Sylvia of Hollywood
Encyclopedia
Sylvia Ulback known as Sylvia of Hollywood, was an early Hollywood fitness guru. Between 1926 and 1932, "Madame Sylvia", as she was also known, specialised in keeping movie stars camera-ready through stringent massage, diet and exercise.
(then Kristiania) to Amelia Wilhelmsen, an opera singer and artist Oscar Waaler Forbidden to be a doctor by her parents, Sylvia went into nursing at 16. Having studied massage, she opened an office in Bremen
, Germany when she was 18 years old. Sylvia and her first husband Andrew Ulback, a lumber dealer came to America - first New York then to Chicago - in 1921/22 after her husband lost his business in the war.
In 1926, Sylvia, her husband and two sons relocated to Hollywood, ostensibly for Andrew's health. (N.B. Sylvia eschewed the use of her surname Ulback, hence its various spelling in contemporary references as Ulbeck, Ullback and Ulvert )
Promoting a three-pronged approach of massage, exercise and diet, Sylvia's stringent, often painful yet apparently effective techniques - said to ‘squeeze off fat’ - were infamous within the ranks of Hollywood. Her name became popularly associated with Hollywood slenderising, particularly in regard to massage which was then seen as a way to lose weight. Her overall methods are risible to modern readers yet her suggestions to stay active, be disciplined and eat wisely are still valid.
Sylvia's first client in Chicago was Julius Rosenwald
(or in fact Rosenwald's grandmother) who introduced her to other wealthy clients.
Her first Hollywood client was Marie Dressler
in 1925. By 1930, Sylvia was working at Pathe studio at $750 a week.
In that same year, she was hired by Joseph Kennedy for his mistress Gloria Swanson
who enthused over the miracles Sylvia worked on her body.
.
Hollywood Undressed revealed intimate details of Sylvia's famous Hollywood clientele which included Jean Harlow
, Marie Dressler
, Mae Murray
, Alice White, Bebe Daniels
, Mary Duncan
, Ramón Novarro
, Ruth Chatterton
, Ann Harding
, Norma Talmadge
, Grace Moore
, Constance Bennett
, Gloria Swanson
, Nella Webb, F.W. Murnau, Elsie Janis
, Ernest Torrence
, Lawrence Tibbett
, Laura Hope Crews
, Ronald Colman
, Constance Cummings
, Ina Claire
, John Gilbert (actor)
, Carmel Myers
, Helen Twelvetrees
, Carole Lombard
, Ilka Chase
, Dorothy Mackaill
, Pepi Lederer
, Marion Davies
, Neil Hamilton (actor), Alan Hale Sr and Vivienne Segal
.
Of Hollywood Undressed, Louella Parsons
wrote, "Perhaps no one has ever played Hollywood quite as mean a trick as the woman who came here and made her money taking care of the stars and then turned around and wrote the cruelest articles about them that have ever been written. (The book has since been republished by Kessinger Publishing, LLC with a softcover version in 1 March 2007 and a hardback edition published 13 June 2008.)
Despite the repercussions of Hollywood Undressed, Sylvia continued to give her opinion on Hollywood and its denizens, with the confidence that her clients needed her more than she needed them:
On 23 May 1931, Sylvia headed east to New York with writer Ursula Parrott
. By 1933, she had quit Hollywood entirely to concentrate on New York and a wider audience.
Priced at $1, No More Alibis was sixth on the non-fiction list of bestsellers from August 19 to September 17, 1936.
. Syndicated across America, her show was aired at 7:30pm on station KGO and KFI. On 3 October 1932, Sylvia's guest was Glenda Farrell
, and on 17 October the guest was Grace Moore
.
By 16 January 1934, Madame Sylvia of Hollywood broadcast over Boston's WEEI at 10:30am. By 1935, Sylvia was broadcast Wednesday nights at 10:15pm EST on stations WJZ, WBAL, WMAL, WBZ, WBZA, WSYR, WHAM, LDLA, WGAR, WENR, KWCR, KSO, KWK, KOIL, WREN, WTMJ, WIBA, WJR, KSTP, WEBC, KOA, KDYL, KPO, KFI, KGW, KOMO, KHQ and WCKY. She was also part of her sponsor Ry-Krisp
's advertising campaigns.
