Screenland (Feb-Oct 1949)

liome, Spence on one side of the street, me on the other side of the street. We get home and there's the mumbo-jumbo. The tag is, "Goodnight, Spence," "Goodnight, Pat" — and tomorrow's another day. Toots Shor was in New York, broke when I was broke. Guys like Toots and Spence and me could always eat on the cuff; could always talk someone out of a meal. Now that Toots owns the big famed feedbag that carries his byline up on West 51st Street in New York, he doesn't forget what a tab on the cuff can mean to a broke guy. Always kind, Toots was, and never forgets to be kind . . . Those were the Roaring Twenties, those days when Tracy and Cagney, (Jimmy and I go back over twenty years) Mark Hellinger, Frank McHugh, Lynne Overman, Frank Morgan and 1 were boys together, were broke together; when Damon Runyon was writing the first of his great tales of Broadway and Jimmy Walker was Mayor of New York. A great era when if you had a buck you were lucky; if you had an extra buck maybe you were a burglar. In those days, I wanted the great big limousine, the great big house, the great big swimming pool, the chance to throw my Rand-McNally around a little — we all did. But we never resented the guy who had the great big car. We never got the idea that he should divvy up. I like it that way. I'm glad it was that way. I was broke and I got an extra buck and maybe I'll be broke again, so what's the difference? What's the difference? And what's the matter with all these bums called Communists that are doing all the talking about the divvying up and that's a lot of malarkey. Ever hear the one about the would-be Communist who was being quizzed for membership in the party by one of Comrade Stalin's recruiting Reds? Says this Red to the would-be Commie, "If you had a big, beautiful, shining expensive car and your neighbor had none, would you give it to him?" "Yes," says the Pinko, "if I had a big, beautiful expensive car and my neighbor had none, I would give it to him." "Ahhhh," approves Moscow's missionary, "you make good Communist, good, good. Now, if you had a big house, a mansion, and your neighbor had none, would you share it with him?" "If I had a big house, a mansion, and my neighbor had none, yes," says the menace-in-the-making, "I would share it with him." "Ahhhh, you make good Communist, good, very good. Now, if you had two shirts and your neighbor had none, would you give one of your shirts to him?" "But I GOT two shirts!" screams the Pinko. So there you are: A Commie will give you anything he hasn't got — and you can quote me, in great big letters! What's this got to do with friendship? Everything. A friend gives you, shares with you, anything he's got, from a tab on the cuff to a tab on his time, his home, his heart. You won't find a Commie in that league. Anyone who reads newspapers or listens to the radio — especially anyone who reads Walter Winchell's column or listens to Winchell on the air, knows that the late Damon Runyon died of cancer of the throat. In the last years of his life, Runyon couldn't talk. He wrote what he had to say, and it was plenty, on slips of paper and passed them over to his friends. At a party one night, it's mentioned that Hollywood is thinking about making a film of Runyon's life. Runyon writes something on one of his slips of paper and hands it to me. What he writes is that if ever his life story is done on the screen, it would make him happy if I did it. If ever the story of Runyon's life is done for the screen I hope, too, that I do it. First time I met Hizzoner Mayor O'Dwyer of New York, was about eleven years ago, on the Chief, going West. We got talking one night, in the Club car, and little did O'Brien know to whom he was talking. O'Dwyer was then prosecuting attorney of Brooklyn and was making history wiping out Murder, Inc., but "the face wasn't familiar" nor was mine to him and it didn't matter. Later, after dinner, O'Dwyer sent a porter to ask me to join him for a nightcap. We talked together late into that night and on into Los Angeles. When we get to Los Angeles, O'Dwyer comes out to the house, meets Eloise and the kids and becomes completely enamoured of the lot of them. Two or three years ago, or maybe more, Eloise and I brought our daughter, Mavourneen, to New York with us and we stayed at Gracie Mansion, the three of us. Kind of a wonderful thing for a fifteen-year-old kid to remember she stayed at Gracie Mansion; to know she sat on the front porch where George Washington once sat, watching the British troops disembark, wondering what the score was going to be. A couple of years ago when our baby, Bridget, was born, O'Dwyer writes me a letter. "I want to beat Toots Shor to the punch," he says. "I want to be godfather to the baby." Right in the midst of administering the duties of the biggest city in the world, the Mayor of that city flies out to Hollywood of a Sunday morning and is godfather to our baby. Reminding me, not that I ever need reminding, of a friend way down in front of any of these, Jimmy Gleason. Jimmy Gleason taught me everything I know, and not only about acting. In the Roaring Twenties, Jimmy had a stock company. He came to Milwaukee with his company and took time to give me the works; he was always so kind to me. He is Mavourneen's godfather. So, this trip to New York, we sit in the library at Gracie Mansion of an evening, Bill and I, and talk. We both love sports. We sit there and pick our alltime teams — football, baseball, boxing. We talk theatre. He's crazy about the theatre, O'Dwyer is, nuts about Gilbert & Sullivan. He's crazy about people, loves people and in our love of people we're in the same league, and when you love people, there's no end to the talk between you. But what we will talk about for hours wafts-* Trust Maiden Form to know that smart low-cut dresses need brassieres which are deep V-shaped in front! Here's that plunging line, in "Inter-Lude". . . one of Maiden Form's most popular designs for average bosoms, $1.50 and $2.00. * "There is a Mai Jen Form for Every Type of Figure!" © 1940 MFB CO. Send for free Style Folders: Maiden Form Brassiere Company, Inc, New York 16, N. Y. SONG WRITERS ATTENTION The amazing demand for phonograph records, accelerated by countless Juke-Boxes, warrants your immediate investigation. We are offering New Writers the rare opportunity of having a celebrated "Hit" composer furnish music on reduced percentage basis for any likely poems received this month. Phono-records are outselling piano copies 5 to 1. REGOLA RECORDING CO., Hollywood 28, Calif. 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