Screenland (May 1943-Oct 1944)

when they are too busy working to go out on tour. They finish a day in front of the movie cameras, hop into a car and go to a recording studio, eat dinner (a sandwich and a glass of milk) while rehearsing and wax the transcription before going home. Or they do shows on Sunday. Entertaining the armed forces costs the stars plenty in time and effort and even more in cash. Kay Kyser is a good example. Kyser takes his entire commercial radio show into camps. Since Pearl Harbor he has given up well over a million dollars in contracts to play free for the men in uniform. Carole Landis, Kay Francis, Martha Rave and Mitzi Mayfair took a fair jaunt of 37,000 miles for five months to entertain American troops in England and North Africa. Five months' salary for the girls figures up to a lot of cabbage. Joan Blondell went to Newfoundland and made domestic tours that consumed about six months of her time, and there are a lot of folks in Southern California who are retired on less than Joanie can earn in a half-year period. Joe E. Brown, whose son, Don, died following the crash of his Army plane, spent seven months overseas. First he made a trip to Alaska, the initial offshore tour negotiated by a Hollywood personality, then an expedition to the South Pacific. Edward G. Robinson, who made a trip to England for the OWI and who does free radio shows for the government, is reported to have given one hundred thousand dollars to the USO. Adolphe Menjou recently returned from a five months' trip through England, Sicily and Africa. His movie salary for five months would come to well over seventy-five thousand dollars. When Reggie Gardiner started a recent tour, the only train space available was an upper berth. Philip Dorn's schedule went awry, and he found himself with a night to spend in Dallas — where lines start forming at hotel desks at noon. He spent the night on a park bench. Players entertaining in the desert give their performances on open platforms in the sun, where the thermometer hits 130. Gloria Jean folded up on a Saturday afternoon performance, dosed up on salt tablets and went on again Sunday afternoon. In a Denver camp Mickey Rooney gave eight fifty-five minute shows a day, singing, dancing and cracking gags. In a two weeks' tour he wore out two pairs of shoes. Edgar Kennedy made forty-seven appearances in one day in New Mexico. During the cross-country tour of the Hollywood Cavalcade, which consisted of twelve top stars, more than $1,079,586,819 in bonds were sold to help the Third War Loan campaign, and altogether it is estimated that movie personalities have sold more than two billion dollars worth of War Bonds. If you think this sum is staggering, consider the value of the time the players give free to such work. A man like Ronald Colman ordinarily earns seven thousand five hundred dollars for a radio broadcast, but he has done any number gratis for Uncle Sam without giving it a second thought. Oddly enough, the assignment players like most is a trip overseas to one of the active fronts, despite the dangers. According to countless letters on file at the War Department, the visit of a movie star to a fighting front is the greatest morale builder the Army has found so far. The movies are a part of everyday life for most Americans and the faces of their screen favorites are so familiar that soldiers always confess they feel as though they have talked to someone from home after meeting a Hollywood actor. Players are considered practically old friends, and the men yearn for their visits. A player doesn't have to be able to do a song and dance to give the fighting man a thrill, according to Adolphe Menjou. This actor spent a great deal of his time autographing "V" letter forms for soldiers in North Africa and England and the men were so proud of them that they used the forms for letters to send back home, taking care to write all around the Menjou scrawl so their folks would know they had met and talked to a genuine movie star. Rosalind Russell, who is a member of the Executive Committee of the Victory Committee, proved the value of this kind of personal contact with men in the armed forces during the early days of our active participation in the war. Roz offered herself as a guinea pig by making a tour across the country, merely talking to the men and shaking hands. Her reception couldn't have been more enthusiastic if she had worn pink tights and stood on her head at every appearance. But to give you an example of how even a remote contact with a star peps the men up, consider the case of Betty Grable. The War Department, in response to ninety-six specific requests from the Pacific war theater, put Betty on the radio and had her sing "Song of the Islands." "Hollywood has made these islands vastly different from what they are," wrote one petitioner, "but when we hear Betty Grable sing about them they look a darn sight more like a scenarist's pipe dream than they really are." The experience of Andy Devine also points to the complete cooperation of players once they put themselves in the hands of the War Department. Andy had been told to prepare for a tour of the South Pacific and was mildly elated over the prospect of trimming a few pounds off his midriff down in the swel NO DULL DRAB HAIR When You Use This Amazing 4 Purpose Rinse in one, simple, quick operation, LOVALON will do all of these 4 important things to give YOUR hair glamour and beauty: 1. 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