Variety (June 1950)

^Jhiic 28, 1950 ftfmefr LITERATI 61 Sues Harper Bros, for WOO Edwin M. Heid, owner of the mllege Book Exchange, Toledo, ‘hniesale book dealer, has filed a ? 6 h 00 000 damage suit in New York iffflinst Harper Bros., publishers, discriminatory trade prac- llC fn‘ his suit, Reid said his com- netUors received preferential dis- s or - rebates from the firm, S were refused to him. He estimated that if he had been per- ni tted to sell books at the same n ice and on the same terms *s Sere ottered by his competitors,; he would have profited to the .ex- ent of $200,000, and asked treble- damages. as provided in the Rob- jnson-Patman Act. Diop Whittlesey House Imprint McGraw-Hill is dropping the Whittlesey House imprint on trade books July 1 and will step up its trade book activities under its own imprint. Alt hough Whittlesey House has never been a separate corpora- tion M cGraw-Hill used the name to hypo development of its gen- era bin lerest tomes. Now, however, it feels the Whittlesey tag causes confusion and. will use that name only for juveniles and certain spe- cialized tv pes of books. Gloria's Double Book Billing In line with her comeback Chal- lenge in Paramount's yet to be re- leased "Sunset Boulevard,” Gloria Swanson has been tapped to enter the literary field via two different pub I isliing houses. Actress’ initial chore will be to turn out a book dea 1 in g w it h “gl amor over 40” for Prentice-Hall. This will be followed by an autobiography for Doubleday. quite a startling novelist to mod- erns in the. 1910's and ’20s. Cartmell & Co.’s New Posts Group of top executives of the Garden City Publishing Co., Don bled ay reprint outfit, have re- signed on amicable terms to join Peter Lowe in revitalizing John .'Martin's House, firm of English origin. They are Van Cartmell, editor. Vin Smith, sales manager, and Vic Schwab, senior salesman: Under the’ new setup Martin’s Will specialize in juve tome and in fast- selling. merchandizable items. New editor lor Garden City will be Mel Evans; of Doubleday’s spe- cial projects divisioh, with Charles Marshall, who has been with Doubleday's Literary Guild for 20 \ears, taking over as sales mana- ger. . ./■■■"; In January Doiihleday is slated to .move into the new Uris Bros, building at 57tb St. and Madison, N. Y, City, on the site of the old Parke-Bernet galleries. Publisher uill occupy the 15th, 16th and Lth floors., ; Incidentally. Evans and Will Oursler are editing a history of the Prudential Life Insurance Co. writ- tvn by Earl Chapin May. Double- day will publish it on Gqt. 5. CHATTER - ^en Coni on expects to finish “Return, to Arcadia” this summer. Hugh Layne is back at the crime fact mags of Hillman as co-editor with Ernest Henshaw. Hamilton Craigie to do some lec- turing on writing this summer in Florida, where he now lives. John Crosby, N. Y. Herald Tri- bune radio-tele columnist-critic, being profiled in July Coronet magazine: Lynn Phillips, Jr., with Life and Time mags for the past two years, lias been appointed v.p. and ad di- rector of Ziff-Davis publications; Williams Manners has left Hill- man, where he presided over re- prints, to take over the same job at Thrilling and Standard Publica- tions. David Karp, scripter on Buddy Rogers’ new radio show, breaks into Argosy magazine in an up- coming issue with a short story titled “Broken Mirror.” John Wilstachv has finished and sent out for submission his new novel, ‘‘Night Club Girl.” Writer was once pressagent for a promi- nent night, club operator. Marion Hargrove ; abroad to do a minimum of six humorous ar- ticles for Collier’s, tentatively labeled “Innocents Abroad.” Dou- bleday will later publish as a book. Margaret Gardner, .Variety’s Riviera mugg, has an article in current Pafis-Match, taking posi- tive side on argument that the American femme is happiest in the world. Screenwriter Martin Field lias a piece about his mag-writer wife, Helen Colton, in Your Life for [ July. Article is basis of domestic stage comedy Field has written, “My Wife Helen.” variety mugg, Frank Scully, will have his new book, “Behind the Flying Saucers;” w h i c h is skedded for Holt publication this serial bombs that signalled the en- trance of the original Keystone Kops and it ended-^-three hours later—with the singing of “Auld Lang v Syne.” In between* it was a show that included everything from a George Jessel imitation of A1 Jolson to the panoplied parad- ing of Shriner band and march- ing units from all over the country. The Kops careened around the track in an old Model T—-and since most of the Shriners were of the generation that knew “them best, Jimmy Finlayson, Tiny Ward, Snub Pollard, Chester Conklin, Heinie Conklin jand Hank Mann won a rousing