Variety (June 1954)

Published Weekly at 154 West 45th Street* New York 36, N. Y., by Variety, Inc. Annual subscription #10. Single copies, 35 cents. Vntered as second class matter December 22, 1903, at the Post Office sat New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3* 1879. ? COPYRIGHT. 1954, BY VARIETY, INC., ALL RIGHTS RESERVED VOL 194 No. 13 NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 1954 PRICE 25 CENTS Uberace’s 'Biddies to Bobbysoxers 0D0 Garden Pay ‘By JOE COHEN • Libei'ace, whose dimples, cande- labra and vast popularity with fe- inales, and especially aging Ones, 'has already. Occasioned, a field day ♦for Broadway wisecrackers, did the •impossible last week — hei filled •Madison Square Garden, N. Y.; the -only pianist to . even attempt that -feat- since the late Ignace Pader- I ewski. From biddies to bobby-* cockers, from dames, to dowagers. Liberate elicited 15,000 .paid ad- missions at $6 topi for a gross hov- ering around $60,000. No male at- traction has devastated the oppos- ing sex in these .terms since Hu- . dolph Valentino, an ex-waiter from Jtaly with Soulful, shortsighted • eyes, appeared dressed up like k a •Bedouin sheik who had gone . to Oxford. • With perhaps 95% of the_ crowd in .skirts, it was amazing how many 'tricks and wiles the femmes of all (Continued on page 62) N.Y. Council Has Tax Alibi Ready: It s Not Them, It s Him (Dewey) Use.ofa postmark plugging the Broadway 'theatre has been sug- gested-for the N. Y. Post Office.’ It’s figured-that With billions of pieces of mail going through the local pOstoffice annually, much of it to Cither cities and towns throughout' this and other coun- tries, the gimmick would provide enormously valuable ballyhoo for one of New York’s major tourist attractions. Idea was suggested by Sol Jacobson, pressagent of the Broad- way jgrpductions of “Teahouse of the August Moon” and John Mur-' ray Anderson’s “Almanac.” He l Continued on. page 55) Housewives, Clerks, Secs Hitting Europe in 1954; 4,604 'Common Laborers’ Washington, June 1. Everybody’s ‘going- abroad—most of them for pleasure ’and personal business, according to the reports kept by UncleSalh’s passport divi- sion. In the first three months of-1954, no fewer than 117,400 Americans either renewed old passports or took out new ones. Nearly 52,000 ?f them reported they were, travel- ing for pleasure^ and-45,000 more went on personal'business. Most interesting^ is the break- down by occupations* No less than £1.552 of those ri&eivihg passports listed ^ themselves-*#*:- hoiraewiV&r, (Continued'On page 63) Lick Their Cheops Frontpaged discovery of Pharaoh Cheops’ funeral ves- sel in a hidden subterranean corridor besides his Great Pyramid last week had- the 20th-Fox «, p.r. crew doing . handsprings but modestly de- clining any credit for staging this archaeological, coup. Outfit didn’t neglect to point out, however, that it has “The Egyptian” coming up this fall and that the subject, matter is . somewhat closely related. Perle Mesta Spoofs D.C. Protocol as Showbiz . And Diplomacy Frolic By HERMAN LOWE Washington, June 1. Show biz reps rubbed shoulders with international society -and' the Fourth Estate at Perle'.“Call Me Madarft” Mesta’s party past Satur- day (29>. in honor of the distaff side- of capital press corps. Famed: “hostess with the mostest” mixed Hollywood, Broadway and Wash- ington in a dazzling return to the party circuit she., deserted to as- sume role of Minister to Luxem- bourg during - the Truman adminis- tration. Protocol was tossed over- . (Continued, on page 55) Washington, June 1. The U. S. Supreme Court has opened the way to ending segrega- tion in southern theatres, although it has not acted on any case specif- ically touching on this problem, in. the opinion of knowledgable lawyers here. The way was cleared, it is felt, when the High Court ruled, May 24, that a city-owned amphitheatre in Louisville, Ky., could not bar Negroes from an op- eratic performance. The opera was presented by a private group which leased the amphitheatre. “The Supreme Court,” said one interested source, “knocked out -segregation in theatres or similar structures owned by a municipality or a state. However, the ruling does not, as it stands, specifically affect a privately owned and op- erated theatre. • “But other possibilities are .opened. When the legal theory of this ruling is further developed, a 'Case could center on the fact that private* theatres must be licensed by cities or states and that the state must withhold a license from those which segregate or bar any ..race,” A check with -the, D. C. dffice of the National Association for the Advancement of Coldred People discloses that no theatre segrega- tion cases are pending ^anywhere in th£ country. So far as the office knows, none is contemplated. But a test case, affecting hotels, (Continued on page 63) No Bdneheads They * James Michener, whose fic- tion about the South Seas rivals Dorothy Lamour’s sa- rong as a producer of bank deposits, was a chief speaker the other day at an Authors Guild meeting in N. Y. devoted to Dr. Sam Johnson’s ■“old" dictum that “nobody but a bonehead ever wrote except for money.” Said author Michener: “There would be no literature if there were no old pros.and there would be ho old pros If there,were no beginner writ- ‘Soviet Troops Invade West!’ In Army Show From Heidelberg Radio Washington, June 1." An Orson Welles type scare In- troduction to an Armed Forces Day broadcast in West Germany May 15 is still having repercussions here. The one-hour broadcast by the Armed Services Network in West Germany was- called “Don’t You Believe It.” Just as it got un- der way,-there was a cut-in with an announcer saying, “We inter- (Continued on page 63) Patsy For Politicians The mayor of New York City, show business* hometown, drew back his political fingers from a number of proposed, and newfangled, munici- pal taxes when real. estate and professional interests, including advertising, hollered bloody homicide and, threatened reprisals. Will Bob Wagner now retreat from his latest scheme to get more revenue for the city by “hijack- ing” part of the tax relief which Congress, after long beseechment, recently granted to the amusement* industry? .It’s an open question. Meanwhile theatres and cafes, taking their cue from the mayor’s own respect for loud wailing, are doing just that. Wagner’s position seems to be mat the the- atres were able to live witji a 20% admission tax, which has. been cut to 10%, and he now proposes to grab back for the city half the relief granted by the Federal Government. Not sur- prisingly, showmen are blowing their tops at thi$ kind Of reasoning. They fear, too, and not implausibly, that as goes New York so may go many another big and not so big city. The . thing is not local or special only, but also dangerously contagious. . Following thd Monday holiday, entertain- ment interests were massing at City Hall, yesterday (Tues.) and the strongest possible will be laid op the line. Will Wagner re- main indifferent to the pleas and the data. which is expected to be the most comprehen- sive ever marshalled by the film industry? Regardless of the late of the 5% tax, .the moral is already clear enpugh. Even, in its own hometown, with a mayor who professedly. Is sympathetic, but acts otherwise, show busi- ness has not done an effective public relations *H>r political relations job. Neither Wagner nor the people generally seem to have heard of the thousands of theatres which have closed slijce 1946. If- It is contended that these have be(*n mostly smalltown ‘situations, one has but to « run up Broadway from Columbus Circle and check off the. film houses which have recently vanished, to wit; Park; Colonial, Lincoln, 77th, 81st, in a span of 20-odd blocks. When will show business stop being the patsy for politics? First 4 to be'taxed,* last to get'relief first to be panhandled by every officeholder for benefits, collections and. favors, -last, to be , appreciated, showmen are getting this newest lesson, In their own hometown, 1 of the need for aggressive defense Maybe it isn't irrelevant to remark that the thousands of free admis- sions bestowed upon the political brethren may have engendered contempt for the value of theatre tickets, and the difficulty of selling them. Maybe if more politicians paid to get in y they might be more aware of what admission tax means to showmen and why the city, cop- ping a soft touch after the theatres’ hard-wOn victory against the Federal#, ba& beaj&so emo- - tionally attacked by showmen. F Supported by a massive anti-tax demonstration of theatre em- ployees, reps of New York’s en- tertainment industry pleaded with the City Council’s financial com- mittee yesterday (Tues.) to drop the proposed 5% admissions tax already approved by the Board of Estimate. Film i v.’iibs, by* far the largest '"group to be affected by the- levy, turned out In force at the hear- ing which lasted throughout the (lay as the committee had prom- ised “fair and thorough” consid- eration of the Issue. Many impas- sioned words were spoken by the theatremen, the main point being that the 5% Impost not only would be ruinous to many theatres but, i instead of bringing the city an ex- pected. $9,000,000, would actually yield, only $1,500,000. Even as the theatre industry presented its case, it became ob- vious that there might be some buck-passing on the part of the Councilmen. Repeatedly they made (Continued on page 20) ABC Ibowing In N.Y. Par Theatre For Firestone Biz ABC’s trump card in its bid for Firestone’s; simulcast business, is the Paramount Theatre in N. Y. The American Broadcasting-Para- mount Theatre outfit has offered Firestone use of the UPT flagship house for Its programs on Monday y nights on a free-admission basis, and the web has reportedly cleared the project with dll the unions in- volved. Wherever Firestone goes, it seems definite that it will air on Monday nights, since it’s booked all Us talent for next season for (Continued on page 34) — — ■ ■ ... « Borge Setting Unique B’way Mark; Into Eighth Month With Oror 500G Victor Borge, reaching his eighth month today (Wed.) at the Golden, N.Y., with his “Comedy In Music” presentation, has set a'record that’s unique for a strictly one-man show on Broadway, and one that isn’t likely to be equalled. With the end of the run nowhere In sight yet, the pianist-comic has already drawn around $650,000 (in- cluding tax) across the b.o. window sittefc he opened last Oct. 2. By ac- tual figure, as of May 15, Borge had garnered $510,857.55 net (tax ex- cluded) at a $4.80 top. This ha# been done without a single theatre .pdrty^.With no advance before (Continued on page 54)