According to Martin Lewis in Radio Guide (1935), Sylvia was on the air less than one minute for each of her shows: she knitted while she waited. A reference to her ‘reducing talks’ over the airwaves was published in the G-E Circle Bulletin, 7 June 1932. By 1933, her show contained dramatic sketches centering on movie stars, e.g. Dolores Del Rio
and Irene Dunne
, one of which landed her with a lawsuit from Ginger Rogers in 1934 (see #Lawsuits below).
In 1948, Sylvia was named, "Radio phenomenon of the Thirties" in Radio & TV Life which stated she had, "...made the nation figure-conscious through her radio programs."
No recordings of Sylvia's shows are known to survive.
Fox Movietone newsreel footage featuring Sylvia, entitled Sylvia the Hollywood Masseur (sic), dated 6 April 1932, is not known to survive although it is listed as archived. Pathe Newsreel footage of Sylvia titled, ? Keeps Movie Stars In Shape, dated 16 January 1932, seems to have been lost or destroyed, although it too is catalogued and described.
magazine, covering beauty tips, celebrity beauty issues and eventually reader's problems. The column began in February 1932 and went through various editorial changes for the next four years.
lost a suit to Sylvia for $2125.00 for six months of massage and care while the performer was on a 1927 vaudeville tour. A more intimate take on Murray's interchanges with Sylvia are outlined in Hollywood Undressed
In 1934, Sylvia denied knowledge of events which caused a $100K suit against her by Ginger Rogers
, who claimed that she was not on Sylvia's show when an interview on the show purported to be her.
Rogers won the lawsuit, settling out of court.
According to the 1930 census, both sons, who were 6 feet tall, worked at film studios: Edward as a utility worker and Finn as a film cutter and later as a sound effects editor for TV, including the popular Combat! series. Both sons enlisted (as single men) in World War II, and had the rank of Private. Finn enlisted on 6 February 1943. Edward Ulback became a biblical/classical historian, listed as an author in various journal articles 1932-46. Although Finn married, neither of Sylvia's sons had children.
On 27 June 1932, Sylvia and Andrew divorced in Mexico. Andrew died on September 26, 1948, in Los Angeles.
On 1 July 1932, Sylvia married Edward Leiter (born 7 September 1903 in San Francisco), during a thunderstorm in Egremont, Massachusetts, USA. Edward Leiter was the son of Mrs Ella Leiter of Los Angeles and a nephew of Joseph Leiter, Chicago financier. A graduate of the University of Southern California
, he had performed in various stage productions and had studied in Budapest
and Vienna
.
, with Edward dying in February 1975 and Sylvia following him in March 1975.
Sylvia was cremated at Odd Fellows Cemetery & Crematory in Los Angeles, California, USA. Her ashes were ‘neptuned’ or scattered at sea. At the time of her death, her profession was listed as "housewife" for 60 years.
Early life
Sylvia was born Symnove Johanne Waaler (or Wilhelmsen) in OsloOslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
(then Kristiania) to Amelia Wilhelmsen, an opera singer and artist Oscar Waaler Forbidden to be a doctor by her parents, Sylvia went into nursing at 16. Having studied massage, she opened an office in Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
, Germany when she was 18 years old. Sylvia and her first husband Andrew Ulback, a lumber dealer came to America - first New York then to Chicago - in 1921/22 after her husband lost his business in the war.
In 1926, Sylvia, her husband and two sons relocated to Hollywood, ostensibly for Andrew's health. (N.B. Sylvia eschewed the use of her surname Ulback, hence its various spelling in contemporary references as Ulbeck, Ullback and Ulvert )
Treatments
Sylvia stated that in 1921 she weighed in at 157 lbs at 5 feet tall and looked like a dutiful Norwegian wife. Seeing her husband, Andrew, flirting with his slender stenographer caused Sylvia to study reducing methods. Getting her own weight down to 95 lbs, Sylvia meshed dieting knowledge with her massage training. She applied those skills to a growing list of clientele, which included socialites and others in the public eye.Promoting a three-pronged approach of massage, exercise and diet, Sylvia's stringent, often painful yet apparently effective techniques - said to ‘squeeze off fat’ - were infamous within the ranks of Hollywood. Her name became popularly associated with Hollywood slenderising, particularly in regard to massage which was then seen as a way to lose weight. Her overall methods are risible to modern readers yet her suggestions to stay active, be disciplined and eat wisely are still valid.
