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THE sophisticated giggles that greeted the disastrous result of Liddie Cantor's prize essay contest last spring burst out anew this winter when he announced that he would offer another $5,000 prize for another essay, this time on safe driving.
"He's asking for it !" exclaimed the cynical denizens of show business. And they laughed — the easy laughter that worldly wisdom always has for the idealist.
But if they knew the whole story back of Eddie Cantor's idealism, they might agree with me that he is wiser than they. Even, perhaps, more of a realist than they. . . .
Most people, in Eddie Cantor's place, would remember last year's fiasco all too vividly — how, when he offered a $5,000 scholarship for an essay on world peace, a well meaning but over-zealous youth submitted an essay written by a noted teacher, and won the prize, making Cantor the laughing stock of the whole country. And, remembering it, they'd rather die than risk being taken for an unpleasant ride a second time.
Why did Eddie Cantor come back for more? Is he so anxious for publicity that he is willing to court ridicule?
THE MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION THAT
EDDIE CANTOR
By DOROTHY BROOKS
By listening to his program overflowing with zest, you know what life means to htm. For the show's time, see page 54.
Will he spend $5,000 of his own money for the privilege of sticking his head into another noose?
The answers to those questions are not simple, but they are supremely important — not only to Eddie Cantor, but to you who read this. Eddie Cantor is in the grip of a magnificent obsession, not unlike the "Magnificent Obsession" of the famous novel by Lloyd Douglas. But Eddie has carried the idea farther; made it, I think, even more important than Mr. Douglas' original philosophy.
Seven years ago, as perhaps you know, Eddie lay broken in health in a California desert resort. He was fighting for his life. The doctors told him he had an acute case of pleurisy, but Eddie knew that more than his body was sick. His soul was sick, too.
Of course, when a man's body is sick, he is mentally depressed, too. But the doctors had told him if he went back to the strenuous life of show business he would be dead in a year. He had spent his life eating, sleeping, breathing show business — and he knew, when the doctors told him their verdict, that he would rather die than give up his work.
Eddie had never before had time to take inventory of himself and his accomplishments. Away back in the days when he was a singing waiter he had fixed his eyes on theatrical stardom, and there his eyes had been fixed ever since. He'd had no time for anything else. The scramble for success had transcended everything else. Success had come. And — so what?
So he was a great Ziegfeld star. So he was rich, and famous. And he was well beloved ^^ \ in his own profession. Yet if
^^Kj^^W he died in a year, all that would
^^ die with him. He had traded
m^ his health for what he had now
— and what did he really have? Nothing. Nothing at least, that anyone would give thought to a few years hence.