Variety (Sep 1947)

Wednesday, September 17, 1947 LITERATI 61 yyf 44t » M ♦ ♦ ♦ « ♦ ! ♦ *t t»tttttft t tt t ttttt*tt ttllt«t«l SCULLY'S SCRAPBOOK : ^W+«» " « > M * By Frank Scully '*« ♦ «« » 9 Success, Calif., Sept. 14. rrmvalescing irom the world's troubles which have sent my gluteus imus on a rampage (that's the well padded muscle between the sacro- fl- and the femur, Earl Wilson might like to know), I tuned in on Kate Lincoln iSteffens—or about the time Bugs Baer, F.P.A., Don Marquis and adding thilt it "is fantastically ridi- Simeon Strunsky came in. ' [eulous, b.ut it is also intolerable." FRED OTHMAN. No kindlier columnist ever covered Hollywood or j The work*has been favorably re- Washington. He was writing, this day. on long dresses, and if somebody's j viewed by various publications, in- reputation ought to be knocked down it is the plotters from Paris who eluding the Library Journal, threw that one at the ail-American knee. | The Boston Library's ban, it has Gracie On Dresses Too , been learned, was on the basis of a GRACIE ALLEN. She, too, was squeezing what humor remained in i report by two anonymous reviewers, longer skirts for women and shorter trousers for men. She was going | It's understood that three Boston home to work on her wolf whistle in case men's legs turn out to be more papers, including the Christian Sci- curvaceous than Goldwyn Girls' game. No rep-wrecking there. '. ence Monitor, have assigned rcport- jiiac aim "'"j' j only to , earn that I was practically a laundryman | ROBERT C. RUARK. Back in Italy and reporting that officers below ; e rs to uncover the identity of these Smiths morniuB s whilp mv bark was beine rubbed (the wrong tlle rank °* e ol onel loved him for knocking down the reputation of Lieut.- ' reviewers and obtain a statement a.s taking in my own wasning." * * columnist General John C. H. Lee. , to the grounds on which "Spring" W). Witty Kitty and Teasmg Ted had turned her into a columnist . ^ Gt j J?NmGHAMi ^ 0)<J D:lrtmouth A H-American and defender was banned. According to the Li- She and Ted! Collins were kicking the ttong around, hoping to lino an 0{ rauscular America is defending Bob Ruark. In fact in this column he , brary's own statement, the novel is easy "in" for a plug for the ra< ^° rag n0W V^Ttf i I PT T e ' Tl brought out a couple of extra siege guns to demolish the belief that there warded as "unmoral." guddenly (well, suddenly, for that program, anyhow), she let us know tnat was anythin g in common between this General Lee and old Robert E, | Under the ruling hrnded down liers would not be a typical column. j BOB HOPE. No evidence here of any reputation-ruining. In fact he several months ago by the Supreme She and Ted agreed that "lying, cheating, conniving, knocking down some- -was trying to squeeze humor out of converting the Los Angeles river bed Court of Massachusetts, in the case Zj.r'c renutation, was the fastest way to get recognition as a columnist." j into a super highway, which wasn't the idea at all. The scheme is to I of Lillian Smith's "Strange Fruit." j cover it over and use it for an airstrip. And so his water repellent con- ' the Boston authorities may not of- I can , vertitole sinks in the West, bidding a fond farewell to Azusa, Cucamoncsa | ficially ban any book except after body's reputation. They were not going that way „ regressed from Vakibxy's Page 2 to Page 54 in three years, I can , vertible sinks in the West, biddm: included among those who were jet-propelled to eminence by j and Anaheim; which probably by , "T. r included among those who were jet-propeneo to eminence oy , »..»■*»..».«=...., v,-,^ i»nu«»., uj now is no longer a Jack Benny gag, but "lytag, cheating and knocking down reputations." Thus I can referee this in the public domain. Meaning Hope s. nne lot a change. • _ One Dawn. Rest To Go thPV may pepper me to death. But even with me beached, there are a flock of other, columnists who can trade them blow for blow—and prob- eb jusiTto check on how many were still getting on by "lying, cheating, and knocking down reputations" I carelessly canvassed the field. Among dozens of columnists examined, I found only one at the moment still numping bilge into the peasantry, and he certainly is so old in service that he should be retired to graze with the senescent old bulls at San Simeon. The others were discussing these various topics: Enter Dick Tracy 4 . . LOUIS SOBOL. Songs of yesterday and whether-"Where Did You Get That Girl'" enjoyed a priority over "Where Did You Get That Hat?"' He also referred to Eddie Cantor as a "level headed performer." I suppose Kate Smith could construe this as practically calling Cantor "Flattop," but by my standards it was meant as a compliment. Sobol is the author of "Some Days We're Happy," a book which has given me many happy hours while confined to my present linen prison. WALTER WTNCHELL. Winchell has a "cause" these days and a man with a cause has very little time for "lying, cheating or knocking