Sylvia's first client in Chicago was Julius Rosenwald
Julius Rosenwald
Julius Rosenwald was a U.S. clothier, manufacturer, business executive, and philanthropist. He is best known as a part-owner and leader of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and for the Rosenwald Fund which donated millions to support the education of African American children in the rural South, as well...
(or in fact Rosenwald's grandmother) who introduced her to other wealthy clients.
Her first Hollywood client was Marie Dressler
Marie Dressler
Marie Dressler was a Canadian-American actress and Depression-era film star. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930-31 in Min and Bill.-Early life and stage career:...
in 1925. By 1930, Sylvia was working at Pathe studio at $750 a week.
In that same year, she was hired by Joseph Kennedy for his mistress Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
who enthused over the miracles Sylvia worked on her body.
Hollywood Undressed
In 1932, Sylvia exposed the foibles of the Hollywood system and her illustrious clientele in the book Hollywood Undressed: Observations of Sylvia As Noted by Her Secretary (1931) Brentano's. Although said to be penned by Sylvia's secretary, the playful book, full of gossip and contemporary vernacular, was ghostwritten by newspaper reporter and screenwriter James Whittaker, the first husband of Ina ClaireIna Claire
Ina Claire was an American stage and film actress.-Career:Born Ina Fagan in 1893 in Washington, D.C., Claire began her career appearing in vaudeville...
.
Hollywood Undressed revealed intimate details of Sylvia's famous Hollywood clientele which included Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...
, Marie Dressler
Marie Dressler
Marie Dressler was a Canadian-American actress and Depression-era film star. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930-31 in Min and Bill.-Early life and stage career:...
, Mae Murray
Mae Murray
Mae Murray was an American actress, dancer, film producer, and screenwriter. Murray rose to fame during the silent film era and was known as "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" and "The Gardenia of the Screen"....
, Alice White, Bebe Daniels
Bebe Daniels
Bebe Daniels was an American actress, singer, dancer, writer and producer. She began her career in Hollywood during the silent movie era as a child actress, became a star in musicals like 42nd Street, and later gained further fame on radio and television in Britain...
, Mary Duncan
Mary Duncan
Mary Duncan was an American actress.She began her career as a child actress playing on the Broadway stage from 1910. In 1926 she played the daughter "Poppy" in the smash hit and controversial play The Shanghai Gesture. Florence Reed played her mother called Mother Goddam in which Reed kills Duncan...
, Ramón Novarro
Ramón Novarro
Ramón Novarro was a Mexican leading man actor in Hollywood in the early 20th century. He was the next male "Sex Symbol" after the death of Rudolph Valentino...
, Ruth Chatterton
Ruth Chatterton
Ruth Chatterton was an American actress, novelist, and early aviatrix.- Early life :Chatterton was born in New York City, on Christmas Eve 1892, to Walter Smith and Lillian Reed Chatterton...
, Ann Harding
Ann Harding
Ann Harding was an American theatre, motion picture, radio, and television actress.-Early years:Born Dorothy Walton Gatley at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, to George G. Gatley and Elizabeth "Bessie" Crabb. The daughter of a career army officer, she traveled often during her early life...
, Norma Talmadge
Norma Talmadge
Norma Talmadge was an American actress and film producer of the silent era. A major box office draw for more than a decade, her career reached a peak in the early 1920s, when she ranked among the most popular idols of the American screen.Her most famous film was Smilin’ Through , but she also...
, Grace Moore
Grace Moore
Grace Moore was an American operatic soprano and actress in musical theatre and film. She was nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale." Her films helped to popularize opera by bringing it to a larger audience.-Early life:...
, Constance Bennett
Constance Bennett
-Early life:She was born in New York City, the daughter of actor Richard Bennett and actress Adrienne Morrison, whose father was the stage actor Lewis Morrison , a wealthy performer of English and Spanish ancestry...
, Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
, Nella Webb, F.W. Murnau, Elsie Janis
Elsie Janis
Elsie Janis was an American singer, songwriter, actress, and screenwriter. Entertaining the troops during World War I immortalized her as "the sweetheart of the AEF" .-Early career:...
, Ernest Torrence
Ernest Torrence
Ernest Torrence was a Scottish born film character actor who appeared in many Hollywood films, including Broken Chains with Colleen Moore,Mantrap with Clara Bow, and Fighting Caravans with Gary Cooper and Lili Damita...
, Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Tibbett
Lawrence Mervil Tibbett was a great American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera company more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950...
, Laura Hope Crews
Laura Hope Crews
Laura Hope Crews was a leading actress of the American stage in the first decades of the 20th century who is best remembered today for her later work as a character actress in motion pictures of the 1930s...
, Ronald Colman
Ronald Colman
Ronald Charles Colman was an English actor.-Early years:He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith, and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he...
, Constance Cummings
Constance Cummings
Constance Cummings, CBE was an American-born British actress, known for her work on both screen and stage.Born Constance Halverstadt in Seattle, Washington, the daughter of Dallas Vernon Halverstadt, a lawyer, and his wife, Kate Logan Cummings, a concert soprano. she began as a stage actress,...
, Ina Claire
Ina Claire
Ina Claire was an American stage and film actress.-Career:Born Ina Fagan in 1893 in Washington, D.C., Claire began her career appearing in vaudeville...
, John Gilbert (actor)
John Gilbert (actor)
John Gilbert was an American actor and a major star of the silent film era.Known as "the great lover," he rivaled even Rudolph Valentino as a box office draw...
, Carmel Myers
Carmel Myers
Carmel Myers was an American actress who worked chiefly in silent movies.Myers was born in San Francisco, the daughter of an Australian rabbi and Austrian Jewish mother. Her father became well-connected with California's emerging film industry, and introduced her to film pioneer D. W. Griffith,...
, Helen Twelvetrees
Helen Twelvetrees
Helen Twelvetrees was an American stage and screen performer, considered a top female star in the early days of sound films.- Early life and career :...
, Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard
Carole Lombard was an American actress. She was particularly noted for her comedic roles in the screwball comedies of the 1930s...
, Ilka Chase
Ilka Chase
Ilka Chase was an American actress and novelist.Born in New York City and educated at convent and boarding schools in the United States, England, and France, she was the only child of Edna Woolman Chase, the editor in chief of Vogue magazine, and her first husband, Francis Dane Chase.Chase made...
, Dorothy Mackaill
Dorothy Mackaill
Dorothy Mackaill was an English-born American actress, most notably of the silent film era and into the early 1930s.-Early life:...
, Pepi Lederer
Pepi Lederer
Pepi Lederer was an American actress and writer. She was the niece of actress Marion Davies.-Early life & career:Josephine Rose Lederer was born in Chicago in 1910 and later formally adopted the name...
, Marion Davies
Marion Davies
Marion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....
, Neil Hamilton (actor), Alan Hale Sr and Vivienne Segal
Vivienne Segal
Vivienne Sonia Segal was an American actress and singer.Segal was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is best remembered for creating the role of Vera Simpson in Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's Pal Joey and introduced the song "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"...
.
Of Hollywood Undressed, Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons was the first American news-writer movie columnist in the United States. She was a gossip columnist who, for many years, was an influential arbiter of Hollywood mores, often feared and hated by the individuals, mostly actors, whose careers she could negatively impact via her...
wrote, "Perhaps no one has ever played Hollywood quite as mean a trick as the woman who came here and made her money taking care of the stars and then turned around and wrote the cruelest articles about them that have ever been written. (The book has since been republished by Kessinger Publishing, LLC with a softcover version in 1 March 2007 and a hardback edition published 13 June 2008.)
