice toast, grapefruit

Day 16

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: 1 egg, 1 tomato, grapefruit, coffee
• Dinner: Broiled steak (plain), plain spinach, orange

Day 17

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: 1 lamb chop, lettuce, grapefruit
• Dinner: Broiled steak (plain), tomato, celery, olives

Day 18

• Breakfast: ½ grapefruit, melba toast, coffee
• Lunch: 1 egg, tomatoes, ½ grapefruit, coffee
• Dinner: 1 broiled fish, plain spinach, ½ grapefruit  

Newspapers containing Parsons’ column were gobbled up so voraciously that several of them acceded to reader requests for the diet to be reprinted in its entirety in subsequent weeks. Parsons would write a follow-up column to express her embarrassment that her revelation of the 18-Day Diet had been far and away her most popular column yet. “If only I had known how eagerly the world had been waiting to get a recipe for growing thin,” wrote Parsons. “I would have specialized in dietetics and come to the rescue of suffering womankind.”

It took less than a month for readers to begin submitting letters to their favorite columnists reporting of weight-loss successes that had been achieved on a diet that might have provided its adherents with between 500 and 600 calories on a good day. “In order to follow the diet at luncheons, I had to resign from the Rotary Club, but it was worth it,” wrote one. “In 18 days, I not only lost a dozen pounds, but missed three after-dinner speeches.”

It was also around this time that the tale of the diet’s true origin became public. The Boston Globe’s Hollywood reporter, Mayme Ober Peak, revealed how actress Ethel Barrymore had reportedly marched into the Mayo Clinic, frantically complaining that she needed to quickly lose weight for a film role, and pleaded, “I’ve got to eat, but I’ve got to reduce, too. Help me!”

From there, Mayo Clinic doctors allegedly devised a diet that would enable Barrymore to restore her famously slender figure. The diet was apparently sufficient to satisfy the actress who was famous for spurning encore calls with her iconic catchphrase (which could also have ironically described the 18-Day Diet): “That’s all there is! There isn’t any more!” Barrymore reportedly passed the diet along to other actresses in need of rapid weight reduction. From there, it spread like wildfire through Hollywood, and subsequently, the rest of the world.

But in the midst of the 18-Day Diet’s popularity, tragedy struck. Famous actress Marietta Millner was reported dead in Vienna as the result of a bout of tuberculosis following a voluntary starvation diet that had been deemed necessary to get her beneath the weight ceiling established by her studio contract. While Millner’s death may not have been specifically linked to the 18-Day Diet, it did open the door to criticism. “The 18-Day Diet is the worst fad this country has ever known,” snorted Dr. J.J. Carter to the Los Angeles Evening Post. “People who follow the diet are dying. The diet brings on tuberculosis and heart trouble as well.”

This was a bit of a reach, as tuberculosis is caused by bacteria and not by weight loss. But it’s conceivable that Millner’s post-starvation condition left her body ill-suited to fend off the illness. Regardless, several other leading Hollywood actresses were already convinced that the 18-Day Diet was bad news. In an Eagle Rock Sentinel column titled “18-Day Diet Denounced by Screen Stars,” actress Evelyn Brent was joined by numerous fellow starlets in declaring the diet to be harmful. “Girls, women and even men whom I know have suffered ill results from following the so-called ‘Hollywood 18-Day Diet,’” said Brent. “It is too radical — as all the diets are too radical unless a physician who knows his patients has outlined them. It is unreasonable to believe that all systems can absorb the extraordinary amount of acid that the 18-Day Diet prescribes.”

In response to reports that mostly young women were passing out — and even dying — after following the 18-Day Diet, Morris Fishbein, editor of The Journal of the American Medical Association, condemned the 18-Day Diet as “hooey” cloaked in Hollywood fantasy. “[The diet] has the magic of numbers — the appeal of doing something for a certain definite time working toward a certain definite goal,” he wrote. “The 18-Day Diet has the psychological appeal of mob action. There is the desire to be doing what everybody else is doing. There is the thrill of competition.”

Ten years after the hullabaloo caused by the diet had subsided, Dr. James W. Barton provided a grisly post-mortem on its outcome in the Austin American, along with his own reasoning as to why it had been so well-received initially. “Notwithstanding that this diet caused the death of hundreds and the collapse of thousands, the underlying idea of the 18-day Diet is correct,” he explained. “That is, the eating of great quantities of the bulky foods of low food value — green vegetables and fruits — and small quantities of the concentrated foods with high food values — starches and fats.”

It was, in essence, another bit of movie magic — there appeared to be a lot more food than there was caloric content (i.e., if you ate 10 entire grapefruits and 10 entire heads of lettuce a day, you would still waste away). But in this case, such legerdemain and misdirection didn’t delight the moviegoing public, it starved them.