down reputations." He still wants to "Arrest Cancer! It's Wanted For Murder!" and won't be satisfied until cancer and the human race are pb-t-t-t. WALTER LTPPMANN. He's busy trying to keep the Truman Policy und the Marshall Plan from knocking each other out, and having had a hand in the writing of the General's prescription for saving Europe he d be only slapping his own reputation if he, panned the medication. Lipp- mann is the man who said: "Writers who have nothing to say are the ones you can buy; the others have too high a price." Naturally he was hoping to be included in the category, but his syndicate will quote you his prices any time. ,.. _ ... E. V. DURLING. Certainly no columnist is more, free from this Smith- sonian smear than Darling Eddie Durling. I've seen him rise from one paper to scores across the country and have yet to see him knock down .anyltady's. reputation^let.atone Jie^ and "Mules and Men" departments don't "contain a germ of malice from one years' end to another. To those in show business he is invariably kindly. , ED SULLIVAN. A columnist who has to steer between the rocks of McCormick and Hearst has his hands full keeping it clean. Sullivan spent this day's space telling how Irving Berlin parlayed, the 33c. he made on "Marie From Sunny Italy," his first song, to the $3,000,000 gross on "Annie Get Your Gun." This hardly belittles anybody's reputation, unless pos- sibly Nick Michaelson who was Berlin's original collaborator artU pre- numably hasn't been heard of since. Wilson Clean. Bill of Health EARL WILSON. He, too, is clean these days, or have bathing beauties little to do with bathing? Anyway, Wilson cleaned up the American Legion and deserves a citation for having the courage to take on that army currently without a war. CHARLES B. DRISCOLL. O. O. Mclntyre's former sales agent and still trying to be his successor, spent his whole column telling about Rich- ard Connibear, 17, of Lakeland. Florida, stricken with infantile paralysis three years ago and now one of the foremost makers of airplane, ship and automobile models in America. BUGS BAER. Defending the subway from the 10c putsch was Arthur s contribution to the columnar calumny. Having spent half his life riding the sooty scooters for a nickel, be likes the idea of subways being in the red. "In 1912," he wrote, "they put fans in to stir up the bad air. The fans resolved 1 so slowly I sold advertising space on the blades. Over in Dcauville in 1927 I kibitzed the owner of the Interborough at the Casino. He went for a ride on the roulette wheel. That's one marble he couldn't pick up." Okay, that's knocking down somebody's reputation, but when you reach back 20 years and don't even mention the guy by name (could it be Schnotz?) you're practically draping news in the robe of charity. GEORGE E. SOKOLSKY. Still plugging for a moral foundation of po- litical economy and making nice piece of jack proving that lying, cheating end conniving don't pay. No knocking there. SIDNEY SKOLSKY. Don't get me wrong. He loves Hollywood, and even if you only get 2% of your own show, it's still better than being Bertie McCormick's saloon editor. Is It? I Nothing, Sir, Nothing I ERSKINE JOHNSON. His birdseed is buoyant but rarely bitter. He, O 'te frankly, I think that plaintiffs Smith and Collins are using very too. in his time has belted Sinatra below the belt, but his current columns Irl cripts but I'd be a sucker to say so because they are on the air at seem to be devoid of malice in wonderland. Garfield, Power, Turner, fiw times a week and now apparently have a column as well. That ] Grapewin, Colbert, Shore, Tobias, Wynn, Hussey, Ayres, Cummings, Canova. Haymes—names, names, names. But what's wrong with names as news? HAROLD L. ICKES. Now here's a guy that had an excellent chance to climb to the top fast by knocking reputations, but in two years he has slowed down to the point where he is now trying to teach fellow poli- ticians that you can't kill ideas with bullets. MARQUIS CHILDS. If ever a columnist got on by trying to under- stand everybody, and even showing good temper when taking issue with stuffed shirts, this is the boy. He is currently writing out of Berlin and doesn't know where he's going from there, for the simple reason that the guys who laid out the maze seem to have lost the blueprint. "The con- trast is always with the Russians," he writes.' "They exhibit the fine self- confidence and assurance of a glacier." What Makes Sammy Run SAMUEL GRAFTON. Well, maybe he's one that got on by knocking reputations, but when a country spends 50 years trading goods for gold and then buries the gold, and another country which trades gold for goods now says everything will be all right if we'll' give them the gold back again, what can you but resort to ridicule? This sort of talk is like reducing international relations to a dormitory bull session. Grafton's okay. DREW PEARSON. Well, we're getting warmer now. Here's one kid who has certainly got far by hustling out like June all over. Pearson is so full of rep-wrecking inside facts that be even asks his wife, "Did the paper come?" in a whisper. GEORGE DIXON. This Washington character is now around Holly- wood and sort of trails along with the blast of Senator Sheridan Downey that California is crawling with gamblers, racketeers, blackmailers and other fugitives from a pinch. I suppose this would come under the head- ing of knocking down reputations, but are columnists supposed to bow and scrape before journeymen yeggs and dues-paying hoodlums lest they wreck some reputations? Score One For Kate Smith WE3TBROOK PEGLER. About the only columnist currently who fits Witty Kitty's - formula -fop success -is™ Pegs • Nobody's' working- harder—to keep the wheezing motor going on hate than Peg. In fact he has reached the point of repeating his hates so often his typewriter must be powered with soda bicarb. His latest snarl constitutes a rehash of his blast against Frank Sinatra. This is a long standing feud, dating from a previous national convention when Sinatra went to Peg's hotel room to take a punch at the old devil's i court trial.. In the case of "Spring on 52nd Street" there has been no offic al ban. but the Library has simply declined to purchase the book. There is no truth to reports that the League plans legal action against the Library. Nuances Out New quarterly mag. Nuances, is out with the September issue. It's to carry short stories by new, un- known writers. Carries no ads. Publisher is Helen Price, and the editors include Miss Price, Is; belle Lehr and Louise Cuddihy. It has a folder-like format, pulp stock and is printed by a duplicating process resembling mimeographing. Priced at 25c. an issue, $1 a year. Guild's R H Pact The Author's Guild, subsid of the Authors League of America, in the literary field, has worked out a mini- mum basic agreement with Random House. It is the first such pact the organization has ever had with a publishing firm. General terms of the deal have all been agreed upon, and the actual wording is now being put into legal language. The agreement is understood to cover general trade books and re- prints, as well as the entire matter of subsidiary rights. Meanwhile, ne- gotiations are already in progress with Houghton-Mifflin, and confabs with the other publishers are to fol- low. Negotiations with Simon & Sdiusler" w~ere"brok'e"n off some time'* aj;o. and may not be resumed until all the other houses have signed. New Republic Changes Editorial staff changes on The New Republic last week brought in tx- disciple, only to find Peg not in. I foreign correspondent Edd John.-.on Sinatra's subsequent punch at Lee Mortimer, who, like Peg, is in the 'as managing editor, replacing pub- Hearst string of rep-wreckers, was like pouring poison into a guy suf- . lishcr Michael Straight, who tem- fering from elephantiasis of the mind. It set up Peg's old infection. ] porarily held the m. e. post. An- So months after Sinatra has apologized to Mortimer and paid with a other addition was Eva Putnam, who $9,000 settlement, we now get Pegler trying to build the old Sinatra story into a new sinister serial. Okay, let's concede that this one is built on "knocking down someone's reputation," but does one column make a Parthenon? Literati takes charge of the mag's newly- created foreign press section. Prior to joining The New Repub- lic, Johnson was a Chicago Sun for- eign correspondent and had also been with the OWI, CBS, Collier s, N. Y. World-Telegram and N. Y. Journal-American in various ca- pacities. Don Cong-don .loins MalsOn Don Congdon, for the past two years a Simon & Schuster editor, has joined the Harold Matson liter- ary a"ency, in N. Y. Before moving tn S & S he was an associate Action 'it Takes All Kinds' OK j the New Yorker and "closeups" on It takes all kinds of people to Life—Frazier's ardent jazz predilec- make a world and all kinds of stories 1 tions are rather autobiographically to make a book. In this book, ("It I interlarded in Part 2 of the book Takes All Kinds"; Harcourt Brace: | which he captions "The Faster Beat." $3.75) Lloyd Lewis has taken all . This touches on such mundane things j editor at Collier's, kinds of people and put them in all as. 52nd St. (circa Riley & Farley). | Prior to switching to the mag and kinds of stories, good stories about Whiteman, Bix and Bunny Beri".an j book field, Congdon for eight years good and bad people. Stories about! right down to Eddie Condon (his , had been associated with literary the Civil War, baseball, fighters, 1 new rave). agent Lurton Blassingame. gunmen, soldiers, actors, critics, j Appropriately enough the profile architects, society, liars, evangelists, 1 on Fred Robbins ("Disc Jockey") CHATTER cowboy's, animal acts, newspaper-j segues into this latter chapter which. PaiJ Gallieo due back in a few men and authors. for obvious reasons, is much shorter . clays from London. The book is a tight package of than the forepart with its excellent | Cecil