Variety (July 1955)

Wednesday, July 13, 1955 LITERATI 61 • <Vi- Bride-To-Be Bowing , v Bride-to-Be magazine, new Cur- tie publication due on the news- stands July 19, will be issued as a quarterly in 15 regional editions. All editions will carry the same editorial content, but with local concerning . the “expose” mags. Time leads off its report under the label, “Success in the Sewer,” while Newsweek tagged itsr yarn, “The Curious Craze for Confi- dential’ Magazines.” The usually staid Wall Street ». and nationalized sectional advertis- Joyrnal placed Its piece, by staff ing keyed to local areas, Mag is published by Bride-to-Be Magazine Inc., a subsidiary of the Curtis Publishing CO., with offices in New York. It has its own ad- vertising organization. Separate from Curtis, but will be distributed by the .parent company’s circula- tion subsidiary, Curtis Circulation Co. Same page size as Curtis' Holi- day, the new magazine will be sold reporter J. Howard Rutledge, un- der the heading, “Sin &^, s f x r^. os ; slpy Private * Peeks at Celebrities Lives Start Magazine Bonanza—- Confidential’s Racy Exposes Crack Newsstand Records; Lowdon-Whis- pers ’ Secret—Rise of a Pin-Up Publisher.” The pin-up reference related to Harrison’s previous cov- erage of the “girlie magazine’ field, .The Journal yam, played up the at newlstands'at $Ta copy." It’s de- financial of. signed to serve as a wedding plans no S?S nnnlm'feme^e- book, home planning guide, and netting up to $150,000 an issuejae for making young marriages suc- cessful. Publisher as well as vice-presi- dent and advertising director is Walter N. May. Co-publishers are Mrs. Marjorie Binford Wobds, forr merly editor-in-chief of , Modern Bride, who is vice-president and fore taxes. According to the Jour- nal, he gets 14V&C out of the 25c price of the mag, winding up with around 4 Ac after all expenses ex- cept taxes. Time, however, gave the Harrison publication rougher treatment exposing the manner in which . Confidential turns out its “inside” reports. The Newsweek is editor, and Mrs. Alice Thompson, art i c l e also* detailed, techniques! Roberta Macdonald and with music former editor and publisher of d v, v m0 st of the “expose”' ’ vice-president “X J * ' Seventeen, who is and general manager. Following the northeast editions appearing July 19, others will go on sale July 26 in middle west, North Central and southern states, and on Aug. 2 in western states. ' Disney, McClintics,- Et. al. Paul Hollister, vet adman, calls his Walt Disney biog “Man or Mouse.” Little, Brown (an Atlantic Monthly Press book) is publishing in October. A biog of another sort is the AMP’s editor, Edward Weeks, called “The Open Heart.” detailing how he travels some 3ff,- 000 miles annually in his peripeta- tic quest of new authors—and Weeks, who has been with Atlantic mags. Confidential is currently In the process of applying for member- ship in the Audit Bureau of Cir- culations. Incidentally, Howard Rushmore, Confidential s editor, was missing for several days since going to Chicago last week on a story d or the mag. A police search was . underway until he turned up in Butte, Mont. Show Biz Bestsellers • N.Y. Sunday Times’ list of best- sellers has Richard Aldrich s Ger- trude Lawrence As Mrs. A No. 8 on the list (and a bestseller for 2 ff weeks); Marguerite Courtney’s biog of her mother “Laurette” (Taylor), Winslow’s “Be Slim-Stay Slim and another reminiscense by Emily Kimbrough, titled “So Neat And Yet So Far.” 1 \ . r | ~ - —. Will Hay*, 'Big Joe* Et Al. “The Memoirs-of Will H. Hays,” just completed before the death of the first “movie czar” in 4.954, will be published by Dpubleday iri September. An autobiog of another sort, “The Happiest Man In The Wotfld,” by Joe Rosenfield Jr., the post - midnight do-gooder ever WMGM, N. Y„ tells of his recovery from alcoholism and his current work with “Happiness Exchange,” which brings encouragement to many in the metropolitan N. Y. I area. Doubleday’s newspapermen books include Life staffer Stanley Ray- field’s “How ‘Life’ Gets The Story”; N 1 . Y. Herald Trib’s Marguerite