Despite the repercussions of Hollywood Undressed, Sylvia continued to give her opinion on Hollywood and its denizens, with the confidence that her clients needed her more than she needed them:
"I love them and I’m sorry for them. I’m never going back. There's too much clamor. You shrink up and get a false view of life. The only brainy people out there hide in their shells. Gloria SwansonGloria SwansonGloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
—she's very childish. She has all the earmarks of a naughty little girl—and all the charm that goes with it. When I gave her treatments she’d yell and scream like a maniac. One time she crawled under the bed and wouldn’t come out. She made nasty faces at me and I chased her around the house... Ann HardingAnn HardingAnn Harding was an American theatre, motion picture, radio, and television actress.-Early years:Born Dorothy Walton Gatley at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, to George G. Gatley and Elizabeth "Bessie" Crabb. The daughter of a career army officer, she traveled often during her early life...
is one of Hollywood's most intelligent. She has a brain like a man and works like man. Of course, she's a little careless about her appearance, like the great Maude AdamsMaude AdamsMaude Ewing Kiskadden , known professionally as Maude Adams, was an American stage actress who achieved her greatest success as Peter Pan. Adams's personality appealed to a large audience and helped her become the most successful and highest-paid performer of her day, with a yearly income of more...
, but I love her. Norma ShearerNorma ShearerEdith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s...
and Marie DresslerMarie DresslerMarie Dressler was a Canadian-American actress and Depression-era film star. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930-31 in Min and Bill.-Early life and stage career:...
are my favorites. Neither ever talks dirt. They’re the squarest shooters of all. I never heard either criticize anyone."
On 23 May 1931, Sylvia headed east to New York with writer Ursula Parrott
Ursula Parrott
Katherine Ursula Towle better known by her pen name Ursula Parrott, was an American writer of romantic fiction stories and novels.- Works :...
. By 1933, she had quit Hollywood entirely to concentrate on New York and a wider audience.
Further books
Sylvia authored three books on health, appearance and beauty: No More Alibis (1934) Photoplay Publishing, Chicago, Pull Yourself Together Baby with cartoons by Paki (1936) Macfadden, New York. and Streamline Your Figure (1939), Macfadden, New York.Priced at $1, No More Alibis was sixth on the non-fiction list of bestsellers from August 19 to September 17, 1936.
Newsreel and radio
Broadcast between 1933 and 1936, Sylvia's radio show, Mme. Sylvia was a 15 minute beauty and celebrity broadcast sponsored by Ry-KrispRy-Krisp
Ry-Krisp is a brand of rye crisp bread introduced in 1899.. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Ry-Krisp plant was purchased by Ralston Purina in 1926.. In 1994, The Ralston portion of Ralston Purina was spun off into a new company called Ralcorp Holdings with the Ry-Krisp operations included...
. Syndicated across America, her show was aired at 7:30pm on station KGO and KFI. On 3 October 1932, Sylvia's guest was Glenda Farrell
Glenda Farrell
-Career:Farrell came to Hollywood towards the end of the silent era. Farrell began her career with a theatrical company at the age of 7. She played Little Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin...
, and on 17 October the guest was Grace Moore
Grace Moore
Grace Moore was an American operatic soprano and actress in musical theatre and film. She was nicknamed the "Tennessee Nightingale." Her films helped to popularize opera by bringing it to a larger audience.-Early life:...
.
By 16 January 1934, Madame Sylvia of Hollywood broadcast over Boston's WEEI at 10:30am. By 1935, Sylvia was broadcast Wednesday nights at 10:15pm EST on stations WJZ, WBAL, WMAL, WBZ, WBZA, WSYR, WHAM, LDLA, WGAR, WENR, KWCR, KSO, KWK, KOIL, WREN, WTMJ, WIBA, WJR, KSTP, WEBC, KOA, KDYL, KPO, KFI, KGW, KOMO, KHQ and WCKY. She was also part of her sponsor Ry-Krisp
Ry-Krisp
Ry-Krisp is a brand of rye crisp bread introduced in 1899.. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Ry-Krisp plant was purchased by Ralston Purina in 1926.. In 1994, The Ralston portion of Ralston Purina was spun off into a new company called Ralcorp Holdings with the Ry-Krisp operations included...
's advertising campaigns.
