The camera is amazing. Most ordinary people look pretty terrible on TV. The thing about the camera adding 20 lbs. is true. Only maybe it’s more like 50 lbs.
Short people look good in the movies and on television—maybe they seem to fit in to the environment more easily. Big people tend to look clumsy and oafish. Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson are both 5’6”, I think. Joan Crawford was 5’0”, or so, but rarely looked anything but intimidating on screen. The movie camera seems to like people with small bodies and big faces with well-defined features—big nose, strong cheekbones, strong jaw, etc. I’m sure it has a great deal to do with the absence of depth perception in film and television.