Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

Continued from page 14 Land who are Really Loaded. And I am not talking about occasional movie producers like Howard Hughes, whose primary business is in oil drilling equipment (Hughes Tool Co.) and Texas beer, but those actively involved in the entertainment profession. The richest, by far. is Jules Stein, the emir of Music Corporation of America. Stein, according to the MCA prospectus, has the most shares of common stock. His holdings (apart from his preferred stock) is worth Sixty Million Bux. He became a multinaire in the early 30’s buying Paramount Pictures stock at $2. His real estate holdings and antique furniture collection are guesstimated at fifty million. Of the actors who are Reeeleeeee Rich, don't overlook Jimmy Stewart. He is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of about Forty Million. Stewart parlayed his considerable movie earnings in oil and ranch land. He has made dozens of oil investments and never hit a dry hole! Stewart, who once went hungry along Broadway waiting for The Break, now expects to get wealthier via his share in a wildcatter’s oil project in Ireland. We checked this with Stewart as he rooted for the Dodgers in landlord Walter O'Malley's box at Chavez Ravine, a few weeks before that exciting team practically gave the National League flag to the San Francisco Luckies. Stewart, by the way, was the pioneer who waived his film wages in favor of 50 p.c. of the profits. From a number of pictures, especially “Winchester ’73’’ and “The Glenn Miller Story,’’ his take (from each of those flick-clicks) exceeds $5,000,000. Then there’s Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson’s film buddy, who is worth about Twenty Million — all out of Black Gold. Cary Grant (“Mr. Leading Man”) came to the U. S. from Britain as Archie Leach and started his search for wealth as a lifeguard at a Coney beach. He never has to worry over where his next pound of caviar is coming from. Cary’s last half-dozen hit pictures were fully financed by Universallnt’1, but he rates 75 p.c. of the loot and (at the end of seven years) the negatives revert to Grant. The teevee rights to those pictures are said to be valued at about Ten Million. Cary, according to his few chums, has the Second Buck he ever made. With the first, one assumes, he bought a pocketbook. Other wealthy citizens of Hollyweird are Loretta Young, Robert Stack. Doris Day and her husband, Marty Melcher, Ray Milland, Bill Holden, Randy Scott, Irene Dunne, Corinne Griffith, Dinah Shore and Roz Russell. And, we are told, if Frank Sinatra were to liquidate his holdings his take would be about $15,000,000. In 1951 Sinatra’s salary for his adroit portrayal of Maggio in “From Here To Eternity” was $8,000 and he needed the money. It was this film that catapulted him back onto the Hollywood Heights where he is Monarch of all he surveys. Most of you could live like he does on the coin he gives away to less fortunate friends and some people he doesn’t even know. A little known filman to most moviegoers is Eddie Small, another member of the multi-multi-millionaire club. Mr. Small is a former acrobat who became a booking agent on Broadway and later in Hollywood. He discovered that money grew on quickies and so he became one of the first quickie film producers. Small then invested in Wilshire Boulevard property; in Beverly Hills (one of the richest communities in the fifty States) and in San Fernando Valley real estate. That was ’way back in the 1920s, mind you, when that land was practically desert. He has yet to peddle a foot of his considerable holdings. They say he is landlord of about 500 acres of California property estimated to be worth $50,000 per acre. Yes, the rich get richer and the poor get used to it. Of the journalists now in tht Big Money there is TV critic Jack O’Brian of The N. Y. J ournalAmerican. He served his apprenticeship as reporter for Buffalo, N.Y. (his home town) papers and as a drama critic in Manhattan for the Associated Press. Not too many decades ago O’Brian was penniless. Now his riches include property in New York, Buffalo, the Bahamas and California and he is on the board of several corporations. A thrilling Horatio Alger story, considering that when he was a youth (and had to help carry the freight to help support his parents) he toiled hard