According to Martin Lewis in Radio Guide (1935), Sylvia was on the air less than one minute for each of her shows: she knitted while she waited. A reference to her ‘reducing talks’ over the airwaves was published in the G-E Circle Bulletin, 7 June 1932. By 1933, her show contained dramatic sketches centering on movie stars, e.g. Dolores Del Rio
Dolores del Río
Dolores del Río was a Mexican film actress. She was a star of Hollywood films during the silent era and in the Golden Age of Hollywood...
and Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...
, one of which landed her with a lawsuit from Ginger Rogers in 1934 (see #Lawsuits below).
In 1948, Sylvia was named, "Radio phenomenon of the Thirties" in Radio & TV Life which stated she had, "...made the nation figure-conscious through her radio programs."
No recordings of Sylvia's shows are known to survive.
Fox Movietone newsreel footage featuring Sylvia, entitled Sylvia the Hollywood Masseur (sic), dated 6 April 1932, is not known to survive although it is listed as archived. Pathe Newsreel footage of Sylvia titled, ? Keeps Movie Stars In Shape, dated 16 January 1932, seems to have been lost or destroyed, although it too is catalogued and described.
Photoplay column
Sylvia had a column in PhotoplayPhotoplay
Photoplay was one of the first American film fan magazines. It was founded in 1911 in Chicago, the same year that J. Stuart Blackton founded a similar magazine entitled Motion Picture Story...
magazine, covering beauty tips, celebrity beauty issues and eventually reader's problems. The column began in February 1932 and went through various editorial changes for the next four years.
Lawsuits
Silent screen and vaudeville actress Mae MurrayMae Murray
Mae Murray was an American actress, dancer, film producer, and screenwriter. Murray rose to fame during the silent film era and was known as "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" and "The Gardenia of the Screen"....
lost a suit to Sylvia for $2125.00 for six months of massage and care while the performer was on a 1927 vaudeville tour. A more intimate take on Murray's interchanges with Sylvia are outlined in Hollywood Undressed
In 1934, Sylvia denied knowledge of events which caused a $100K suit against her by Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers
Ginger Rogers was an American actress, dancer, and singer who appeared in film, and on stage, radio, and television throughout much of the 20th century....
, who claimed that she was not on Sylvia's show when an interview on the show purported to be her.
Rogers won the lawsuit, settling out of court.
Marriages and children
In 1903, Sylvia married Andrew Ulback (born Denmark 29 November 1880). The couple had two sons: Edward (aka Eyolf) Ulback (2 December 1903 - 22 February 1997) and Finn Ulback (24 August 1908 - 29 December 1969). Sylvia, Andrew and their sons immigrated to the US in 1921. By 1930, Andrew had a career as a beauty-cream manufacturer.According to the 1930 census, both sons, who were 6 feet tall, worked at film studios: Edward as a utility worker and Finn as a film cutter and later as a sound effects editor for TV, including the popular Combat! series. Both sons enlisted (as single men) in World War II, and had the rank of Private. Finn enlisted on 6 February 1943. Edward Ulback became a biblical/classical historian, listed as an author in various journal articles 1932-46. Although Finn married, neither of Sylvia's sons had children.
On 27 June 1932, Sylvia and Andrew divorced in Mexico. Andrew died on September 26, 1948, in Los Angeles.
On 1 July 1932, Sylvia married Edward Leiter (born 7 September 1903 in San Francisco), during a thunderstorm in Egremont, Massachusetts, USA. Edward Leiter was the son of Mrs Ella Leiter of Los Angeles and a nephew of Joseph Leiter, Chicago financier. A graduate of the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
, he had performed in various stage productions and had studied in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
.
Later years and death
After 1939, Sylvia withdrew from the media. Sylvia and her husband Edward died within a month of each other in Santa Monica, CaliforniaSanta Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
, with Edward dying in February 1975 and Sylvia following him in March 1975.
Sylvia was cremated at Odd Fellows Cemetery & Crematory in Los Angeles, California, USA. Her ashes were ‘neptuned’ or scattered at sea. At the time of her death, her profession was listed as "housewife" for 60 years.
Rediscovery
A radio documentary entitled Svelte Sylvia & The Hollywood Trimsters, was broadcast 26 August 2010 on BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...