Christina Schollin

This is a 1966 Lydia Lane article. Enjoy!

Christina Schollin had many opportunities to show her undraped body in the prize winning Swedish film “Dear John,” so it was surprising to learn that at the time of filming she had a baby less than a month old.

“It is not difficult to regain your figure if you exercise during pregnancy and afterward,” she told me on her recent visit here for the Academy Awards. Swedes are “‘We physical culture minded, but it is only recently that we have adopted your habit of counting calories.” Christina praised the slim figures of the American girls and matrons. “It is an inspiration,” she said, ordering a salad for lunch. We talked specifically about exercise, and Christina confessed that a few hours after her born she began bed exercises. With the doctors permission she sat up and then slowly lowered her back to the mattress.

She lifted one leg at a time and rotated her foot, circling her ankle first in one direction and then the other. She raised her head and lowered it to touch her chin to her chest. “These exercises don’t sound strenuous, but it is an important beginning,” she said. There is a uniformmity to diets that transcends nationality. According to Christina the girls in Stockholm take off extra pounds with a diet like this: black coffee, fruit juice and dry melba toast for breakfast.

Cold sliced beef and a generous serving of. lettuce, tomato and cucumber salad make up a lunch. Dinner may be fish with wine and more “The important point,” she emphasized, “is to eliminate bread, butter, potatoes and rich desserts.”