Higgins’ “Red Plush and Black Bread,” closeup on Russian and other behind-the-Iron Curtain ob- servations; “Cartoon Treasury” (from 107 worldwide publications, including Russia), edited by Lucy Black Johnson and Pyke Johnson Jr., latter also p.r. man for Double- day; "and Esquire travel editor “Richard. Joseph's Guide to Europe and the Mediterranean.” Robert Magidoff has ^written a “Yehudi Menuhin” blog; “The Abe Burrows Songbook,” illustrated by SCULLY'S ^ Frank Scully weeks, wno has been witn Atlantic ^ “ 3 <8 wee ks’on the lists); EtheL tSUJZ SSL J£ ars ’ h - S spanned Barrymore’s “Memories” . No. 14 plenty of terrain. Mn on ). Also via Atlantic Monthly Press, wee 5 ' likewise due in October, is Guthrie McClintic’s “Me and Kit” (for Katharine Cornell), ‘ a sort of sequel to Richard Aldrich’s “Ger- trude. Lawrence as Mrs. A.” H. Allen Smith, longtime Double-' day author, tees off under Little, Brown imprint in September with “The Age of the Tail,” illustrations by Lee Hershfield. Elsa Maxwell’s “Party Book” is also a lighter tonie due via LB next January. Mary Pickford’s ‘Sunshine and Shadow” No, 16 (second Week on the bestsellers). Cornelia Otis Skinner’s “Bottoms Up!”, while no biog, is still a 'per- sonal memoir; it’s now No. 15 best- seller and 13 weeks on the lists. 'Friendships* and Will Roger* Another Show biz memoir is Schuyler LiVingston Parsons’-“Un- told Friendships,” and he tells of Beatrice Lillie, Gertrude Lawrence, Charles Chaplin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Diana Manners, Helen* . Hayes and Ethel Barrymore from a socialite’s viewpoint. Houghton Mifflin will publish in September. Also for HM publication thiif fall Is “Sanity Is Where You Find It,” from the writings of the late cow- boy-humorist Will Rogers, edited by ‘ Donald Day (who dittoed on “The Autobiography of Will Rog- ers,” which sold over 80,000 copies) and Will Rogers Jr. an “Oklahoma edition” at $3?50 costs 50c more than the regular trade ^edition. Lester Lewis' 4 Deals ! Literary dept, of Lester Lewis Associates, through staffer Carolyn Willyoung Stagg, concluded deals for four new books. They are Wal- . ter Terry’s “Dance in America,” to Harper’s; Carl T. Rowan’s “The Pitiful and the Proud,” to Random House; Marjorie Sherman Green's juve, “Cowboy of the Ramapos,” to Abelard-Schuman, and Victor von Hagen’s untitled tome on ancient culture and people of the Inca civilization, to Mentor Books: Firm sold publication rights in Denmark and England to a Mollie Gillen story. Collis Heads Guild. Joseph F. Collis, assistant man- aging editor of the Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Record, was reelected presi- dent of the American Newspaper Guild for a second two-year term at the final session Friday (1) of the organization’s 22 nd annual convention, in the De Witt Clinton Hotel, Albany. The convention, attended by 250 delegates', ref- erred to a committee for further study a proposal that the presi- dency, now a part-time post, be made a full-salaried job. - Two paid positions, executive vice-president at $10,400 annually, and secretary-treasurer at $9,620, were contested, and will be decided by' the general membership in a mail ballot. Ralph. H. Novak, of Detroit, executive vice-president, was opposed by Wjlliam J. Farson, of Philadelphia, now secretary- treasurer. Justin F. McCarthy, of Chicago, competed against Charles A. Perlik, of Buffalo, now an ANG international representative, for secretary-treasurer. settings by Alexander Steiner; “The Molly-* Goldberg Cookbook,’ by Gertrude Berg & Myra Waldo; and the “New Milton Cross’ Com- plete Stories of the Great Operas,” revised and enlarged, are alsp on the Doubleday agenda for this fall. ‘Phenix City’ Troubles Rumors that the book “Phenix City”, is under an injunction con- tinue to harass the .booksellers in the state, co-author Edwin Strick- land, told Variety. He said a Tusca- loosa bookseller told him a lawyer approached her and said she shouldn’t sell the book because it was under injunction and the pub lisher being sued. Strickland said if he could pin down the group