Yma Sumac

This is a 1953 Lydia Lane article where songstress Yma Sumac talks about a bunch of beauty stuff. Enjoy!

Yma Sumac, the Peruvian songbird who has a phenomenal range of four octaves, has won fans through records, radio, and night clubs and now, for the first time she is making a picture in Hollywood. Her test for Paramount’s “Legend of the Incas” came off so well that she was signed immediately. When I visited Miss Sumac in her Cheviot Hills home I heard an alluring beat of drums. In the garage I saw three men dancing. Yma’s composer husband, Moises Vivanco, had arranged for their night club engagement at the Mocambo and he was rehearsing them in a new act. Miss Sumac, wearing a black and gold hostess gown, greeted me in a soft voice with surprisingly little accent

I told her I was glad to hear she was finally going to make a picture in Hollywood. “It came very quickly,” Miss Sumac said with delight, “and I was told to lose ten-pounds. I have lost seven of them in two weeks, and three more to go. Then I will be able to wear a size ten.” As Miss Sumac Is only five feet two, seven pounds percentage wise is quite a lot. I wanted to know more about this reducing schedule. “I go to a doctor and he tells me to eat fruit, one boiled egg and black coffee for breakfast For lunch cottage cheese and fresh fruit, and black coffee. In the evening I may have steak, chops, kidneys, fish or chicken, carrots, spinach or green vegetable and fruit Nothing between meals, but he gives me vitamins to keep me strong.”

As I sat next to Yma Sumac, direct descendant of the last Emperor of the Inca’s, I wondered if this Peruvian girl, born in Cajamarca 16,-000 feet in the Andes, had any premonition of the fame which was to be hers. “My nurse did,” she said quietly. “As a little girl I used to sing to the stones and the trees who were my friends and I remember my nurse told my mother: ‘Someday this girl will make music for the whole world’.” Rumors of her extraordinary voice spread to Lima and a composer, who was destined to become her husband, traveled 16 days to investigate the girl who sang like the birds.

“Mr. Vivanco arrived at our village while I was singing in our Sun God festival. Later he came to our house to persuade my mother to allow me to become a professional. I was 14 at the time and my mother said no. I must finish my education. But he gave his address to my maid and when I came to Lima he taught me to read music.” Miss Sumac had an almost instant success in South America and, Mexico but she was four years in New York before she recorded on Capitol records and became an overnight sensation. “I remember we arrived at our hotel around 5 o’clock. I looked at the big streets with plenty of lights and noticed what a hurry everyone was making.”

It Is not eood to rush,” Miss Su mac commented. “When I ask why are you in a hurry? they never can tell me. “Do you have trouble relaxing now that you live here? Select Your New Fur Now “No trouble,” Miss Sumac said as she shook her pretty head. “I know how to relax. I go to my room alone. Sometimes I sing songs of Lovely Scarfs my people, or play records. I never make a quick decision and I never allow myself to hurry. As Miss Sumac was talking I admired her delicate hands with slender fingers and asked: “How do you grow such long nails?”

Being healthy has a. great deal to do with this,” she said, giving praise to the diet of the Quechua Indians. “They do not know what the people of. Lima know about nutrition but they eat what is good for them. They have simple food beef, eggs, cheese, milk, car rots, spinach natural rice, fruit, but no sweets and very little starch. And,” Yma added, “it was not our custom to eat between meals.”

Though Miss Sumac is in her 20s, she has a masklike beauty which appears ageless. We chatted about this and she asked: “Why care about age? With my people no one remembers birthdays. They never say ‘this year I will be so much,’ and worry about how old they are getting. “There Is a psychology in not counting your age.” she added. “I have an uncle who lives in New York and he looks like 40 but no one knows that he is almost more than twice that. But he doesn’t mention this because he knows that the soul is always young. “I love very much the United States. People have been wonderful to me but I wish the people did not worry so much, hurry so much and marry so much. In my village the girl lives for one year with the family of the boy she is going to marry. They learn to know and understand each other before the wedding and there is no divorce. “Finding the right man and not hurrying,” Yma concluded, “will keep any woman happy and younger.”