B. DeMille is vtyiting an some of his famous stories, like "My and revealing closeups on Bogart, j article on Hollywood for Cosmppoli- SHEILAH GRAHAM. Is the fact that Claudette Colbert is trying to j Biggest Baseball Day," "He Hated j Ted Williams, Toots Shor, Uildegarde tan mag. Southern Gentlemen," "Billy the ( "Anna and the King of I Am). | Helen Co'ton and hubby Martin Kid,The two Minnies," "The ' Hellinger. Petrillo. Errol Flynn. Ber- ' Field motoring east on-literary as- Great Winnetka Hunt" and many Hn. Lorre. et al. The most initiate ' signments. others that have appeared in his are bound to get more than a.line I Christopher LaFarge sold his columns of the Chicago Sun and or two of new and revealing mixcel- hou.e in New York City and bought Chicago News and magazines he has laneous information on any of the a place at Oldwick. N. J. written for these many years. w.k subjects, despite the fact they've ! Marc Connelly back in New Yoik It all makes dandy reading and been "dope" until unconscious. ! after Mississippi River cruise, during made me send my subscription to Ihe ] Fact that many of thee pieces , which he worked on a pla" script. Chicago Sun Book Week for which saw light in Life, True, Collier's, j Lippincott bringing out John Lewis is now writing his column. Coronet, etc.. means nothing because. ', Lardner's "It Beats Working." an land Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum or Orson Welles for her next picture a proof of columnists getting on by kftocking down somebody's reputation? HEDDA HOPPER. Now we get into the vulnerable areas. But even on this day she found no Communists running picture production. LOUELLA PARSONS. Aside from the fact that she "rushed' Teresa Wright to the hospital because Miss Wright (who is Mrs. Nivea Busch in private life) is expecting a baby in six weeks, and reported that her con- dition is excellent and there is no cause for alarm, that Mary Beth Hughes has a "new figure," that men who fall in love with Rita Hayworth usually stay in love with her and that Barney Glazer and Nat Finston are doing vho's friendship, according to Lolly the life story of Wagner and Liszt, w.._ "suffered when Wagner stole Liszt's girl friend" tWagner actually married ! so j won't miss anything this guy as Frazier explains in an unusual j anthology of his Newsweek sports writes. He knows his history, his foreword characters and his business. Sez, Joe Laurie, Jr. Liszt's daughter), I could find nothing in her current release which fits the Smith formula for success as a columnist. Lots Do JIMMY FIDLER. The intimate notes from his little black' book con- tinued to be about 60% wrong. But who does better? RANDOLPH CHURCHILL. This plump son of the retired Fuller brush talesman of the British Empire is now in India explaining how well the Indians have learned the British lesson of divide, decimate ant. ru.e. — u- nobody was blamed particularly. , . , . DAVID LAWRENCE. ' He was trying to patch up the blown put inner .done an entertaining and tube which const tutcs the present diplomatic relations between Washing- [amassm ton and Rio de Janeiro. these are the unexpur- columns. „'ateds. Incidentally, that intro on j Hearst newspapers will publish a the Time-Life technique is something serialization of "Knock on Any George Frazier's Neat. Book George Frazier. ex-Entertainment Editor for Life, freelance scribe, ar- dent jazznphile and, incidentally disk reviewer for Vaiuktv special for the newspaper bunch. Abel. Authors League fa Hub Scrap Censorship committee of the has Authors League of America has tak- ratherj en up the fight against the ban of J November, job in putting his best the Boston Public Library on Doro- Renee Brasier, of the board of pieces together under the title, "The , thy Speare's new novel, "Spring on ! directors and former business man- Door." which Mark Hellinger will film for Universal-International. John Purcell, Life foreign corre- spondent now stationed in the F;:r Fj?.st, is having his first novel. "Class Report." published by Vanguard in Rex Stout, ex-presi-, ager of the continental edition of the Paris Herald Tribune, getting a ^l**itot£i WnchTll'touchrhe doWt touch anything that's la frank and free'and betimes rather '< ment this week for the committee, ! U. S. Medal; for Freedom for her irrilv with the mucker's rake which Kate and I ribald ant..„. r ^, „. — * - - - Ted don't realize went" out in 1912 with John Reed, Norman Hapgood and , piecas-they call 'em "profiles" on , "new technique .« censorship and , .turn. LEONARD LYONS A soecialist in little known facts about well known One Willi the Mustache Is Costello" j 52nd Street.' P^^^mtito^^SX^^ii, himself out of libel (Random Uouse;$3). Besides being j dent of the League, drafted a sate- ■cfi5»f. -n i \u m ulir izZv, h» Hwm't touch anvthine that's a frank and free and betimes r a 1 her ment this week for the committee, S S 'H^r^ -thology of his personally terming the Boston Library action a , , V * * « •! » *