Screenland (Feb-Oct 1949)

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Smart Designs, Amazing Values Quick sales when you show 15 Card $1 "Orchid" Everyday Assortment, Name-Imprinted "Charmettes", Personalized Napkins. Also Gift Wraps, Personal Stationery, many others. Make up to 100% CASH PROFIT. SEND FOR SAMPLES Start NOW — every day brings earnings. WRITE TODAY for samples on approval and FREE Imprint Samplesl FRIENDSHIP STUDIOS, INC. 962 ADAMS ST., ELMIRA, N.Y. is, Bill will talk about Kitty, his late beloved wife; me, about Eloise. Bill talks about Kitty like she was a little girl. He talks about the way she luved New York, their New York. Thinking how Kitty would have loved it added to Bill's love of "The Naked City," our good friend, Mark Hellinger's, last picture, which IS New York, is Hellinger's salute to the city he loved, too. After the film was run for Bill and he got up to make a speech about it, he didn't make much of a speech, not in words, he didn't. He choked up. He "fluffed his lines," as we say in show business. But what came over with the tears was orchids to Hellinger as no smooth flow of rhetoric could have been. After we saw the picture, Toots, Steve Hannagan, one or two others and myself went up to Gracie Mansion with the Mayor, sat around and dished. Hannagan was saying that Mark was the greatest check-picker-upper that ever lived. "One night we were having dinner at Duffy's Tavern," says Hannagan. "Knowing Hellinger's reputation as a tabtaker, / take Duffy aside and warn him, 'I don't want that bum to get this check.' Comes tab-time and Hellinger itchy to take it, Duffy stalls the deal, or tries to. 'If I don't get this check,' says Hellinger, 'I'll never come into this joint again.' 'Oh, for God's sake,' says Duffy, 'give ME the check!' — and he takes it." I'm telling about the last time Mark and I were together . . . the time Toots and his wife, Baby {if Baby has another name, I don't know it. She's Baby and that does it, to Toots) were visiting Hollywood and we have dinner on the Strip, Toots and Baby, Mark and his Gladys, Eloise and I, and Orson Welles, on the loose. After dinner, Mark takes us to his house to see a picture. The picture he runs is Rockne — because he knows that Toots loves football and that I am in the picture — and that's Mark. Dual purpose. Wasn't that a cute thing? Recently, Toots and Baby were in Hollywood again. This time, they're in Hollywood for Gladys, who is without Mark. In his strange, fantastic sensitivity, Toots is always there when a fellow who was there isn't anymore. Not long ago, another pal of ours, Louis Sobol, the ace columnist, lost the wife he loved; lost, to quote him, "The sweet beloved redhead to whom I said my final goodbye that frost-bitten day in January of this year." One night, Toots called to tell me he wouldn't be eating with me at my favorite table in my favorite New York beanery, which is his. He said, "We're going down where a guy is lonely." He and Baby were going down to Sobol 's. "Mr. Jiminy Crickets!" — that's Toots at his most profane. That is Toots' profanity. Guys that love him, guys like me, know there isn't any profanity in the big lug. One thing about friendship, when it's in your league, it takes in your whole family. Your friend isn't your friend unless his affection is not only for you, but for you and yours. . . A couple of years ago, Eloise and I were in New York, on our way to London, England, for the Command Per formance. The night before we sailed, Toots Shor gave us a party at his apartment on Park Avenue. (Toots' apartment in "The Naked City," by the way. He loaned it to Hellinger while Hellinger and the cast were shooting in New York) . It was a party to end all parties. Ethel Merman came over and sang her brains out; Joe E. Lewis came over from the Copacabana; Bill Powell was there; Bob Hope. And Jimmy Walker, who was one of the great friendships of my life, stopped by. I met Walker at the Lambs Club in New York before I ever went to Hollywood. I'd met him, later, at luncheons and parties; never spent an evening alone with him in my life, wouldn't have presumed — but there was a guy I revered and loved — so, this evening, at Toots' party when Jimmy was told that Eloise and I were on our way to England to be presented to the King and Queen, he goes over to Eloise, kisses her hand, looks at her and says, "A greater compliment could never be paid a Queen." After the Command Performance, Eloise and I are in Paris, having ourselves a fling, when a bellboy comes into our hotel room with the New York papers. The headlines read: JAMES J. WALKER DIES. From Paris, I wrote to Toots: "Dear Toots," I said in part, "God must be getting very lonely because guys like Jimmy are called upstairs all the time, lately." All the time, lately . . . now, Runyon and Hellinger. . . Once a week, every week of our lives, Spence, Jimmy Cagney, McHugh, Frank Morgan, Jimmy Gleason and I get together at Chasen's, or at one of our homes, and dish like a lot of old dames. Now one of the greatest members, Lynne Overman, isn't there anymore. He got called upstairs, too. These days, my two sons and I swim together, oh, daily. We fish together. I teach them how to throw a football, laced the right way, and not just like it's a hard-boiled egg. I teach them how to play baseball, never to throw it underhand, always overhand. I tell them that immaculate linen and clean fingernails are important. I tell them .it's better to be kind than to be king. They know the number of stars and stripes that make the American flag and how it got that way. I talk to them about friendship and how it's something you can never buy or bribe. I tell them about Jimmy Walker and Jimmy Gleason and Hellinger and Runyon and O'Dwyer and Cagney and Tracy, and what a lot of guy each guy was, in his way, or is. I tell them that everything I've taught them will be no good unless they say their morning and evening prayers. If Sean, say, has a beef about something, I talk it over with him, lay the cards down, face up, say, "Have we got a deal?" wait for the answer, "Yes, Dad, we've got a deal." So, as a result, these are two more great friends I've made . . . two more guys, along with the other great guys, in my league. To talk about the guys that are in your league and have been, from way back, what more is there to say about friendship? 08 SCREENLAND