ovation. Minutes later, to- day’s .stars drew similar hands as they were driven around the track. To heighten the contrast, they, too; ♦+♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ By Frank Scully Bedside Manor, June 24. On June 24 Daily Variety reported seven pabes were born in Holly- wood, all girls. Whatever consolation that can bring a father of four of them I now share with Eddie Cantor and Robert Young. Ours was the largest grosser, Philip K. Scheuer’S the smallest. In fact the Scheuer baby weighed only five pounds four ounces. We throw them back around the Scully Circus if they’re under seven. Scheuer was listed in the Los Angfeles Tirpes. as its picture and drama editor, but in Daily Variety he was whittled down to an assistant 1 don’t suppose he protested. Daughters can make fathers feel pretty small. Among, the births that day I noted that one made Joe Gotten a grand- father. This condoled me, too. It’s bad chough to father four daugh- were in F6r^s—rl950 convertiblesJ ters hut when I’m grandfathering them I’ll know I’m old, most of ’ern.a sleek yellow. Scully’s All-Girl Orchestra Tribute to Lloyd i I can’t understand what’s causing the spawning of all these daugh- DeMille ac ^rand marchai rAaH n ! ters - I distinctly remember ordering a boy. Mike was his name. ' ’ as granq marsnai, i eaa a ( Michftel Simon Scully, The Simon was for Sime. I assumed Sime's narpe was really Simon before a lazy, craay business cut it down to the grandest four-letter name in the world. Sime was smart in lots of other ways, too. When he gotra son he quit. I should have quit When I was winning, too: But I simply couldn’t imagine that a man of my iron will and macaroni constitution could be parlayed into an all-girl or- chestra. " .. . I wasn’t alone in wanting a boy; The whole "family was united in it. In fact we all prayed for it: And God answered Our prayers for a change. He said no. ; When the news broke at 3:30 in the morning the whole Scully Circus was on the alert, They came from all corners nf Bedside Manor. The doctor had scarcely said, “It's a girl,” when the phone clamped down on his ear so hard he thought he had been shot in the head. Everybody returned to bed without saying a word, It was awful. Rhtta Is Irish For Redhead, Eh? By the next day we began Hooking over the situation and decided we really were no worse off than old man Sutherland, who fathered the Seven Sutherland Sisters, So we began to work on names. We called her Mary Rhua for a starter. Rhua is Irish for redhead: Then we tried Dhuragh Kathleen. That was discarded for Sheelah Ann. Sheelah is Gaelic for Cecelia. Next we were playing with Moira Dawnshee, a beautiful Irish weeshee with a wail like a banshee, By then the calls were coming in. We had to settle on a name, so we picked Moreen. Moreen comes from Mor. Mor is Irish for Woman and Norwegian for mother, and so Moreen would be a little mother.: We telephoned Mrs. Scully, who by this time found herself hardly on Motion Picture Industry Council resolution honoring Harold Lloyd, retiring Imperial Potentate of the Shrine, and then , introduced the filffi names as they were driven around the track. Dan Dailey, Ruth Roman, S. Z. Sakall, Rhonda Fleming, Steve Cochrane, Arlene Dahl, William Demarest, Mona Freeman, Charles Starrett, Marta Toren, Ronald Reagan, Gary Coop- er and George Murphy took the ride. Up in the stands, the opera- tors of the spotlights stared goggle- eyed at one or the other of their favorites, frequently forgetting to, follow them with the spots so that some of the stars made the trek at least partly in the dark: Murphy brought George Jes- sel to marshal the actual entertain- ment segment of the layout, and America’s “toastmaster general” found himself facing an audience cold in more ways than One. He got 'em started though, with his usual quiparade, confiding that the Coliseum didn’t bother him;; speaking terms with her whole family for bringing in a daughter,: and since it wasn’t “much larger than Zanuck’s office.” As emcee, Jessel brought on Red August, digested in the October is- j Skelton—“Honest Red, the Used sue of Pageant mag. Kay Campbell, currently in Hono- lulu with actress Barbara Law- rence. due to arrive in New York July 10 for a 10-day stay to. huddle with mag eds. .bit, wound the. live talent portion • of the program. ! The spectacular electrical pag- eant which capped the evening’s events featured floats* from 11 Shrines, each ablaze with lighting 1 provided' by mobile generators. _ Esquire’s $247,749 Net Esq.uire, Inc., made a net profit Mior taxes of $247,749 in the year ending March 31: the annual meet- yesterday ■■ (Tues.) was told, were $13,397,000 from «(lv.e1Tising, subscriptions, calen- dars, films, etc. of Esquire, Coronet, Appai el Arts and other subsidiaries. I iofit was $13,000 above the previous year. A , A-C-C’s 125th Annl ,,;■ J 3 ,pJeton-Century-Crofts marked ns 2 oth ^anni last week with the publication of “Fruit Among the Leaves.