Variety (May 1946)

2ft LITERATI Wedneeday, May 1, 1946 >♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦♦♦♦♦ \ SCULLY'S SCRAPBOOK f **************** By Frank Scully ********** Old Monterey, April 28. Between San Francisco's celebrating the 40th anni of its famous firc- <iuuhe and Monterey's getting ready lor a super-colossal centenary under the American flag, this state is setting tourists map-happy again. Having just covered the circuit from L. A. to Monterey by way of the San Joaquin Valley (the Saroyan country of human comedians), the Yose- •jnile national park (which smacks you $2 for a prc-season peck at bears ■which are not there, or if they are they're hibernating),'and Sacramento (where legislators are practicing to throw taxpayers out on the first cornice) your migratory mugg can report thai the weather at least has W«?h beautiful all the way. In honor of the 1906 shake Frisco columnists this; up some of the more enduring pieces of writing and reprinted them as if they were good notices. Will Irwin's got the most play. Having written something myself recently nbout "O'Malley of the Sun," and lost no readers on the way, I was proud to see another old Sun man revived. When the Hash arrived in New York j that Frisco was in ruins, Will Irwin was in the Sun city room. Having toeen born and educated in San Francisco. Irwin hardly needed more than the flash to write one of the classics of journalism. It was called "The City That Was.'.' The head was not Irw in s but the inspiration of Franklin (Boss) Matthews, the night city editor. It began: "The Old San Francisco is^dead. The gayest, light hearted, most pleasure loving city of the western continent, and in many ways the most interesting ;md romantic, is a horde of refugees living among ruins. It may rebuild; it probably will, but those who have known that peculiar city by the Golden Gate, and have caught its flavor of the Arabian Nights, feel that it can never be the same. It is as though a pretty, frivolous woman had passed through a great tragedy. She survives, but she is sober and dif- ferent. If it rises out of the ashes, it must be a modern city, much like other cities and without its old atmosphere." Irwin Wasn't Wrong He was right too. Almost all that has gone, except the sea lions on Seal Rock and the tourists who watch them from Cliff House. ,The Barbary Coast, like the word. "Frisco" itself, is proscribed. It is now called the "International Settlement." People still shop in Chinatown. A sentimen- tal town, it will support any fighter, ballplayer or pearl diver who'man- ages to promote a liquor license. Once a grand show town, it still rates B-plus with a dozen first run houses and two legits—the Geary and the Curran—currently showing "The Turtle" and "Oklahoma!" It really minded losing the UN show and still calls the Fox West Coast house on O'Farrell the "United Nations Theatre." "The Drunkard." in its 14th year in L. A., is in its fifth in S. F. and seems destined to go on forever. Opera and light opera thrive as they have always thrived, the heavy stud being shipped annually to L. A. for what is known as the "San Francisco opera season." , In Abraham Lincoln Mellinkoff, a lieutenant-colonel recently returned from several years in the CBI theatre, the town has possibly the youngest city editor in the country, barring some teen-ager in the Three Eye,leagues of journalism. If he is not the youngest, he's at least the one with the longest name. I couldn't get a hotel room, but Honest Abe, of the Chron- icle, got us one big enough to sleep the House or David ball team. All This, and Kipling, too All the light fingered romantics not billeted in the original Duffy's tavern at San Quentin will soon head for Monterey where the flying llshcs play. Ed Cochrane, the old sports editor from the Windy City, is already setting up a public relations office in La Casa de los Qualro Ventos. which roughly translates as the "House of the Four Winds," an adobe item which opened its doors in 1830. ' - I ran into Ed in the Monterey hardware store where we both, rinding a (Continued on page 30) Literati Payola for Prexy Big fight over discharge of several Washington Bureau staffers by the New York newspaper PM is going to be carried into the American Newspaper Guild through a battle to make Milton Murray, Guild na- tional prexy, a paid officer. Mur- ray was one of the three PM people fired in Washington when they re- fused to accept transfer to N. Y. Hot campaigns are already being waged by Guild factions pro and con Murray. Those on his side say Ralph Ingersoll, PM cdit6r-in r chicf, had been taken in by a N. Y. faction opposed to the national administra- tion. ' Charges of red-bailing and anti-democracy arc Dying thick and fast. Those opposed to a paid presi- dent say it's a maneuver to strengthen Murray; and point to the fact that George Murphy of the Screen Actors Guild and Lawrence Tibbctt of the American Guild of Musical Arlisls are proxies without pay. RANDOM HOUSE, 20 E 57 STREET, NEW YORK 22 NEW YORK Says (lie Sun's Phillips H. I. Phillips, of the N. Y. Sun, wrote it: "Russia which leased the J. P. Morgan mansion at Glen Cove last year, has now purchased the .million-, dollar showplace of George DuPont Pratt there. It is a dc luxe mansion on a 37-acre plot, replete with swim- wins pools, tennis courts and gar- dens. Russia says it is to be be used as a recreational and entertainment center for Soviet diplomats and other attaches in America. We un- derstand that already some Glen Covers when taking a little stroll in that direction stale, 'I'm just go- ing over lo Joe's place.' "What we can't understand is why the Russians didn't buy at Red Bank, N. J." Publisher Vs. Politician C. F. Pierce, co-publisher and manager of the East Columbus lO.) Press, South Side Sun. East Side News,."Bcxley iO.) Herald, and a Reynoldsburg. O., newspaper, has filed a slander and libel suit for $50,000 damages against former Lieut. Gov. Paul M. Herbert, who re- cently said that ''out of the (stale) auditor's office there arc now pub- lished at least five newspapers and a statewide news service:" Pierce's associate in the news- paper enterprise is Clarence Doy.le. public relations man in the office of Ohio Stale Auditor Joseph T. Fer- guson. In his action. Pierce said the statements were uttered "for the purpose of implying that plaintiff • Pierce) was receiving financial subsidies from the olflce of the audi- tor of the state of Ohio." Carlton Skinner's Post Carlton Skinner, one-time UP and Wall Street Journal correspondent in Washington, is the new director of information for the Interior Dept. Skinner, just out of the Coast Guard in which he served as Lieutenant Commander, was acting director pf information Tor the Maritime Com- mission just before lie went into service. CHATTER Kay Campbell appointed associ- ated editor of Pacific Pathways mag. Ed Luclcey to Virginia and Mary- land for local research on a forth- coming book. George Frazier left for Coast Sat- urday (27) to wrap up some stories on assignment for True mag. George O. Williams, managing ed- itor of the Albany Times-Union, gandering the Hollywood studios. Mrs. Burlon Crane, wife of N. Y. Times correspondent, joining her husband in Tokyo sometime in July. Kay Long, managing editor it Junior Bazaar, femine magazine, in Hollywood lo sludy California fash- ion trends, Jimmy Henderson, Hollywood flack, completed his (list novel, "Tri- buron," a talc of Mexico.-for summer publication by Mcssncr. Martin Field, screenwriter, and his wife, Helen '.Col ton, mag scribe, au- toing east for confabs with publish- ers, he on his novel, "The Winner," she on mag assignments. Articles under Bob Hope's and Eddie Cantor's bylines have bfen published in successive issues of N. Y. Journal-American's Sunday edition. Theme of both pieces was to urge a better break for wounded veterans. Blanche Merrill, special songsmith to such yesteryear vaudeville greats is Eva Tanguay, Nora Bayes, Fannie Bric.i.y Belle Baker, ct al., is doing a semi-autobiographical book for Ran- dom House titled "1 Wrote a Song."