TV Radio Mirror (Jul - Dec 1962)

ment of gross indiscretion, Mary publicly stated that he was her favorite star. Innocent enough on the surface? But remember that at the time she said this she was married to a superstar, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. — the same Fairbanks whom our actor had spoofed. Our hero's real trouble, however, was political. Adolf Hitler declared him Verboten and called for the Nazis to ban him from Germany forever. Our hero was a triumph in Technicolor, but his political fortunes wavered up and down. Even though Japan designated him a patron saint in 1936, he created a minor government crisis in Yugoslavia when government leaders split down the middle in a debate on whether or not he was a "good influence." Your own government, Nikita, goofed in 1935 when one of your assistant commissars at the First Soviet Cinema Festival awarded the star's father in absentia (in behalf of his under-age son) a special prize for excellence. (It's significant that your people never had a chance to see the star's films.) And that the assistant commissar paid for his mistake by spending his summers — and his winters — in Siberia. By means of the silver screen and the pages of comic books and comic strips, our hero received tremendous publicity, and popularity, and worldwide honors. But he also created a toyland, literary and industrial empire. It started right after "Steamboat Willie" sailed into the hearts of Americans. As his father recalls it: "I was in New York. A fellow kept hanging around the hotel waving three hundred dollars at me, and saying he wanted to put my offspring on the cheap paper tablets children use in school. ... I needed the money, so I signed and took the three hundred dollars." That opened the door and other promoters rushed in. Soon the star's face, figure and name were featured on such diverse products as gum and candy wrappers, clothes, novelties, mittens cloth prints, jewelry, balls, phonograph records, games, beds, cereal boxes, sweatshirts, and pajamas. Oh, yes, and watches. We mustn't forget watches. And because you're hung up on statistics, Comrade K., you might want to note that, in the year 1948 alone, manufacturers in this country grossed $100,000,000 because of such tie-ins, of which our hero's father pocketed over a million dollars. (And that, Nikita, may be "exploitation" to you, but it's "capitalist enterprise" to us.) But let's go back a minute to the period between 1942 and 1944. (We know you like everything neat and in orderly progression.) That's when you welcomed the actor and his films (maybe even some of the watches) into your country. We were all buddy-buddy then, with one goal foremost: to defeat our mutual enemies — the German Nazis and the Japanese militarists. For a short time then, our star became your star, too. In the front lines, our soldiers and technicians did a better job in fighting the enemy because of the training they'd received from special films featuring him. When dis aster or disease struck our fighting men, their lives were saved because of new medical techniques that our doctors and nurses learned from such films. And behind the lines — behind your lines and our lines — men, women and children were saved from starvation because of food-growing and food-saving devices taught to them in those films. Remember June 6, 1944, when millions of Allied troops invaded Normandy. On that day, that fatal day, when civilization hung in the balance, it was his name, a name known to all, that served as the official password during the invasion. We admit things were rough for him after victory had been won. Like many other returning veterans, he just couldn't adjust to civilian life. There were new stars, new names now. "Typical capitalist callousness," you say. Make an actor into a hero one day and then cast him into the ashcan the next. "A pathetic victim of a dying system." The aging screen star who, after a rapid rise to fame and a few years in the limelight, falls into limbo. Hey, wait a minute, Nicky. It's commissars who are shunted off to the Siberian salt mines from which they never come back. Not our movie hero. For our star did come back. He conquered TV as previously he had conquered talking pictures and Technicolor innovations. By 1955 he had a national viewing audience of more than 40,000,000. That made his program more popular than "Dragnet." In 1956, when he became an emcee of his own TV program, he held his audience captivated five nights a week. It was as if the years had rolled back to the late Twenties. His eyes were as bright as ever; his voice squeaked with the enthusiasm of youth. For 180 shows in a row, his white-gloved hands hypnotized his viewers. 25,000,000 youngsters and uncounted oldsters tuned in on him each evening. At first teachers protested that students didn't do their homework because they watched him instead. Finally, yielding to. superior forces, the teachers built lessons around the program. Okay, okay, we know that when you visited the United States and went out to the West Coast you were barred from his home. But what can you expect? You rejected him before he rejected you. If you had only opened your heart to him and his message, perhaps the world would be a better place. What is his message? What does he stand for? Well, perhaps you're right; perhaps the spirit he represents is just too alien to everything you believe. For it was his father, viewing the world as his son views it, who once said: "I believe that you will find this spontaneous reaching out for the fine and beautiful in all mankind; it is man's indestructible and godlike quality, and the guarantee of his future. All men want to be better than they are. And once a man's tasted freedom, he will never be content with slavery." You're included in that phrase, "all mankind," Mr. Khrushchev. 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