- ’ a history of the publish- >ng houses now comprising the Plus an anthology of the s l,1e y have printed since O4.O,. Among the magazines repre- ^enled are St. Nicholas, Scribner’s «nd the Century. _ Yank Literati In Berlin A number of prominent Ameri- '!?? M’e.among..the more than i00 ritors. , artists arid scientists par- eipating in the international ™ for. Cultural Freedom be- held m Berlin this week, t ^ delegation includes James ■ a v?* el V Carson McCullers, Rob- lV hmtg°mery, George Grosz, 1 Lotus Fischer, David • lontlral, Nicolas Nobokov and Aithur M, Schlesinger. Pl ■' $ ex Killing Novels? wi-iiMackenzie, who has Jnearly 70 books, and is ‘ ‘ y .. Y0, too, has made a state- linno ‘’I England that free' descrip- and four-letter words, Wi M ll - ,,ng t:he hovel. Freud is a t00, fQl ’ Psychology has Perience* 4 mere substitute for ex- “^notigh, Mackenzie, with or l n J s ^ r and other novels vOung love and wild doings, was Camel Dealer”—-who Socked over a quick knockabout routine and then skedaddled to draw screams on his exit by starting a duel with uni- formed Shriners “guarding” Ray Goodin an was named circu-. specially constructed ramp. lation manager of Saturday Review ; was followed by Roy Rogers, who of Literature, and Robert Bim- [ put Trigger through some fancy baum will be circulation manager: paces—including a nagavotte—and for American Fabrics and Men’s, then warbled a couple of numbers Reporter News, i with The Riders. Edna R. Bennett’s piece on “in- somnia” for an ^upcoming Cosmo- politan issue uncovers some of the can’t-sleep problems (and pana- ceas) of show biz and literati names, as. well as prominent lay- men. | Woman’s Home Companion pur- : chased Taylor Caldwell’s new se- I rial for $40 000. Tagged “The Bal- | a nee Wheel,” it will be published in book form by Scribner’s early 1 next yeaiv Helen Strauss, of the ! William Morris both deals. 1 William L. Shirer, news com- mentator and author of "Berlin | Diary,” has written his first novel, j “The Traitor.” Backgrounded in Nazi Germany, it’s the story of why an American turns traitor. U ! wall be published by Farrar, Straus ! in November. ; Henry Gris, foreign editor of •' United Press’ LOs Angeles bureau, . elected prexy of the Foreign Press Association of Hollywood. Other officers includf Swiss correspond- ent Fred Porges as treasurer and Nora Laing of Britain and Eric Morawsky, repping Germany, as members of the charter , .. , ^ ee [ sake any potential source of new 1 talent these days. One department 1 she reported that after five attempts she had got a really beautiful baby, one who sent her heart singing. -‘These dames,” I thought, “they’ll try to square any kind of a rap.” Oh Sure, Blame It On the SHriners! But I was still reeling around from the blow. The Shriners were in convention. I decided that the child must have peered through her mother’s abdominal wajl and pulled a switch on us. It is quite possible that after seeing fat men wearing fezzes, clowning around, goosing the j women, clanging firebells, and generally goofing it up, that she decided He if that’s the lot of a male, she’d prefer to be a girl. She can claim to be the first baby to be born during a trolley strike and a Shriners’ convention. She has never ridden in a trolley car and can never be a Shriner, but she may one day be the first of her sex to ride a flying saucer, on account I got an inside track there. I sup- pose after “Behind the Fling Saucers” comes out, I’ll be ready for Vocalizing by Connie Haines and , another“Iiterary project; Anybody interested in “Behind the Drying Dennis Morgan, and Jessel’s Jolson , Diapers?” ' Of course, the press bunch had their usual laugh. Every time the Scullys have a baby the reading public is reminded that the father is the author of “Fun In Bedv” \vhich obviously has long ceased to be exclusively a literary project. Let them have their fun. Look at the dough Cantor made out of his four daughters as a running gag. He parlayed it into a million dollars. Maybe by, now he’s willing to sell the second serial rights for something a Variety mugg could afford to Coordinator Cecil Bard well earn-. P av * ed kudos for his marshaling of the office, agented , various participants and equip- ment, and the same top credit went to production manager Norman Manning, production designer Mel 1 Melvyn and Manny Harmon. Who [ batoned the ork that defined wind, chill and low-hanging smoke to pro- vide the necessary backing. Kap. Continued from page 1 