Radio and television mirror (Nov 1939-Apr 1940)

hearted. Hunger, perhaps. Or maybe that sense of fate, which was very near him now. At any rate, he did not try to find a place to sleep, or even a place to eat. He ambled along, admiring the sights, feeling the pleasant flick of the snow on his face, remembering Christmases back home. Suddenly he stopped short before a gaudy poster, pasted outside a theater. A name, familiar, beloved, leaped out at him like an old friend. Shakespeare. It was an advertisement of a repertory company — and it read that Shakespeare's ''Macbeth" was to be played that night. Without a moment's hesitation or thought, Orson made his decision. No meal. No place to sleep that night. He walked into the theater, and laid down his five shillings. "One ticket," he said, "for Macbeth." He did not know that on that simple decision lay his life's career. It was not a very big theater, the Gate. Nor were there many people in the audience that wintry night. But the actors knew their business, and Orson sat enthralled from the beginning to the end. He forgot his hunger, the cold, the fact that he was alone in a strange city. At the end of the play, the man sitting beside him plucked him by the sleeve. "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" Orson turned, startled. For a moment he did not place that face. Then it came back to him. A young man he had met on the road. A poet. They had passed a pleasant day together, talking about Yeats and Synge and Lady Gregory. He smiled. I REMEMBER— two miles out of I Connemara. We met on the road." "That's right. What are you doing in Dublin?" Orson hesitated. If he told this young man that he was broke, the young man would feel compelled to take him in. He did not want to embarrass him. Casually he said: — "Oh — just spending the winter. Good play, wasn't it?" "Awfully." The young man was friendly. "I come here regularly. They're a splendid cast. I know the director. Like to meet him?" "Yes." It would be warm backstage, and perhaps there would be food, something to drink He followed the young man eagerly down the aisle, into the orchestra pit and through the napping curtain up beneath the apron of the stage. Actors and stage-hands were running about. He could smell the creamy odor of the grease-paint, the musty .odor of old costumes. The place thrilled him. They rounded a curtain and entered a dingy little office, scattered with posters and costumes. He found himself shaking hands with a tall, friendly man. "This is a friend of mine — an American, from New York," he heard himself being introduced by the poet of Connemara. But he was not really listening. Someone was shaking a thunder screen in the distance. There was the smell of fire in the air — and steam — the Hellfire of Macbeth. It did something to him. His head felt light and giddy. "My name is Welles," he said slowly, as though in a dream. "George Orson Welles. I'm an actor — with the Theater Guild in New York." The sentence, dream-like or not, NOVEMBER, 1939 "Why would any mother want to make a little girl cry!" Grannie shows Millie a modern way to raise her child 1. GRANNIE: Land's sake. Millie, haven't you gone far enough? A body would think you had a grudge against the child. MILLIE: But Grannie, I'm doing it only for her own good. 2. GRANNIE: My stars! Since when did using force on a child do any good? I heard the doctor tell your Cousin Sue that using force can throw a child's whole nervous system out of order. i 3. GRANNIE: He said it's wrong to make children take anything they don't like. A child should get a pleasant-tastm laxative . . . MILLIE: That's easy. I could give her the one I ncle Joe takes . . . 4. GRANNIE: Hold your horses, dear. A laxative strong enough for Uncle Joe can be TOO strong for a tot. The doctor said a child should get a laxative made only for children. So he recommended Fletcher's Castoria. 5. GRANNIE: He said Fletcher's Castoria 6. MILLIE: Grannie! Am I dreaming! Or is she meets every medical requirement for a child's laxative. It tastes nice. It's mild because it's made especially and only for children. It acts natural-like. And it's SAFE . . . How about getting a bottle now? really taking this Fletcher's Castoria without a peep? GRANNIE: You're not dreaming. Millie. You'll never have any laxative troubles in this house again! GL^ftf&zzfal CASTORIA The modern — SAFE — laxative made especially for children 57