spreading the rumors, he would personally file suit. Both Strick- land and co-author Gene Wortsman will be honored by Allied Artists who will fly them to the July 17 premiere of the film, “Phenix City Story”, in Chicago. Publisher John Bodette and'his reps have been in contact with Producer Sam Bisch- off, who is now in Columbus mak- ing arrangements for the July 19 premieres at the Georgian Theatre, Columbus, Ga„ and the Phenix City Drive-In and Palace.Theatre,. Phenix 1 City. Publisher and film reps will cooperate on promotion tie-ins. Publisher Bodette said “Phenix City” book has uotsold any other book in Columbus. Meanwhile, WVOK, the 50,000 watt daytime indie here, refused $800 worth of radio spots to the publisher in.promoting the book with the statement, “The Phenix City story should die.” Truman’s Memoirs Harry S. Truman, after two yeSrs, has finished his.memoirs and the 500,000-word text will be S rinted serially next fall by the ew York Times, Life and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Doubleday will publish the book form, first volume, “Year of Decisions” set for Oct. 20.' The following February Volume II, “Years of Trial and Hope," appears. 'Confidential* P.A. Jackpot Confidential mag made the big- time last week. The bimonthly hit a triple parlay, grabbing extensive space ,in two national mags, Time and Newsweek, and frontpage cov- erage in the July 5 issue of the Wall Street Journal. Cueing the Confidential, report was its record newsstand sale on its July issue, which hit a history* making high for any single mag sale of around 3,700,000 copies. The current issue is expected to better that figure. The initial is- sue of the Robert Harrison publi- cation in December, 1952, sold around 150,000 copies. Along with the hike in Confidential sales . there’s been an increase in the publication of similar type maga- zines, with a collective per-issue sale of about 10 , 000 , 000 . The heads on the Time and Newsweek stories were indicative of the general feeling in the trade Las Vegas... To anybody, possessed of historical perspective, the growth of Las Vegas as an amusement center has been literally phenomenal. I have caught its growtfi at suitably spaced intervals over a peHod of 18 years. I knew* it when south and west of Fremont St. jackrabbits wouldn’t be-caught dead. That’s where the famous, Strip is now. And right -now that Strip could be proclaimed the entertainment capital of the entire world* Yeah, including Istanbul. No, seriously,- we ought to begin to give this collection of glittering fleabags arid crap tables some official recognition for, what it has done for show biz. Just because it all began with the Purple Gang of De^ troit and other fugitives even closer to the ultraviolent end Of the spectrum, does not mean it is never to be received into society. Many of those old hoods who were waiting for the* sheriff to die back hgme have long since died themselves. There’s an old American ethic that wealth however acquired, If held on to long enough, tends to he sanctified. The old mobs from the “heart” of America, the Bugsy Siegel bunch from Brooklyn; and possibly others who still think a hot rod is a gun the cops are looking for, have all but passed out of the Vegas picture. Of course, now and then you see a name creeping out of the wood- work that doesn’t quite belong in the Social Register, but in the main the sovereign state of Nevada has cleaned up its own Augean stable. It’s hard to violate a law; they have so few. Despite this, the entertain- ; ment is as high class, and as clean 3 too, as you will find anywhere in the world. Yes, including Istanbul. Intakes two weeks’on a grind policy to catch all the shows at Vegas. Fortunately the big ones stay in for a month, so there is time to catch them all. Anyone who does this and does not admit that riever in the history of show biz did so much talent" display its wares in one area of the world is still voting for McKinley. Where Vaude Went When It Died' In three nights I caught Noel Coward, Sammy Davis Jr., arid his Uncle and Dad, Peter Lind Hayes