Radio mirror (Nov 1936-Apr 1937)

A MODERN MIRACLE ON a frosty night in early October a very amazing thing happened in Studio 3-H at Radio Gity. A tall and regal woman of fifty-seven summers stood beside a microphone and calmly proceeded to turn back the clock. She slipped her feet from their matronly suede walking oxfords into a smaller frivolous pair of hightopped white satin dancing shoes with pink bows on the toes and long rows of buttons running gaily up the sides and fancifully curved French heels. She changed the coiffure of her gray-streaked reddish hair for a cap of dark auburn waves that folded into a smooth bun low on her neck. With a single effort she pinched her waist into a size sixteen gown of mauve and gold taffeta such as lovely ladies of high degree wore at the turn of the century. And then with a word, a pause, a sentence, the wrinkled fabrics of her cheeks and throat and hands were suddenly transformed—with all the world to witness it — into the glowing fresh skin of a girl in her teens. It was a calm and orderly procedure, all this. She worked her magic without an ounce of obvious nervousness. She didn't clutch at the mike stand with trembling fingers like Dietrich, or twist a half dozen handkerchiefs to shreds like Crawford or reach for the ammonia between scenes like Colbert. Instead she sat engrossed in a copy of "Gone With the Wind" until she heard her cue, then shut the book quietly, laid it aside and started speaking as she walked toward the microphone. And with her first line Ethel Barrymore was restored to America' as the Ethel Barrymore of thirtyfive years ago! As "that electric youngster, Lionel Barrymore's little sister." As "the darling of American and European society." And later "the most en 36 By MARY WATKINS REEVES ■ For Miss Barrymore's show sponsored by Bayer, see p. 50. .: