Canadian Film Weekly (Jan 31, 1945)

January 31, 1945 Canadian FILM WEEKLY Page 11 The Heart of Show Business Canada’s first Variety Tent is being organized now. A committee of ll, of which Oscar Hanson is chairman, has applied for a charter in behalf of members of the Toronto amusement field and it is hoped that the showmen of other Canadian cities will do the same. Along with the opportunity to do good work, Variety maintains clubrooms where members of the amusement industry can spend several friendly hours together. No such centre exists in any Canadian City now. Presented here is the story of Variety — its history and its work. N Thanksgiving Day, 1928, O a month-old baby was found in the nursery of the Sheridan Square Theatre, Pittsburgh, with a scribbled note pinned to her dress, signed “A broken-hearted mother”: “I cannot afford to keep this child. Her name is Catherine. I have six others. She was born October 24 and I am leaving her in this theatre because of what I have heard of the charity of show people, with a prayer that you will care fer her.” That unscheduled event at this western Pennsylvania motion picture theatre led to the founding sixteen years ago of the Variety Club of Pittsburgh, because -the unmarried house manager, who discovered the child, needed help and advice in the care of the baby. Somewhere, but not in Pittsburgh, there is an anonymous sixteen-year-old girl living happi All-Time Beauts Picked by Critic One of the most interesting forms of movie promotion under non-movie auspices is being demonstrated in the Toronto Daily Star currently. In that newspaper Augustus Bridle, its all-around authority on the arts for the past 24 years, has named the nine most beautiful motion picture actresses of all time and has invited the public to name the tenth. Mrs. Bridle, the Star explains, “has been an expert on the movies since they climbed out of ignominy and became a definite form of theatre.” Asked to pick the ten most beautiful actresses in movie history, the veteran critic stopped at nine. ‘There isn’t another who belongs in that company,” he told the writer of the story. ‘‘You’ll have to call it the ‘nine best’ and let it go at that.” The reader is then asked to use the ballot at the end of the story to cast a vote for the movie queen he or she believes should occupy 10th place. Mr. Bridle’s nine choices are: Vilma Banky Corrine Griffith Billie Dove Gloria Swanson Jean Harlow Marlene Dietrich Greta Garbo Norma Shearer Vivien Leigh ly today with adopted parents. If she knew her true life story she could call herself the inspiration of the 26 Variety Clubs now dedicating themselves to good works. . In his final week as Secretary cf State, Cordell Hull received from the Variety Clubs their annual Humanitarian Award, which had in previous years been given to Sister Elizabeth Kenny, Martha Berry, Father B. J. Flanagan, and to the late George Washington Carver. At this recent conyention in Washington, theatre men from every state in the Union gave their annual accounting of the humanitarian work being done in their various communities. In honor of Catherine, Tent No. 1 in Pittsburgh each year adopts another child for whom it finds a home with loving parents. Meanwhile, underprivileged thousands have been the recipients of help from the showmen of western Pennsylvania under the leadership of John H. Harris, founder of the first Variety Club and “big boss” of the twenty-five others now in operation. First Columbus and’ then Cincinnati set up tents modeled after the Pittsburgh inspiration, and are now old hands at helping the unfortunates in Ohio. In St. Louis last year 6,000 babies were cared for at the nursery for service men’s wives and children at the Union Station. Largely through their efforts in 35 athletic centres equipped by the Variety Tent, there was a 27 per cent decrease in juvenile delinquency last year in St. Louis, which led all cities in crime reduction, The 230 members of the Detroit Tent have found their greatest usefulness in supplying equipment for the hard-of-hearing to 200 deaf children from kindergarten to college age. During 1945 they have set aside $15,000 to be spent in supplying ear phones to those with deficient hearing and in teaching lip reading instead of sign. language to the totally deaf. Learning that there was no hospital equipment for the treatment of brain tumors in Buffalo, the Variety Tent there, consisting of 1383 members, bought and presented to a Buffalo hospital the only brain tumor machine in western New York. In Albany last year, 450 underprivileged boys were cared for at the variety mountain camp of 30 acres. The 370 members of the Variety Club in Washifhgton, D.C., have equipped dental clinics in four hospitals, donated an ambulance to the District of Columbia, supplied movies to shut-ins, financed a glaucoma clinic to prevent blindness, and presented to hospitals 20 incubators for premature babies, thus reducing from 29 per cent to 13 per cent the mortality rate of 1,500 infants. In Minneapolis the Variety Club during 1944 spent $121,000 for local charities, including a gift of $99,000 to the Elizabeth Kenny Institute for treatment of poliomyelitis. During the last decade the Philadelphia Tent spent a total of $400,000 for the treatment of infantile paralysis. In Omaha a $12,000 fund is being raised for a new building at the Children’s Memorial Ho spital. Dayton is making contributions to a hospital ward for the Sisters of the Sick. Baltimore maintains a camp for crippled children and helps support the Philburn Home for foundling and wayward children. During 1944, the Variety Club members in Atlanta contributed $175,000 to various local causes, including the rehabilitation of delinquent girls. Two hundred forty-five members in Boston provide movies for shut-ins and conduct a summer camp for boys. The poor children of Charlotte are given free medical attention at a Variety eye, ear, nose and throat clinic. The 274 Chicago members spend about $10,000 annually, and last year cared for 200 children suffering from rheumatic heart trouble. The 309 members in Los Angeles are at present making contributions to a home for asthmatic children, and during 1945 will spend $100,000 to build and operate a hospital for prematurely born infants. In each city a survey is made of the most urgent community service, and these varied needs are being supplied by the -big hearts and hard work of Variety Tents in Indianapolis, Cleveland and Memphis. The Variety Club Health Center, a 328-room air conditioned hospital, gives physical evidence of the activities of the showmen of Oklahoma. Last year they helped establish in the Oklahoma City Health Center the only mothers’ milk bank west of St. Louis. Their 1945 project calls for the erection in Tulsa of a health center for Negroes at a cost of $90,000. Under the leadership of Robert J. O'Donnell, head barker of National Variety Clubs, the Dallas Tent continues its work on a scale commensurate with the big heart of Texas. In the last decade its 624 members have spent a quarter of a million dollars on their various good works which include a children’s clinic, a swimming pool for poor children, a boys’ camp on a 40-acre faym, a home for foundling children and a 1,600-acre ranch home for delinquent boys. In giving his report on the Dallas Tent the Texas barked observed that “Humility is the hardest virtue to practice, because aS soon as you have achieved humility, you get proud.” It may be some comfort to “a broken-hearted mother” that the child she abandoned in a movie theatre sixteen years ago has inspired literally a million good deeds for other children.