and his wife Mary Healy, Gordon McCrea (his offstage wife is cute too), .the Alberghetti Family, Myron Cohen and Joe Louis, the official handshaker of the Moulin Rouge. Joe was playing the 10c slot machine at the time, but you could hardly call that an act even for a former heavyweight champion of the world. I couldn’t catch Joe E. Howard and Pat Rooney Sr. at the Showboat because that Was the night of the flood and I foolishly? had. left my gondola back in Venice (Calif.). • The mileage involved to see all these shows was very little and if I had stayed home at the Desert Inn the night Noel Coward was felled by a virus and McCrea did one show for him and Healy & Hayes did his second show, I could have caught all these incomparable acts under one roof. That was the night of the flood, top. ' I first ran into Coward poolside at the Desert Inn. I had not talked to him since he opened in “Private Lives” in London in 1930. Time had treated him most kindly, and Wilbur Clark of the Desert Inn didn’t exactly clip him, Not at $40,000 a week. Though he still sings of. mad dogs and Englishmen who go out in. the midday sun, that’s where I first caught him. All I got wa$ a bad sunburn,’ but the Englishman got’ what mad dogs get, a raging, fever. - Variety at Fifty Paces Variety appraised Coward’s act in unrestrained terms. He deserved them too. Not since Eddie Foy, has a performer used his hands so effectively to do his work for him as Coward uses his. I belive George M. Cohan directed better with his feet" than Coward does, but that issue was fought out when Coward staged, “Bitter- Sweet” in London in 1929 and perhaps it’s time the dead buried the dead. Coward at least is still alive and he obviously" is not afraid of competition. Playing apposition to Coward at the time I speak ^of was Sammy Davis Jr.; right across the street in fact. You could not’ get two acts further apart in their audience appeal and yet both of them were hysterical successes at Vegas. Davis went on for 90 minutes the flight I caught the act at the New Frontier. In the end he begged off, told the audience to see some of the other acts, mentioning specifically Noel Coward across the way and the Moulin Rouge show at the other end of town. He’s a gracious kid. Cowdrd of course was intime, precise, naughty without being vulgar, and very British In a liberated way. He lifted an eyebrow, tossed off a restrained innuendo and danced, i£ at all, in the space of a silver dol- lar. He knew when to leave. He knew all about the law of diminishing return. So he called 40 minutes a show. He opened as cold as an Alaskan dawn and closed hotter than Vegas is outdoors right riow. Davis it just the opposite. He’s the Bronx in blackface. He has seem- ingly endless talent and, more important, energy. He’s a great hoofer and when he belts out a song he just about dies for dear old Gros- singer’s. Coward has no volume, can’t sing for nuts, but. knows that a public address system was invented for people just like him. (Everything but dishes and slot machines use a p.a. system in Vegas). Davis could be heard in the fourth balcony of the Met without a mike, so you can. imagine what he sounds like in Vegas with one. At the . Royal Nevada, a few doors down from the New Frontier, Anna Maria Alberghetti not only talked about her family, she brought them all out to perform, and in all my days I do not reme*ber a family Pfeifer’s Hegira Literary* agent Max Pfeffer Is starting 10-country European tour on July 13. He is considering organization of a Continental Book Information 'Service. It’s an ex- tension of his American Book In- formation Service and British Book Info Service. . Pfeffer, who’ll be in Paris until Aug. 5, will huddle with publishers there as well in England, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Israel. Countess Cassini’s Memoirs . Harpers will publish in October the memoirs of Oleg and Igor Cassini’s mother, Countess Mar- guerite Cassini, titled “Never A Dull Moment”; also New York’s Park Commissioner Robert Moses’ book, “Working For The People” (foreword by Herbert Bayard