working with fewer staffers than 1 they had several years ago, but, commit- lhey said, it is impossible to f 01 - By the fourth day I began reaching for historical claims to defend -Moreen’s rights in the Scully Circus. It so happens that she picked as her birthday the day that Bartholdi’s Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor. That was in 1385, which, believe me, Was before my time. BUt nobody has claimed that John L. Sullivan modeled for that statue. Everybody concedes it was a* woman. June 19 was the day that the eight-hour day was adopted as a stand- ard for all labor in federal government service. That was in 1912. I remember it very well. It also applied to the Department of Labor, which I suppose deals chiefly with expectant mothers. I suppose some cad will bring up the fact that June 1,9, the day that Moreen had her coming-out party at the Cedars of Lebanon hospital, also was the anniversary of the battle between the Kearsage and the Alabama in the Civil War, and that a baby weighing 7¥j pounds might easily be identified with a battleship. The thing I mind most about the< whole affair is that the Skipper, our first born, a male, scrammed for New York, London and Oslo, as soon as the news broke that he would have to be the only brother lo four sisters. He left me to hold the fort absolutely alone. To make it appear that he was going on an errand of utmost urgency, he got ;a job as baby-sitter to two babies, one two months oid and the Grace Fischler. formerly editor: of Movie Stars Parade and western' head declared his staff is now scan editor of COroriet and Esquire, is ning all magazines and periodicals; other 17 months. He carried one under each arm and in the stopover the hew Hollywood editor of Faw- in a search for interesting faces ! in New- York betvveen stratoliners before hopping off to London, he cett’s Motion Picture Magazine, that J. Smithson remains as Faw-j celt western manager. Bill Wise, I Paramount only last of a family of five IK named associate editor, will work under editor Maxwell Hamilton in New York. -tivities Continued from page 2 9 lift to reveal the velerart producer. It didn’t lift. That L. A. Smog Gradually, Ihe Coliseum v field [ began to disappear from the view of the thousands in the stands as ; the visiting Shriners got their first indication of what the famed Los Angeles smog .was like. A commu- nity sing was hastily organized and lasted for several minutes be* fore the smoke, cleared and the program got back to schedule. It was a pageant replete with color, noise, thrills and! glamor. It started with the explosion of steadily new talent week inked Nicki Duval to a term- er after spotting her on ABC-TV s “Hollywood Screen Test/’ and Other Ihesps, such as Hal Wallis’ Charlton Heston; have been hand- ed film contracts on the basis of their TV work. Talent departments are; also combing college and uni- versity dramatic societies and, as one exec put. it, “every form of en- tertainment that has an audience, either visible or invisible.” The Mulligan Guard Goes Down That’s npt like some people 1 know. Take Bill Harrigan. He may be a hard-boiled, hated character in “Mister Roberts.” He may be, as l believe He was, a surviving officer of the famous Lost Battalion, But one.time in Hollywood he offered to drive Mme. Scully to a maternity hospital, regardless of the hour. So? Called at 4 a.m., he reported he couldn’t possibly come to our house. Could we pick him up at his hotel? He came down like a haggard zombie. He reported he couldn’t possibly drive tn his condition. So the expectant mother had to drive. Every time she got a labor pain she stopped the car and I pulled up the brake till the pain subsided. Where a Drettv’fae’c’on" a femme " as breaking up under the ordeal. ' or.a handsome physique on an ac- , ,^' s ^ en ' Alice.” he ^pleaded,, ‘ there s a 4rive-in. .Couldn t you pu 1 tor formerly would draw attention, m thereto I could get a cup of coffee. This thing is killing me. of fhe talent scodts, such things .So, obliging,as ever, the little mama let us have a cup of coffee^ while arp- far inrnnrfant now iban writhed, and then she drove us on to the hospital. She had her personality, they P said. TJhatintan- ! >*by and was Walking around.before Harrigan recovered enough, days gible ability to project to an audi-; l a ter, to answer a call from his agent. . . ence is now the most sought-after' So what if we had got a son. and it turned out to be a chicken like factor, with dramatic ability and that? By now, I’m reconciled to the fact that God answered our then photogenic qualifications be- prayers beautifully when hfc said no. Welcome home, Moreen. May ing scanned. i you be the little mother to many. All geniuses.