as a gravedigger. When that fact was made known to Orson Welles, one of his victims of a sour notice, the portly Shakespearean actor exploded: “He started as a gravedigger? He still is!” * A newsmag recently put words into Joe DiMaggio’s mouth that he never uttered. Commenting on the barring of Marilyn Monroe’s movie friends from the funeral services, the article stated: “DiMaggio said that he barred them because ‘if it weren’t for some of them she would still be alive!’” He never said that or anything like it. But some of us who know about several things that led to Marilyn’s tragic end, say it now. The public would be appalled if it knew how some alleged friends used her. We mean the highly-placed non-professionals who knew she wasn't a drinker (she never drank when wed to Joe) but who introduced her first to mild wines — then champagne — which helped her forget problems. After she split out with DiMaggio. one of her first escorts discovered that she relaxed before the lens when she “had a glow” from the grape. What about those “friends” at the Foreign Correspondents’ Golden Globe Awards? The people who knew Marilyn was to be honored as “No. 1 International Star” but kept filling her glass until she staggered to the podium (and mikes) where teevee viewers witnessed Marilyn’s drunk scene? What about the famed married couple (not in show biz) who got her so spifflicated at Lake Tahoe (where j the Clan gathers) that proprietor Sinatra rushed Marilyn back to her Beverly Hills home by limousine to protect her from that pair of lushes and the press, who might be tipped. Sinatra, according to friends of mine (on another occasion there), was so disgusted with this team (and their wild alcohol sprees) that he had staffers pick them up from the floor and flown back to Hollywood in his private plane. To keep his new Tahoe investment from “getting in the papers” by their antics. And to spare their famed kin from sharing the headlines. “If any of this gets into any paper or magazine,” Frank reportedly cautioned one-and-all, “all of you will be fired!” But you cannot keep name-droppers from talking and a lot of them gabbed about those “scenes.” Some of us published part of it via “blind” items. The insiders got the message — the outsiders didn’t matter. That is why Joe DiMaggio kept the services for his beloved private and dignified. And that is why he doesn’t talk to any of them anymore. * Jayne Mansfield is itemed as dating thisand-that lad, but the One Who Matters is Jorge Guinle, the Brazillionaire. We saw them giving each other That Look at the Chardas — the place in New York where her estranged mate Mickey Hargitay proposed marriage to her . . . Gal-Pals in the swankier spots: Mrs. Cary Cooper and Mrs. Jason Robards, Jr. (Lauren Bacall) swapping girl-talk at luncheon in the chic La Cote Basque . . . The Cesar RomeroElizabeth Allen duetcetra has intimates wondering if they aren’t secretly sealed? Such admiration at the First-Nights between acts in the foyers. You’d never know they adored each other unless you looked at them. Elizabeth is John Wayne’s leading distaffer in “Donovan’s Reef.” Romero told us that lie’s had a crack at almost every branch of show biz but that he’d “just love playing even a bit role in ‘The Untouchables.’ ” The last big star who told me that was Barbara Stanwyck (over a year ago). “Walter,” she walter’d, “you simply must get me into that show!” I relayed the news to Desi Arnaz. Barbara appeared in two of the Elliot Ness stanzas recently— they are practically pilots for new Desilu shows starring her. Me and my little magic wand! * Another thespian paying 91 cents out of every dollar to his Uncle Samson is Robert Preston. Because of his percentage deal with Warners on the album of the “Music Man” sound track. It sold over half-a-million copies in less than a month . . . New show biz feud: The Gabor Girls and Pamela Mason. Allegedly over the latter’s comments on a program . . . Several show folks I know in the Broadway theaters have armed themselves against muggers. They are protected by trained police dogs, who attack on command . . . Add don’t invitems: Merle Oberon and Steve Cochran, who are said to have tiffed incessantly while co-starring in a film . . . Their pals couldn’t have been more pleased about Janet Leigh’s merger with Robert Brandt. Both listed as “regular guys.” So