Swope); John Gunther’s “Inside Africa” (September Book-of-the- Month selection); Thyra Samter CHATTER Winifred Bannister’s “James Bridie and his Theatre” will be published in England by Rockliff this fall. Fritz Blocki has completed “Out of the Darkness,” the life story of William Shepperd, for Ml Fell publication. Scripter Saul Goodman, .back in N. Y. from, two months of ballet viewing in London, Paris and Copenhagen. Norman W. Smith, formerly with Field & Stream’s sales staff, named ad director of Popular Gardening, act that could touch this one for diversity of talent. The Royal Nevada Both mags are Holt publications, was flooded with cheers and tears. Papa’s direction of a 50-piece Sym- phony orchestra, followed by his nine-year-old moppet’s conducting of the “William Tell Overture” swept longhairs and crewcuts alike off their feet. And when the kid (his name is Paul) did a special orchestra- tion of Davy Crockett, coonskin hat, guns and all, it brought down- the house. Carla, 15,"a student at Marymdunt, sang two numbers with tones so pure it was difficult to tell her from the family genius. But my pet was Mania Alberghetti, who was Anna’s accompanist. She did a piano version of the Sextet from “Lucia” and followed with a . boogie-woogie number that proved eugenics is by no means a dead issue in the lives of a talented family. High As An Elephant’s Eye Another night I caught Healy & Hayes (I put it that way because I’m oldfashioped and favor women and children first) and after them Gordon McCrea. Now here are two acts so different from all the rest and so entertaining that George Jean Nathan, even before he married, would have enjoyed them. Of course Peter and Mary are old hands around Vegas, as is Mama (Grace) Hayes across the way from the Sands in her own club, but McCrea w^s new. He had just come from starring in the as-yet unreleased “Oklahoma” arid probably did not get the money this year he will be able to command next. But he’s # great singer, has a charming act and’is as sweet as the com he sings about. Who started all this? The late Benjamin Siegel? Quite possibly, for he had a dominating piece of the Flamingo in the days when they didn’t know an animal act from adagio dancers. As one who panned those early operations, I can now show amazement at the beautiful orchids that have grown from such compost. Life magazine may believe that the area has overextended its creoit and that its long winning streak is about to break, but those who know much more about these things than the staffers of Life tell me the Wall Street view Is that even without gambling Vegas is in for a long run. The bond houses believe Vegas can be a northern Palm Springs or Tucson as a health resort, if the rest of the country does to Nevada's gambling what it did to Utah’s polygamy. But in the foreseeable future, gambling and entertainment are here to stay. There’s still barrels of money Jn both. Harold Rosenthal, N. Y. Herald Trib .baseball scribe, authored a piece tagged “Sports’ Stainless Steel Age” for Packard Sports Library fall issue. Hazel Guild, Variety’s Frank- furt correspondent, to pen an en- tertainment pillar for . Overseas Weekly, newspaper circulating throughout Europe. Victor Rosen’s adaption of the 1936 volume, of Prince Leopold Loewenstein and William Gerhar- di, “Analyze. Yourself,” has been in hardboards (Hawthorne) since May and will now he given a Ban- tam reprinting in Sept. (It was a 1942 Penguin). Singer-comedienne Anna Russell has written a book, titled “The Power of Being A Positive Stink- er,” which will be released in mid- October, published by Citadel Press. A feature of the book will be a special Anna Russell Colum- bia LP recording inserted, in the book cover. George Frazier’s article in the August Esquire, “Blue Notes And Blue Stockings,” tells the story of George Wein, producer of the New- port Jazz Festival. Wein’s second venture, this seasori, runs July 15- 16-17. Wein also owns two night clubs in .Boston (Story ville and Mahogany Hall), a recording com- pany (Storyville), and he records under a different label (Atlantic).